Jill Louis and Richard Ross Quoted in Bloomberg Law—In the World of Big Law Dealmaking, Black Lawyers Are Scarce

Jill Louis and Richard Ross were quoted in the Bloomberg Law article, "In the World of Big Law Dealmaking, Black Lawyers Are Scarce," regarding the low number of Black transaction lawyers at many big law firms.

When Jill Louis started her legal career in Dallas several decades ago, she would often find herself as the only Black dealmaker—and the only Black woman dealmaker—in the room. "The lawyers would gather at a long conference table, and everyone—lawyers and clients—was a White man," says Jill, a corporate lawyer, who is also now managing partner of Perkins Coie's Dallas office. "Then I would be asked a question that was not asked of anyone else in the room," she said. "Where did you go to law school?" "Harvard," she'd reply. And negotiations moved on, said Jill.

Richard Ross, an M&A partner at Perkins Coie, said he had an early interest in business, fanned by his childhood passion for playing Monopoly and the example of a brother who owned a record store. Even though he said "then Black people who were interested in the law didn't go to business school," he decided to earn an MBA in finance along with his law degree at Cornell.