9 Months In, The Pebbles Of GCs’ Diversity Efforts May Be Causing Thousands Of Ripples Throughout The Legal Profession

Diversity in our industry doesn’t have to remain on life support.

lateral lawyer partner minority woman diverse diversity“Have you ever been as sad as I am? / Lord, I ask if anything would change? / I can see the future that we’re heading.”J. Cole

One of my favorite Chinese proverbs translates to: “constant dripping of water wears away the stone.” It often reminds me that persistence and relentlessness can pave a worthwhile path through any perceived stone, rock, roadblock, or barrier.

Since 2000, there has been virtually no increase of diversity in the legal profession. According to basic investing theory, if legal diversity programs were stocks, few rational investors would invest in them because there has been such little returns in the space. But this hasn’t necessarily been true in the legal market.

Many Am Law 100 firms and other law firms have invested considerable time, resources, and money to promote diversity and inclusion. So what have we learned from their autopsies? Harvard Business Review’s Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev co-wrote an excellent article detailing exactly “Why Diversity Programs Fail.”

And it is hard to not label past efforts as failures when we have seen literally no gains for 20 years. But we should also be careful not to be reductive in our analysis. I’ve heard countless success stories and have been inspired by many colleagues who have gone above and beyond to make a change in our profession.

Just last year, Above the Law noted that it has “seen various diversity initiatives fail over the years, but [Resolution 113] is specific, concrete, and promising.” Regarding Resolution 113 by the American Bar Association, which calls on clients to direct a greater percentage of the legal services they purchase to diverse attorneys, I wrote:

While it is true we have witnessed various diversity and inclusion pledges and initiatives fail over the last three decades, this is one of the most specific, concrete, and tangible pledges I have read. Will it ultimately improve diversity and inclusion in our profession? I can’t say for sure, but I’ve never been more optimistic about the possibility for change, and I think you should be hopeful as well.

At the end of the day, I absolutely agree with last week’s letter — GCs are in one of the best positions to drive the changes necessary to dramatically improve diversity at all levels in the law firms that provide us with legal services.

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In her article about ABA Resolution 113, Bloomberg’s Meredith Mandell asks, “Can Two Dozen GCs Bring Diversity to Law Firms?”

Two dozen GCs may be a start and a spark, but they cannot bear this burden by themselves. It will take the sustained, persistent, and relentless effort of many other GCs to continually drive change in the legal profession.

The New York Times DealBook’s Ellen Rosen recently highlighted the efforts of other GCs driving improvement in law firms. As Rosen pointed out:

Facebook is requiring that women and ethnic minorities account for at least 33 percent of law firm teams working on its matters….

A number of general counsels across corporate America are pressing their outside firms to make their teams more diverse — in terms of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and even disability — at all levels of seniority, not just among junior associates….

MetLife says it is announcing a new policy this month; HP in February adopted a more stringent program. The moves are an acknowledgment that the numbers of women and minorities at law firms have barely budged over the past 20 years….

‘Law is the least diverse white-collar profession,’ said Jean Lee, the chief executive of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, an organization that focuses on the hiring, retention and promotion of diverse lawyers. ‘A lot of companies made a concerted effort to increase diversity internally, and now they are demanding diversity at the firms they use.’

The past is not necessarily indicative of the future. Just because the last 20 years have yielded no gains for diversity in the least diverse profession in our country doesn’t mean that American law firms will continue to look like mirrortocracies over the next two decades.

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We can learn a lot from all of the failed diversity and inclusion program autopsies. Diversity in our industry doesn’t have to remain on life support.

In fact, I’ve never been as optimistic about the state of our profession as I have been over the first half of 2017.

I’ve had the opportunity to talk with many GCs about ABA Resolution 113, which was signed only nine months ago. I remember last fall talking with Mark Roellig, Executive Vice President & General Counsel of MassMutual Financial Group, when he relayed to me that Resolution 113 already had 47 GC signatories.

Can you guess how many it has now? Ask a GC you know if they have signed ABA Resolution 113. If they haven’t, make sure to ask him or her, “why not?”

Can two dozen GCs bring diversity to law firms? Not alone they can’t. It will take the sustained, persistent, and relentless effort of many other GCs to continually drive change in the legal profession. It will also take law firms committing to such results. Law schools need to reevaluate their priorities as well. Cultures don’t change overnight. They never have. They never will.

When we as a profession finally discover that diversity is more than a buzzword, and realize it is essential to running a successful business, we will truly become a noble profession.

Past practices and business-as-usual attitudes may have gotten many law firms and partners where they are today. But it doesn’t mean they will be successful tomorrow. Or as Winston Churchill famously proclaimed, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

Indeed, it is the courage to continue that counts. In my last three years of writing for Above the Law, I have been inspired by those who have fought for diversity and inclusion every step of the way, often with very little return on investment. I have been encouraged by millennials and others who have only just recently taken up the torch of diversity and inclusion, but have brought a sense of urgency to the diversity crisis we face.

But more than anything, I’m impressed by the GCs — who have an absurd amount of responsibilities on their plate already — spearheading, with a renewed vigor, a new campaign to diversify our profession. After all, GCs are in one of the best positions to drive the changes necessary to dramatically improve diversity at all levels in the law firms that provide us with legal services.

Can the pebbles of two dozen GCs bring diversity to law firms? Maybe not. But their pebbles, along with others, may cause a ripple effect that will ultimately change the profession in which we work in. And these ripples will keep impacting our profession long after these GCs retire.

Or as Victor Webster eloquently writes, “Everything we do, even the slightest thing we do, can have a ripple effect and repercussions that emanate. If you throw a pebble into the water on one side of the ocean, it can create a tidal wave on the other side.”

While is true that constant dripping of water wears away the stone, a waterfall of effort is much more beautiful and may carve a path in half the time.


Renwei Chung is the Diversity Columnist for Above the Law. You can contact Renwei by email at renwei@footnote4.com, follow him on Twitter (@renweichung), or connect with him on LinkedIn.