( 5 reviews )
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( 1 of 1 found this review helpful ) Posted: Jul 26 2006
I think Paul Barrett does a brilliant job telling the story, particularly in the way he presents every single issue and weakness, not just Mungin's issues or the firm's weaknesses. He does not clearly take Mungin's side throughout the whole book, even in the conclusion. Some might disagree, but the conclusion appears to me as Barrett giving his analysis of Mungin's situation with the firm from the perspective of one with a law degree. To be honest with you, I think Barrett should have represented Mungin--Barrett has a right-on understanding of the case and the situation and makes several points that Mungin's lawyer should have made. As a law student, I had been reading the chapters detailing the courtroom experience, wondering why Mungin's lawyer Hairston was not bottom-lining the situation by saying that Mungin was enthusiastically hired to be a token, not to do work of substance for Katten Muchin. In the end, Barrett hit that point on the head--Mungin was simply a token to Katten Muchin. They brought him in, paid him to do next to nothing and then didn't want to let him go even though there was next to no work for him to do, while they let other whites go...because they knew they would be losing a token and losing in the minority retention game. Mungin's lawyer acted like she couldn't figure any of this out, among other questions she should have been able to answer during the trials, or answered but could have answered better. She had to know that she was going to be questioned about why Katten Muchin would hire Mungin because of race and then discriminate against him. She is part of the reason why he lost one of the two trials surrounding this case, the other parts being there was no in-your-face racism and the judges being conservatives hell-bent against finding racism in the situation. In the other trial, which Mungin did win, it was not at all because his lawyer was so good...it had more to do with the defense lawyer being awful and the jury being black, except for one person. I'll leave those who haven't read the book yet to read it and find out which trial he won and which one he lost. The problem with proving racism in this situation is not so much that the racism is so subtle as it is that the situation was so complex. It was a huge mess. And Katten Muchin was not the only one making mistakes that added to the complexity, their biggest being letting Dombroff have his way all the time, particularly with starting a bankruptcy department when there is little bankruptcy work in DC...Mungin made TONS of mistakes and, in my opinion, added to his own pain and suffering. He didn't even have to take a job with Katten Muchin, for starters, and there were tons of warning signals that he SHOULDN'T take a job with Katten Muchin. He dismissed every signal, as noted by Barrett. Mungin is someone, as shown throughout the entire book in several different instances, who is too headstrong for his own good and who has awful judgment, from picking law firms to work for right down to picking law firms to take his case. Mungin is described several times by several people, including the author, as arrogant, and that arrogance was a huge part of his downfall. Even Mungin himself knew he was an arrogant son-of-a-gun heading for a fall--he wrote his own autobiography for his eyes only long before the lawsuit saying so. Katten Muchin in DC was a firm with no blacks--he knew this. Katten Muchin in general had issues with retention of minorities, a racial discrimination lawsuit going on in Chicago, a history of sexual harassment complaints. Had he done some research, he would have learned some of these things. It was a firm that was not on his--or many other people's--radar when it was suggested to him. He had other firms wanting to hire him at the time and bring him in as partner, whereas Katten Muchin merely made a vague promise to consider him for partner after one year. Others more in the know about Katten Muchin knew they were having issues, including possible finance or management problems and problems with a jerk DC partner, Dombroff. But Mungin just does not listen. I believe that no one intentionally discriminated against Mungin, and that's one of the reasons the four lawyers in Katten Muchin he originally singled out in his lawsuit were dismissed. I want to mention here that I am black. I read the situation as unconscious or subsconscious discrimination, which is quite possibly the reason why the lawyers at Katten Muchin originally singled out firmly believed they had done nothing wrong and why the white conservative judges in one of Mungin's lawsuits could not see any wrongdoing that was racially related. The kind of discrimination Mungin experienced is the kind of discrimination blacks experience all the time in various situations and in law firms across the country, not just Katten Muchin. More or less, Mungin was overlooked at the law firm, or, as it was put several times, he "fell through the cracks." Well, white people routinely overlook black people, without even thinking about it or meaning to (I go through this on a daily basis, particularly when I am in school). The majority of whites (and even other non-blacks) in the US just LOOK...RIGHT...THROUGH...BLACKS. And they can't see that they do this or that another white person has done it because it is such a way of life to white people, so ingrained, that they don't realize they do this. That's what Mungin experienced, and his experience was a similar kind of unconscious or subconscious racism as how every day blacks attend schools with whites and yet relatively few whites will speak to them, become friends with them, date them, choose to work with them on assignments or projects, join them at the lunch table, etc...and think nothing of it or see nothing wrong with their actions, or lack of actions. Similarly, Mungin was never invited to meetings. Seemingly, not many people within Katten Muchin knew why he worked there or what he did there. The ones who did, did not seem very interested in helping him out and ultimately decided not to--or "forgot" to--consider him for partner or evaluate his work. Their explanation for not living up to promises to help Mungin was that Mungin was supposed to help himself by bringing in work himself. Hairston never argued this, which she should have, but that was not the point--the point was they PROMISED to and just did not do it. Sure, he should have been out there hustling for work, but these people said they would steer work his way. Instead, they gave DC work to whites in Chicago to do when black Mungin in DC could have done it--AFTER being promised he would get work such as that given to whites all the way in Chicago. Like I said before, they simply did not want Mungin to work, probably did not trust Mungin to work, on complex assignments...though they never said as much because Mungin had never actually screwed up any assignments he'd done, so they wouldn't have a legitimate reason to say it. They couldn't say, "Oh, he's merely our token, so we can claim he's a partner in our DC bankruptcy office when he really isn't and never will be...we just want to look like we have blacks and black partners." The way law firms work is if a partner likes you enough, they will help you in any way they can--they will give you more work than other associates at the firm. Nobody liked Mungin enough to keep promises made to him. They gave assignments to white males in Chicago because they liked the white males in Chicago. Now, he could very well have been overlooked, not because of race, but because he was in a practice that was absolutely nothing to Katten Muchin. Or, as the firm argued, it might have been because they simply mistreated everyone (though not anyone quite the same way as Mungin), particularly in the DC office where Dombroff harmed many a career, including Mungin's at least to a certain degree if not entirely. Law firms across the board mistreat associates in one way or the other. There's no telling--read and decide for yourself. I would say it's hard to come away from this book feeling sorry for Mungin because of the brilliant way Barrett lays everything out on the line. Aside from being arrogant and hardheaded, Mungin very much bordered on being the kind of black who just didn't want to be black. He didn't want to be associated with other blacks, not even blacks coming into the law firm. He always seemed ashamed of his background, with the exception of his stint in the Navy and degrees from Harvard. I don't think he dated black females, and it seems as if most of his friends throughout his life were white. He seemed to be of the mindset that if he set himself away from blacks and did things that, in his mind, were respected by whites, whites would accept him and he would have a great career making a lot of money. He was very self-centered and money-hungry and had a lot of characteristics typical of a white male, particularly a white male professional. The book is called "The Good Black" for that reason--he was always desperate to prove to whites that he was a "good black," but I think he did not only look down on dangerous or more negatively stereotypical blacks...as hinted at by the fact that he wanted little or nothing to do with blacks coming in behind him, even as a mentor. He ignored race at all costs, which built up rage inside of him, and this continued at Katten Muchin. He screwed up by letting the white people run over him there, simply because he did not want to be thought of as a "problem black" or confirm that he fits white stereotypes of blacks...for all the good that did. Eventually, his letting the whites run over him hurt him in several ways, from the trial (i.e. why didn't you tell anyone about XY treatment) to his sense of identity. I think the situation with Katten Muchin was exactly what Mungin needed as a wake-up call and to discover who he really is--these kinds of things always happen to the most naive black people, because they are the ones who need these things to happen. In that sense, I would say the book, while not providing any sort of answer for how we can make race relations better in this country (or, for that matter, make law firms better), does have a happy ending. In the end, he told Barrett something to the effect of, "Don't be surprised if you visit me and I have a wife and kids." He came to know what was really important--not partnership in a law firm, acceptance by whites, looking out for #1 and money...but family and support, self-assurance and true happiness.
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( 1 of 3 found this review helpful ) Posted: Feb 16 2003
As one interested in the law, I really enjoyed this book. But I also found it hard to empathize with the author. I agree that a lot of discrimination within the workplace still exists in the United States, but much of this book came across to me as "whining" why the other guy (who happens to be white) makes 115,000 a year, while he (the black author) "only" makes 95,000 a year. Discrimination? Perhaps, but he is still better off (regardless of if he'll ever make partner at some firm or not) than the vast majority of Americans, or people across the world for that matter. "The Good Black" is just another chapter in America's continuing struggle with race.
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( 1 of 1 found this review helpful ) Posted: Feb 27 2002
After graduating from Harvard College, Mungin was determined to gain admission to Harvard Law School and to achieve status and wealth by gaining partnership in a big city law firm. Unfortunately, he never made it. Barrett, his Harvard Law School roommate, tells Mungin's story with remarkable insight and sympathy. In truth, Mungin was a less than distinguished law student, a less than enthusiastic lawyer, and a less than happily adjusted person. Yet given his abilities and credentials, it is hard to believe that Mungin would not have made partner at one of the four firms he tried, had he not been black. That is what an entirely black jury in the District of Columbia concluded in awarding him 2.5 million dollars. And yet the racism at Mungin's last firm was subtle and unintended. Mungin should have further persisted if the brass ring was all that counted. Are we as a society to award compensation to everyone who fails to reach their highest ambition when--as JFK found it so easy to say--"life is not fair?" The court of appeals decided otherwise. To my mind, Barrett has, perhaps unintentionally, very powerfully illustrated why.
