The Philadelphia chapter of the American Jewish Committee reported today that “progress in the hiring and promotion” of Jewish lawyers in major law offices has been achieved in this city in the last five years. A survey launched in 1961 had shown that, of seven large firms here which had reported no “Jewish involvement,” only three are in that category now. The number of Jewish attorneys in such firms has increased from 35 to 46. The large firms include a total of 585 attorneys.
The survey had been initiated by the chapter’s civil rights and civil liberties committee, under the co-chairmanship of Benjamin Lowenstein and Isador Kranzel, and looked into the hiring practices of 15 law offices known as “Christian” or predominantly non-Jewish. It was found, five years ago, that the seven law offices without “Jewish involvement” each employed 40 or more attorneys. At the time the survey was started, there had been complaints about “the generally acknowledged limited involvement of Jewish persons as associates and partners in major Philadelphia law firms over the years.”
The survey, according to the committee leaders, was undertaken also as a step in the group’s program to overcome barriers to the employment of Jews in management level positions in industry and finance locally, “There is a close relationship,” the report noted, between major law offices in this city and large corporations.”
Factors in the improved situation, stated the report, are a non-discrimination resolution adopted in 1964 by the Philadelphia Bar Association, efforts in the law schools in this area, and “the shortage of highly-qualified personnel.” The committee expressly thanked the local Bar Association leadership, the three local law schools, and individual law firms “for their understanding of the problem of discrimination and their efforts to improve the situation,”
The committee noted, however, that several questions still remain regarding the issue. Most large firms that have taken on Jewish associates, the group stated, “have hired only one or two” and “promotion to partnership has been slow.” “It is not yet clear,” according to the group, “that religious identification has been entirely abandoned.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
