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Diversity For The Legal Industry Continues To Be A Riddle, Wrapped In a Mystery, Inside An Enigma

The diversity and inclusion equation isn’t unsolvable, but there isn't a simple solution either.

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sad Latina businesswoman unhappy Hispani business woman“Strength and guidance / All that I’m wishing for my friends / Nobody makes it from my ends / I had to bust up the silence.” – Drake

Last week, Law360 released their most recent data on diversity in the legal profession. It published two articles: US Law Firms Fail To Move Needle On Racial Diversity and The Top 100 Firms For Minority Attorneys. The results revealed more of the same. As Law360 noted, “law firms continue to make negligible progress toward improving the diversity of their attorney ranks.”

According to Law360’s survey, more than eight in ten attorneys at more than 300 U.S. law firms surveyed were white, almost identical figures as the year before. While some law firms were able to gain traction, other firms continued to spin their wheels. More than nine in ten partners at U.S. law firms were white, with an even higher percentage of equity partners who were white.

Since 2000, minorities in the legal profession have increased by less than one percent of the total attorney population. In 2020, the figures will look nearly identical. If there is no 2025 plan by the majority of law firms, then there will likely be little to no change in the legal profession. In other words, the legal profession will continue to look more like a mirrortocracy than a meritocracy.

Last week, Stanford Business’s Lee Simmons wrote about how to solve Silicon Valley’s gender problem. Simmons’s introduction, discussing the Ellen Pao discrimination lawsuit, stated, “testimony revealed a startling lack of diversity and pervasive sexism, not just in venture capital but throughout Silicon Valley. This wasn’t what we expected from an industry that claimed to be inventing the future.”

Just as venture capitalists tend to blame “pipeline issues” on the lack of diversity, law partners often cite these issues as well.  But since 2002, more than 20 percent of law school graduates have been minorities, according to the American Bar Association. At the top law schools that traditionally feed recruits to elite law firms, the percentage of minority students hovers around 30 percent, with some top-tier law schools closing in on 40 percent, as noted by Law 360.

Monica Leas, co-producer of Elephant in the Valley, believes that hiring targets are an optimal strategy for solving the diversity riddle. She differentiates targets from quotas and states, “even if you don’t hit the numbers on the timeline, you’re making progress, and just setting a target forces managers to think through all the pieces that go into the equation.”

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There is a big difference between goals and quotas. Goals are aspirational. In reality, these diversity goals may never be achieved. But failure to solve the diversity crisis in the legal profession should not be for lack of effort. Law firms that aspire to be more diverse can and should share their clear numerical targets for diversity.

The lack of diversity is startling for an industry that claims to address discrimination and inequality. The failure to plan a strategy for addressing diversity often results in a plan of failure for a diverse workforce.

Without a specific plan, diversity for the majority of law firms will continue to be a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Of course, the diversity and inclusion equation isn’t unsolvable. But admittedly, there isn’t a simple solution either.

US Law Firms Fail To Move Needle On Racial Diversity [Law360]
The Top 100 Firms For Minority Attorneys [Law360]

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Renwei Chung is the Diversity Columnist at Above the Law. 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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