Articles
On February 18, 2003, I became the country’s first Chief Diversity Officer at K & L (now K & L Gates), one of America’s Fortune 100 law firms. As a full-time management-level executive officer on diversity, I reported to the chairman of the management committee and attended all management meetings of the firm. The appointment was heralded by the Senior Vice President and General Counsel of PPG Industries, Inc., Jim Diggs as “groundbreaking.” The July/August 2003 Minority Corporate Counsel Association’s publication’s Diversity & the Bar featured the appointment in an article entitled, “Above the Cut: Law Firms Raise the Bar.” In short, my appointment signaled the start of a movement that placed diversity front and center for law firms around the country.
I had the unique opportunity to work directly with the managing partner and members of the management committee on a regular if not daily basis to forge the firm’s diversity mission. This degree of contact was necessary: without it, the firm could not have attempted to change its culture, as well as its demographic composition.
At the firm’s management meetings, diversity was always the first item of business. I worked with every office’s administrative partner on its office’s particular goals and objectives. I also worked with the chief officer for professional development and recruitment on acquiring a diverse workforce and then putting into play a comprehensive professional development program with a structured mentoring component. We hired two full-time lawyers, as professional development coordinators who, along with me, went to every office and worked with all the associates on their development plans and competencies for their yearly progress, encouraging them to grow as individuals within the firm. I also worked with a specialist on work/life balance issues.
We were also the first firm to hire a full-time Director of Professional and Personal Life Integration, with firm-wide responsibilities. We started a Wellness Program within the diversity initiative that was available to all employees to ensure a healthy, competent staff. Minority and women attorneys became increasingly engaged at K & L; they went on to hold management positions and became practice group heads and leaders in their respective communities.
Diversity Needs To Be Supported By Top Management
Large law firms all over the country now are hiring diversity professionals. Their ranks have swelled to such an extent that the Association of Law Firm Diversity Professionals (ALFDP) was founded in 2006. Its mission is to promote, retain and advance diversity in the legal profession. This year, ALFDP and the Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA) sponsored a survey (conducted by The Flourishing Company, a national workplace consulting firm) to determine the roles and responsibilities of these professionals in promoting and accomplishing diversity initiatives. The survey not only included members of ALFDP, but also the Am-Law 200 firms.
The survey concluded that large law firms are turning to diversity professionals as the norm, rather than as the exception these days. The study also is the first to authoritatively establish that the best diversity method in practice today is creating leadership at the management level for sustained diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
Evidence that diversity officers are effective in accomplishing inclusion and retention goals is supported in an article by Alexandra Kalev, Frank Dobbins and Erin Kelly, entitled Best Practices or Best Guesses? Assessing the Efficacy of Corporate Affirmative Action and Diversity Policies.1 The authors conclude that there are three generally accepted methods of obtaining diversity: establishing organizational responsibility for diversity, attempting to moderate bias in the workplace through training and feedback, and reducing the social isolation of minorities and women in the company.
Law firms have been following the corporate diversity model for the last 10 to 15 years because of corporate pressure to become more diverse and inclusive or lose business. This trend began in the 1990s when Charles Morgan, the former General Counsel of BellSouth, issued a Statement of Principles on Diversity, and continued when Rick Palamore, former general counsel to Sara Lee, issued his Call To Action. As a result, large law firms have almost universally accepted that the first step towards diversity is to create a diversity committee. The 2008 Law Firm Diversity Professional Survey showed that all but one respondent had a diversity committee—and that this firm was creating a committee this year; it also indicated that 78% of those surveyed had a diversity professional, many of whom had been hired within the last several years.
Of the diversity professionals surveyed, almost 19% were practicing attorneys with their law firms, 44% were non-practicing attorneys within the firm and 34% were non-attorneys. Most of the diversity professionals were either members of their firms’ diversity committees, or the chairs of these committees.
Diversity Officers Encourage Change
Diversity professionals at these law firms perform a myriad of functions, including defining what diversity means to the culture of their firm, launching and coordinating the firm’s diversity mission and goals, promoting diversity programs, articulating both within and outside of the firm what the diversity program consists of, and maintaining the metrics and deliverables which reflect the firm’s progress towards diversity and inclusion. These professionals also act as liaisons to the firm’s management and as confidantes for the minority and female lawyers. They also facilitate relationships between individuals at the firm and the leading diversity organizations outside of the firm at the local, state and national levels.
The importance of the role of the Chief Diversity Officer has even filtered down to state and local bar groups as well. California appointed Ruthie Ashley as its first Chief Diversity Officer last year. Pennsylvania is considering creating the position of Chief Diversity Officer for its state bar. And the Los Angeles County Bar Association and the Bar Association of San Francisco have Diversity Directors, as does the City of New York Bar Association.
I believe that the best way to bring about diversity and inclusion is to hire a full time, management level executive to direct and implement a cultural change within the firm. At K & L, I had the opportunity to make diversity permeate the firm’s culture, creating a dynamic and enriched organization, where diversity was valued and not just tolerated as an add-on to the firm’s social fabric. The evidence is clear: without organizational accountability at the very top of the firm, no lasting or meaningful change will occur.
FOOTNOTE
1. Best Practices or Best Guesses? Assessing the Efficacy of Corporate Affirmative Action and Diversity Policies, by Alexandra Kalev, Frank Bobbin and Erin Kelly. American Sociological Review, 2006, Vol.71 (August:589-617)
