Lawyers Report Gay Bias at Firms in L.A. County

Employment bias against gay and lesbian lawyers is widespread in Los Angeles County, with nearly 40% of attorneys reporting that they have seen or experienced such discrimination “in a professional setting,” according to a county Bar Assn. report released Wednesday.

Discrimination based on sexual orientation turns up at every stage of employment, including recruitment and hiring, work environments, assignments, promotions, salaries and benefits, the 50-page report said.

Based on Bar Assn. surveys of law firms and agencies that hire attorneys, the report is the first comprehensive study of how bias against gays and lesbians affects the legal profession in the county, Bar officials said.

Although state law and rules governing conduct by attorneys prohibit job discrimination based on sexual orientation, more than half the lawyers said they believe that their work environment is less hospitable to gay attorneys than to heterosexual attorneys, the report said.

“Roughly one in seven attorneys reported that his or her employer engaged in some form of anti-gay discrimination in the recruitment and hiring of attorneys,” the report said, adding that “reports of frank and open anti-gay hostility--sometimes reported by the discriminating attorneys themselves--were common.”

County Bar Assn. President Gerald Chaleff said the bias described in the report, “ranging from open hostility toward lesbian and gay attorneys to simple insensitivity toward them, reflects conditions in society generally. As a result, the study provides valuable insights for everyone in Los Angeles.”

The report said there appears to be a glass ceiling for homosexual attorneys. Among lawyers with less than 10 years experience, heterosexuals are almost three times more likely than homosexuals to be partners in a law firm, the surveys found.

And among lawyers with more than 10 years experience, 41% of the heterosexuals earn more than $125,000 a year, but only 27% of the gay and lesbian attorneys with the same experience earn that much, the report said.

In large part, the bias directed toward gay attorneys “is rooted in ignorance,” the report said, adding: “It appears never to occur to many heterosexual attorneys that a job applicant, subordinate, colleague or other attorney could be gay or have gay relatives and friends.”