January 22, 2007
Lawyers Weekly Diversity Heroes
WENDELL C. TAYLOR
Having broken the color 'barrier' and achieved partner status at his firm, this corporate attorney is grooming others for similar successes
Birth: June 8, 1967; Kansas City, Mo.
Education: Boston University School of Law (1995); College of William and Mary (1990)
Bar admission: 1995
Professional experience: Partner, WilmerHale (2004-present); associate, Hale and Dorr (1995-2004)
Honors/achievements: Boston scholar volunteer and former fellow, The Partnership; member, executive committee, co-chairman, Retention and Advancement Committee, Boston Lawyers Group
Role models: WilmerHale colleagues William F. Lee (firm’s co-managing partner), John A. Burgess, Sarah A. Rothermel and (former managing partner) John D. Hamilton Jr. — “They’re all unbelievably successful. I think that’s what I owe my success to ... teaching me my craft but also making sure I was involved in the community.�
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At the Jack Benny-esque age of 39, Wendell C. Taylor retains vivid memories of a history-making event in Massachusetts during his childhood — the 1974 implementation of a federal court order mandating the busing of Boston public school students to achieve racial integration.
Taylor and his family were living in Winchester at that time but would soon leave for Washington, D.C., "where my parents thought I would have more positive role models," he says, recalling the racial divisions wrought by the controversy over busing. "My vision of Boston was formed in the '70s, and it's often hard to shake."
Nonetheless, Taylor returned to the city in the 1990s as a student at Boston University School of Law. A stint as a summer associate at the firm known then as Hale and Dorr would seal his fate as an attorney practicing in Boston.
"At first I told the firm I was going back to Washington," Taylor remembers. "But then I realized at the end of the summer that the firm had a wonderful platform and that my practice area [domestic and international corporate transactions] was not really a Washington practice."
Taylor would later discover that the firm suited him in another way — with its record on minority hiring.
"When I came here [in February 1996]," he says during an interview in a WilmerHale conference room, "we had three partners and six non-partner lawyers of color in the Boston office. As of January 1 of this year, we had six partners and 30 non-partner lawyers of color in the Boston office. ... That's significant growth."
Still, Taylor believes that the growth at the partner level could be stronger. "Slowly, in recent years, we have been seeing people breaking that barrier," he says.
Although Taylor succeeded in breaking that barrier and making partner, "I can't say it's always been easy," he concedes. To this day, after more than a decade with the firm, he says, "If I'm not in a jacket, people still mistake me as someone from the mailroom."
When he has experienced that kind of discrimination, Taylor seems not to have been deterred. "I've been fortunate," he says. "Color has not been an impediment to my career. But I have experienced incidents where people have made assumptions about me based on the color of my skin. ... Those are associations people make everyday. The key is to educate [them] or make a judgment to move on and make sure it's not holding me back."
He appears to favor the education route. A member of WilmerHale's hiring and executive committees, Taylor is in a position to offer input on the firm's hiring practices and charitable giving and to broaden the firm's outreach to minority communities.
For example, as a supporter of the firm's Youth and Education Initiative, Taylor annually recruits attorneys of colors to serve as mentors and role models to eight high school summer interns.
He also serves as co-chairman of WilmerHale's Committee on Diversity, a position from which he has fostered mentorships and guided decisions by the firm on diversity.
"I set up [the committee] almost eight years ago, recognizing that some changes were needed" on the issue of diversity, Taylor says. "I've been at it a long time, but I feel like we've made some progress."
Similarly, he believes that the state to which he returned 15 years ago as a law student has made some strides toward racial integration, and, he says, that progress includes members of the legal community.
Asked about Massachusetts as a place for minorities to practice law, Taylor says: "The bar is very congenial, very close. Boston is a city that's livable. ... And we have a dynamic, complex legal market."
As for his law firm, he says: "When I came in, the firm was very focused on my development. All I asked for was a level playing field, and I got a lot more."
Another development that gives Taylor cause for hope about further improvements in race relations in Massachusetts is the election of its first black governor, Deval L. Patrick.
"I'm very excited about that," Taylor says, describing Patrick, also an attorney, as having been "a mentor to many attorneys of color" and as a governor capable of finding minority lawyers to serve as judges.
"More importantly," says Taylor, "his election will help this state lose its reputation as a place that is inhospitable to people of color."