Status and Collaboration: The Case of Pro Bono Networks in Corporate Law

• In Event: 2268 - Professions and Networks

Abstract

This article examines the role of status in shaping intersectoral collaboration between corporate law firms and public interest legal organizations (PILOs).We draw from middle-status conformity and status-signaling theories to derive competing hypotheses about the status processes that generate organizational collaboration within this network. Supporting the status-signaling hypothesis, high-status law firms tend to collaborate with similarly high-status PILOs. This gives rise to a highly unequal playing field where a handful of PILOs have a wealth of connections to high-status law firms, while the majority of PILOs only collaborate with few –relatively under-resourced– non-high-status firms. We test our hypotheses using novel latent space models for weighted networks. We further validate our results using QAP regressions, a well-established inferential network technique. In closing, we discuss the implications of our findings for scholarship on status and organizations, as well as the role that corporate law firms play in exacerbating inequality in terms of access to justice in contemporary America.

Authors

• Diego Leal, University of Massachusetts-Amherst

• Anthony Paik, University of Massachusetts-Amherst

• Steven A. Boutcher, University of Massachusetts-Amherst