Biglaw, Minority Issues

What Could Improve Diversity In The Legal Profession In 2016?

Goal setting is the first strategic step towards a diverse and inclusive work environment.

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2016 color rainbow“Put those hours in and look at what you get / Nothing that you can hold, but everything that it is / Ten thousand.” – Macklemore

On Monday, the Harvard Business Review website published an article titled, “Diversity Policies Don’t Help Women or Minorities, and They Make White Men Feel Threatened.” Despite the title of the article, it does include some recommendations on how companies can promote diversity. Goal setting is the first strategic step towards a diverse and inclusive work environment.

Businesses must enact real strategies – beyond marketing tools, the authors of the HBR piece told the Huffington Post. “Give goals to the people in charge of hiring. Check up on those goals,” co-author Tessa Dover said by phone Monday. Research suggests that one of the ways to truly achieve diversity is to hold leaders accountable, she added.

As I have previously mentioned, to foster a successful diversity program, McKinsey recommends for an organization to create a clear value proposition for having a diverse and inclusive culture and to set a few clear targets (not quotas) that balance complexity with cohesiveness.

Research has shown that goal setting, accountability, and corporate culture are the primary drivers for a diverse and inclusive work environment. This makes sense. After all, the pain of discipline is never as great as the pain of regret.

What could improve diversity in your law firm this year? Goal setting. Take the first step and set a few goals for what kind of diversity your firm would like to achieve this year.

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Renwei Chung is a 2L at Southern Methodist University School of Law. He has an undergraduate degree from Michigan State University and an MBA from the University of Chicago. He is the author of The Golden Rule: How Income Inequality Will Ruin America (affiliate link). He has been randomly blogging about anything and everything at Live Your Truth since 2008. He was born in California, raised in Michigan, and lives in Texas. He has a yellow lab named Izza and enjoys old-school hip hop, the NBA and stand up paddleboarding (SUP). He is really interested in startups, entrepreneurship, and innovative technologies. You can contact Renwei by email at projectrenwei@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter (@renweichung), or connect with him on LinkedIn.

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