I would be interested in knowing if the 5-10% donating to Republicans were associates or equity partners (who might serve to most financially benefit from Republican tax policy)
To be honest, I didn't put a huge amount of thought into it. What verb(s) would you suggest as alternatives? Some possibilities that come to mind include "skews" or "tilts."
Did Muller do any analysis about what % of employees actually donate to campaigns (and donate in ways that are public)? If 5% of employees donate in ways that are reported to the FEC, I’m not sure that is so useful as a proxy. (Since David liked but did not respond, I’m taking that as a “no.” It seems like a stretch to call this a “study” if that is the case.)
I think it is most likely that young associates would not be donating to campaigns, for monetary reasons, and young associates are going to trend far more left than the median biglaw attorney.
As such, my sense would be the numbers here might overstate the republican supporting contingent of biglaw attorneys. This would be consistent with my tenure at a V10 firm
I wonder whether lawyers are more aware than others that there are non-public ways to contribute to political causes, and attorneys with less popular views might be more likely to choose to donate in a private way
To me, "leans", "skews" and "tilts" all infer slight-to-moderate imbalances. Something that you might say about something like Oberlin "leans" female with a 60-40 split
Again, to me, you start to hit words like "predominantly" when you reach the 75-25 range. And then "overwhelmingly" when you reach 90-10.
Unless I'm misunderstanding, you seem to be attached to words that understate the partisan case in biglaw. At least to me, and I think to a broader audience.
It's funny—I get a lot of criticism from the left for "peddling the 'Biglaw is liberal'" narrative (based on some of my past writings, including the posts linked below). But I'm just sharing data.
This post was originally my Bloomberg Law column, and BLaw has a number of headline conventions. One of them is that every headline needs to have a verb—so headlines like "The Liberal Domination of Biglaw" are off limits—and they prefer verbs that aren't "is." So there weren't too many options!
That criticism you have received is silly and should be dismissed out of hand. Especially because this space is already so partisan. Anyone who has worked in biglaw post 2016, who is being honest, understands the intense partisan bent. That Fox News commenters might say a Fox News piece is too generous to the left doesn't mean that those commenters have valid points.
You have data in hand that indicates 5-10% of biglaw political donations go to republicans. You don't need to be overly generous to people who would state that that doesn't mean exactly what it says.
For the headline, you already had a verb in "Moving", so I'm not sure I fully understand the issue. And I gave you adverbs that would modify a word like "skews" to indicate more than a modest vertical incline (I think "predominantly" wouldn't work with "tilt" but would work with "skews", but that's a personal view I suppose).
I don't know that there's a better way to do it, but it seems to me that this defined survey group is likely to skew heavily toward lawyers who live in very blue states. I don't think it says anything very meaningful about the legal profession generally, the VAST VAST VAST majority of which aren't covered by this survey group, even including many who are in quite large law firms.
"Leans" is a very conspicuous word choice lol.
I would be interested in knowing if the 5-10% donating to Republicans were associates or equity partners (who might serve to most financially benefit from Republican tax policy)
To be honest, I didn't put a huge amount of thought into it. What verb(s) would you suggest as alternatives? Some possibilities that come to mind include "skews" or "tilts."
Did Muller do any analysis about what % of employees actually donate to campaigns (and donate in ways that are public)? If 5% of employees donate in ways that are reported to the FEC, I’m not sure that is so useful as a proxy. (Since David liked but did not respond, I’m taking that as a “no.” It seems like a stretch to call this a “study” if that is the case.)
I think it is most likely that young associates would not be donating to campaigns, for monetary reasons, and young associates are going to trend far more left than the median biglaw attorney.
As such, my sense would be the numbers here might overstate the republican supporting contingent of biglaw attorneys. This would be consistent with my tenure at a V10 firm
I wonder whether lawyers are more aware than others that there are non-public ways to contribute to political causes, and attorneys with less popular views might be more likely to choose to donate in a private way
To me, "leans", "skews" and "tilts" all infer slight-to-moderate imbalances. Something that you might say about something like Oberlin "leans" female with a 60-40 split
https://www.oberlin.edu/admissions-and-aid/class-profile
Again, to me, you start to hit words like "predominantly" when you reach the 75-25 range. And then "overwhelmingly" when you reach 90-10.
Unless I'm misunderstanding, you seem to be attached to words that understate the partisan case in biglaw. At least to me, and I think to a broader audience.
It's funny—I get a lot of criticism from the left for "peddling the 'Biglaw is liberal'" narrative (based on some of my past writings, including the posts linked below). But I'm just sharing data.
This post was originally my Bloomberg Law column, and BLaw has a number of headline conventions. One of them is that every headline needs to have a verb—so headlines like "The Liberal Domination of Biglaw" are off limits—and they prefer verbs that aren't "is." So there weren't too many options!
https://davidlat.substack.com/p/does-biglaw-have-a-liberal-bent
https://davidlat.substack.com/p/on-the-need-for-diverse-viewpoints
That criticism you have received is silly and should be dismissed out of hand. Especially because this space is already so partisan. Anyone who has worked in biglaw post 2016, who is being honest, understands the intense partisan bent. That Fox News commenters might say a Fox News piece is too generous to the left doesn't mean that those commenters have valid points.
You have data in hand that indicates 5-10% of biglaw political donations go to republicans. You don't need to be overly generous to people who would state that that doesn't mean exactly what it says.
For the headline, you already had a verb in "Moving", so I'm not sure I fully understand the issue. And I gave you adverbs that would modify a word like "skews" to indicate more than a modest vertical incline (I think "predominantly" wouldn't work with "tilt" but would work with "skews", but that's a personal view I suppose).
My firm sent out a firmwide email about how horrible SFFA v. Harvard was - taking the 30% side on a 30/70 issue.
It's not just a left-wing space. It's a bunch of Liz Warren voters.
I don't know that there's a better way to do it, but it seems to me that this defined survey group is likely to skew heavily toward lawyers who live in very blue states. I don't think it says anything very meaningful about the legal profession generally, the VAST VAST VAST majority of which aren't covered by this survey group, even including many who are in quite large law firms.