A.J. Kim – When you open a law firm’s website, you will most likely encounter a section dedicated to “diversity.” These sections typically contain statements that discuss the firm’s diverse demographics and its efforts to promote inclusion, as firms strive to appear diverse and inclusive to its prospective clients and applicants. At first glance, you may be impressed by the firm’s commitment to diversity, including race, gender, disability, and sexual orientation. However, you may quickly question such commitment after you review the website’s “professionals” section: an overwhelming list of photos and names that do not reflect the firm’s supposedly dedicated diversity. The question remains then, do law firms actually prioritize diversity and inclusion? Or is it a free marketing tool posed as a meaningless, unfulfilled pledge?
The unfortunate reality is that many law firms’ disregard for diversity is evidenced by their gender and racial imbalance. According to NALP’s 2018 Report on Diversity in U.S. Law Firms, which conducted its study on 109,000 lawyers in 1,009 offices nationwide in 2018, total lawyers were represented by 35.41 percent of women, 16.10 percent of minorities, and 8.08 percent of minority women. Furthermore, the non-white males make partner at a comparatively lower rate than their white male counterparts. In the same study, NALP shed light on the unequal promotions for partnerships as partners were comprised of only 23.36 percent of women, 9.13 percent of minority, and 3.19 percent of minority women.
In January 2019, as a response to the lack of legal diversity, General Counsels for Law Firm Diversity issued an open letter to big law firms to urge diverse demographics of attorneys. More than 170 general counsels, which represented both public and private companies of various industries, signed the letter. The signatories proclaimed to “direct [their] substantial outside counsel spend to those law firms that manifest results with respect to diversity and inclusion, in addition to providing the highest degree of quality representation.” The letter “applaud[ed] those firms that have worked hard to hire, retain, and promote to partnership this year outstanding and highly accomplished lawyers who are diverse in race, color, age, gender, gender orientation, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, and without regard to disabilities.” While the letter recognized some firms’ efforts to be inclusive, it lamented over the lack of diversity in partnership classes.
This letter has provoked national debates regarding legal diversity as it reads as an ultimatum to law firms with seemingly homogeneous demographics. The message is clear: hire and promote diverse attorneys, or no more money for you. Although the issue of diversity and inclusion may seem trivial to some, many general counsels have opined the importance of diverse demographics in the work of law. The general counsel for Lyft, Kristin Sverchek, explained that “[t]he only way you can flesh out an idea is with diversity of opinion and that needs to be reflected in the diversity of people giving us the opinion.” Of course, the hiring and promotion practices should be based on the lawyer’s experience and merits; however, as the letter emphasized, “there are women, people of color and members of LGTBQIA community and others who are no doubt equally deserving, but are not equally rewarded” due to their social categorizations.
Despite the ultimatum, the issue remains as the 2019 State of Corporate Law Departments Report found that only 29 percent of in-house legal departments require diversity information from law firms. Since the issuance of the letter, however, an increasing number of general counsels have pledged to pressure law firms’ practice of inclusion. Furthermore, the future of legal diversity may advance across the globe as 65 U.K. and European general counsels issued a similar statement to push law firms for diversity. As long as the clients – the in-house legal departments – continue to push law firms to promote diversity and inclusion, the “professionals” sections on law firm websites will reflect diverse groups of talented individuals.
