Minority Issues

Noticeable Improvement In Leadership Representation, But Challenges Remain For Minorities In The Legal Profession

We have to understand the root causes of why law firms are failing on the diversity front to develop a proper strategy to combat the status quo.

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“But—look around, look around, the Revolution’s happening in New York.” — Angelica, Hamilton (Lin-Manuel Miranda)

This week, the New York City Bar (City Bar) released its most recent annual Diversity Benchmarking Report.

Seventy-one firms (signatory firms) participated in both the 2015 and 2016 benchmarking surveys, which allowed the City Bar to perform statistical comparisons on representation, leadership, and hiring. What is it about the number 71? As of the report’s publication, 71 Fortune 500 companies have signed onto the ABA Resolution 113 Model Diversity Survey.

In terms of overall representation and hiring data in the 2016 City Bar Benchmarking Report, not much has changed from the prior year. The good news is that there has been a noticeable increase of women and minority representation in leadership roles. The bad news is that the same old challenges remain for most of the legal industry: 1) Racial/ethnic diversity at the partner level; 2) Erosion in the associate pipeline; and 3) Voluntary attrition.

Without further ado, here are several highlights from the report:

  • Signatory firms’ leadership continue to reflect increasing commitment to diversity and inclusion efforts, with 44% of firms reporting that a management committee member serves as chair of the diversity committee, an increase of seventeen percentage points from 27% in 2015.
  • Signatory firms are implementing “better practices,” with a majority of firms providing attorney development opportunities with an enhanced focus on client relationships, and building more inclusive firm cultures.
  • Overall representation of minority attorneys increased slightly to 20.6% in 2016 from 18.8% in 2015.
  • Nearly half of signatory firms have no racial/ethnic minorities on their management committees and more than one-third have no minority practice group heads.
  • In 2016, white men represented 77% of all equity partners at signatory firms. Minority and women partners continue to be concentrated at the income partner level, rather than at the equity level.
  • Erosion in the associate pipeline directly affects future leadership — 45% of associates are women compared to 19% of partners and 28% of associates are racial/ethnic minorities compared to 9% of partners.
  • 36% of first-year associates were minorities — dropping to 26% of mid-level associates, and 22% of senior level associates. By the eighth year, only 20.5% of associates were minorities.
  • Voluntary attrition is down overall in law firms, but continues to disproportionately impact minority and women attorneys — 15.6% of minorities and 14.3% of women left signatory firms in 2016 — 150% and 135% above the 10.6% rate for white men respectively.
  • LGBT attorney representation has more than doubled since the City Bar began collecting data in 2004, from 1.6% to 4.1%, and representation of self-identified LGBT partners has doubled from 1.4% in 2004 to 2.8% in 2016.

When attempting to solve a problem such as the diversity crisis in our profession, we must begin with the end in mind. We have to understand the root causes of why law firms are failing on the diversity front to develop a proper strategy to combat the status quo.

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As I mentioned before, transparency is key and it starts with research such as the City Bar’s Benchmarking Report. In addition, as the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) stated in its diversity report about Silicon Valley:

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.

The data in the City Bar’s most recent publication is great, but its analysis, recommendations, best practices, and strategies for moving forward are what makes this report a must read.

The City Bar concludes its report with three tips  for individual law firms: 1) Know your challenges; 2) Have a strategic plan; and 3) Engage everyone in your diversity initiatives.

If you’re serious about improving diversity at your firm, then be sure to print several copies of the 2016 Diversity Benchmarking Report and share it with your colleagues.

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On behalf of Above the Law, I would like to give a special thank you to the seventy-one firms that participated in this survey the last couple of years and to the City Bar for its decade of research on these issues.

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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