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4 Thoughts About Closing The Diversity Gap In The Legal Profession

What can the legal profession learn from Silicon Valley when it comes to promoting workplace diversity?

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“So every morning I’m up because I can’t let them down /
Always down for the cause, never down for the count.” — Big Sean

Last month, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) published an article titled “Closing the Diversity Gap in Silicon Valley” that addressed the diversity crisis in the technology field. Just like Silicon Valley, the legal profession is also facing a diversity crisis. BCG’s diversity report for Silicon Valley provided four key takeaways that are just as relevant to our profession:

1. Diversity Is Good for Business

According to BCG:

Diverse companies outperform homogeneous ones. One study showed that a 1% increase in gender diversity correlates with a 3% gain in revenue, while a 1% increase in racial diversity correlates with a 9% gain in revenue. Diverse companies have better reputations—and by bringing together different points of view, they are also more innovative—than less diverse companies.

Last month, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg penned a letter discussing the importance of diversity and inclusion. Along with this letter, Facebook provided a video module that discussed the business case for diversity and inclusion. According to CEB, diverse and inclusive workforces demonstrate 12% more discretionary effort, 19% greater intent to stay, 57% more collaboration among teams, and 42% greater team commitment.

2. It Starts at the Top

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According to BCG:

CEOs and senior leaders need to promote diversity in public, in the boardroom, in their day-to-day interactions with their direct reports, and with employees. They need to set an overall tone of inclusion and respect for racial and gender differences. Without CEO support, the pressures of everyday business and the forces of inertia will overpower diversity initiatives. It should not be any surprise that, at diverse companies, CEOs are more involved in diversity efforts—and hold their senior team accountable for diversity results—than at homogeneous companies.

As I have previously mentioned, the tech industry and legal profession (along with others) are both facing a diversity crisis. Many of the same restrictive structures, policies, and biases can be found in both sectors. Correlation or causation? One difference between these two professions is that the tech industry’s leaders are publicly addressing this issue and making it a priority in 2015.

Whether forced or persuaded, the leaders in the tech industry are beginning to change the way they usually operate and starting to embrace the challenge of diversity. They are developing real, practical programs to deal with diversity. Intel has pledged $300 million towards this cause; Sandberg has founded LeanIn.org and become an active, influential, and powerful champion for equality in her field; and Google has launched an education initiative to address this problem as well as committed to an unconscious bias training program.

What is preventing the majority of law firms from implementing these types of policies? Do diversity activists in the technology field demand more than we demand? Or have leaders in the tech industry taken more ownership of this problem than partners in our profession? Going forward, which industry will be more willing and able to handle and promote diversity? Which industry will be more diverse in 2020? Why?

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3. Transparency Is Key

According to BCG:

Executives will need to look beyond these topline numbers and conduct quantitative and qualitative analyses of their workforce through surveys, interviews, benchmarks, focus groups, and quick pulse checks. The data should be broken down by business unit, function, and region. The point of such a diagnosis is not to lay blame but to improve. Such data typically reveals pockets of best practices that can be replicated. The findings also may indicate places to dig further for evidence of unconscious biases in hiring, promotion, and retention practices.

This level of transparency and thoroughness demonstrates commitment to employees and recruits—much more so than simply releasing raw, topline diversity statistics. This root cause analysis allows companies to turn the page and start creating a diverse and inclusive workforce in a new way. The results should be on the dashboards of senior executives and business leaders and refreshed regularly.

Earlier this year, Professor Melissa Hart, past president of the American Bar Association Laurel Bellows, and I were guests on The Legal Talk Network’s Lawyer 2 Lawyer Podcast, where we discussed the importance of transparency and objective metrics in fighting discriminatory tendencies of a firm’s culture.

In an earlier post, I wrote that to avoid showing discriminatory tendencies, firms should have objective measures of success for their employees. Transparency in the form of open communication, proper expectations, and objective measures are critical for success in the workplace. As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously stated, “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” In other words, if the broad light of day could be let in upon our actions, it would purify us as the sun disinfects.

A black-box type of promotion process handicaps employees and promotes a discriminatory environment. This being said, subjective measures are not going anywhere; they are inherent in the dynamics of the employment environment. It is when subjective measures corrupt the employee review process that discriminatory acts are enabled to become pervasive in the workplace. Many employees face discrimination even where no harmful intent of discrimination exists. I’d argue the majority of employees encounter unconscious racial and gender bias much more often than overt prejudice.

4. Hiring Practices

According to BCG:

Job referrals, which are a key source of leads in Silicon Valley, tend to mirror the current employee pool rather than expand it. Similarly, interviews that focus on achieving a good fit with the company can damage the chances of women, blacks, and Latinos. The unconscious biases of the interviewers can cause them to unintentionally hire candidates who are like themselves.

These challenges can be overcome through mechanisms such as training, more inclusive recruiting pools, and blind resume screening: half of all Google employees, for example, have participated in workshops on unconscious bias, and some orchestras have achieved greater diversity by using blind auditions. Leveraging professional associations of women, blacks, and Latinos also makes sense. IBM, for example, partners with the Society of Women Engineers, the National Society of Black Engineers, and NACME.

I believe implicit bias is the silent killer of diversity in the legal profession. I recently recommended 3 things law firms can do right now to increase diversity in the legal profession. To improve hiring practices, law firms should:

  1. implement a résumé-blind policy for job interviews;
  2. conduct “unconscious bias” workshops; and
  3. begin with the end in mind.

By 2042, it is projected that no one race or ethnicity will be a majority in America. It would be great if the legal industry reflected the diversity of people and culture in our country, but this has never been the case. It is important to recognize that diversity does not happen by accident. Diversity is not self-executing. Accidental activists do not exist. We cannot hope our way to change. Diversity needs to be fought for, it needs a voice. We have to fight for it. We have to become the agents of change whom we seek. The legal profession must strive to be more racially tolerant if it aspires to be as diverse as the country it serves.

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

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