“Acting to Better Diversify the Legal Profession,” an op-ed written by Douglas Burrell and Navan Ward, was recently published to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Burrell is a Partner at Drew Eckl & Farnham and was recently sworn in as the 2021 – 2022 president of the DRI. Ward is a Principal at Beasley Allen and is the current president of the American Association for Justice.
“The pipeline of minority attorneys is leaking badly. Law schools are still churning out minority graduates, but our numbers go down the further up in the profession we go.”
BURRELL & WARD, 2021.
Though the nation’s 4 leading legal organizations are being led by Black lawyers, Burrell and Ward highlight the alarming rates of attrition among minority attorneys throughout the industry. Citing the American Bar Association’s Model Diversity Survey Report, they share how “the industry has a diversity “bottleneck,” which has continued to result in law firm leadership being mostly white and male, and suffers from high rates of minority attrition. In fact, the survey report found the attrition rate for minority racial groups was two to three times higher than that of white lawyers.”
Read the article in its entirety to learn more about how Burrell and Ward believe the industry and its individuals can combat factors that contribute to minority attrition rates.
Douglas Burrell believes that his primary focus is to be a strategic partner with his clients. Douglas has been a practicing trial lawyer for over 26 years. His practice consists of civil defense litigation with an emphasis on wrongful death and catastrophic injury, construction law, premises liability, transportation and trucking law and product liability. Currently, Douglas serves as the President of DRI, a leading national organization of civil defense attorneys and in-house legal counsel.
Navan Ward is a principal at Beasley Allen Law Firm. He is the firm’s lead attorney on the metal-on-metal hip implant litigation, proton pump inhibitor (PPI) litigation, and practices from the Atlanta office. Currently, Navan serves as the 75th President of the American Association for Justice.