Thursday, February 26, 2009

Eric Holder's Law Firm Sued For Discrimination

Do you remeber when AG Eric Holder gave his speech and called America a "Nation of Cowards" on the issue of race? Do you remember that his firm is representing detainees at Gitmo? There is a saying. Don't spit into the air. You never know when the wind will change direction.

According to The American Lawyer Yolanda Young, a former staff attorney at Covington & Burling who wrote a controversial column for the Huffington Post almost a year ago on racial segregation at large law firms, filed a discrimination suit on Tuesday in Superior Court for the District of Columbia against her former firm.

Yolanda wrote an article about Eric Holder titled "What Eric Holder's Tenure at Covington & Burling Says About Blacks and BigLaw". She writes This week, Attorney General nominee, Eric Holder Jr., will probably be confirmed by the Senate. It is a historic moment and one that Holder has seemingly been working towards for much of his career. He has served as a US Attorney for the District of Columbia and a Deputy Attorney General--the first African American, incidentally, in either position. Simply stated, I am proud of him. My admiration, although sincere, is not without its complexity.

About her lawsuit she writes "Whether Covington's treatment of staff attorneys as a minority class is illegal will soon be taken up by the courts. It is an issue that appears ripe for review by the next US Attorney General. How ironic."

Covington and Burling representative deny the charges according to the article.

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