Diversity in Law Firms: Analytical Essay

Introduction

The success of any business is proving its integrity to its clients, going to great extents in making customers feel familiar, connected, and comfortable with the company. As the world turns so does its culture. More and more companies are beginning to see that Workforce Diversity Is Key to a Small Business’s Success. However, this can be easier said than done in a country where tradition is highly valued.

The World Is Becoming More Diverse, Why Not Law PNC Financial Service Group, faced a serious problem last year in 2018. There is not enough diversity being shown in public, prominent, and leadership position of the law firms that represented the banks. While PNC saw the need, acted on it and gradually made the change, they noticed, like many other banks, their legal representation had not.

Law Schools Are Very Diverse, So Aren’t Law Firms? According to the American Bar Association reported, “In 2018 the U.S. alone, 60% of attorneys are women; however, the percent of female equity partners is 15%. African American (Black) women are even more underrepresented in the legal profession. Reports show in New York, while half of the law students that graduated and passed the state’s bar exam were women, but very few of them lead council, spoke in cases, or had any prominent roles in both public and private sector cases. Even a fewer percent of that were led by minorities.

Why Minorities Don’t End up at Private Practices “If you look at the differences between the law student population and the law firm population, there is a discrepancy,” says Rodriguez. “What the data seems to say, and from what I personally heard anecdotally from speaking with a lot of attorneys of color, is a lot of minority attorneys just opt out of going the private practice or the ‘big law’ route.”

There are a number of root causes. The first one being there is just a lack of minority leads within the U.S. top Law Firms. Psychologically this would allow new grad of law to think they could have a hard time advancing or climbing the corporate ladder without a lot of biased hurdles. Also, environment has a lot to do with it as well. New grad minorities may think they are going to get mistreated, under payed and overworked, in spite of a higher than average pay. Studies have shown that most young high school children here in the United States, choose to go to law school from a personal matter being handled by a lawyer who won their case. Most Latinos have pointed out that their desire to go to law school is to help other Latinos with immigration issues because a Latino or Hispanic lawyer helped them and their family.

Diversity is Huge in a Successful Law Firm Customers are looking for companies to do business with where they can relate to what they physically see and interact with in that company’s environment. The “who”, the “face” of the company. If customers can relate to, and feel comfortable with what they see, 9 times out of 10 they are going to have a long business relationship with the company. A diverse field of employees can benefit a law firm. This include the productivity of the workforce. Each employee will bring their own unique strengths to the law firm. This contributes to a creative mix of skills, strengths, and weaknesses. “When employees teach their skills to other employees, this in turn, increases each employee’s skill-set.”

“Having a gender diverse workforce has been proven to be a positive for small businesses. Cornell University, found that “businesses with founding female partners have up to a 30 percent increase in their long-term returns. In addition, the research also found that women in executive positions are more likely to drive their companies towards stronger financial performance.” Because women by nature are more competitive and innovative which therefore can be the driving force a company needs.

Is Making a Change in Diversity Easy? It seems simple for law firms just to make these changes. Well this is easier said than done. For decades and decades white males have been the face of the majority of law firms in the U.S. White males were the ones that spoke at council meetings, spoke at the public press conferences, and represented in the court room. They were the voice and the face to most U.S. law firms. To disrupt and change having women and minorities take over in doing this tradition presented a hesitation. One problem is taking efforts to have a change in diversity could alienate the leaders, making them feel uncomfortable, insecure, and pushed away. What if these respected law firms didn’t want this new change?

Conclusion

The best way to get other companies to follow along is to lead by example. PNC, JP Morgan, and a leading number of other financial institutions did just so. They began to” formally track the number of women and diverse lawyers staffed on its cases and now has regular discussions about that effort with its partner law firms,” said Lisa Stauffer of PNC Bank.

“The conversations are more regular, they’re more robust, they’re a component of diversity and inclusion that is part of the agenda on a regular basis,” she said. “We feel very good about what we’re seeing in terms of the outcome.” The Atlanta Company’s diversity and inclusion efforts extended to its relationships with vendors, including outside counsel.” JP Morgan’s Senior Vice President, Jill Centella said “she did initially worry the effort from some of JPMorgan’s longstanding partners”, but soon concluded her concerns were unfounded. “Honestly, they really appreciated how this is great for business and great for their firm as a recruiting and retention tool,” she said. “I didn’t really get any pushback.” many women and diverse lawyers will end up leaving a firm in part because they do not see people like themselves represented among the firm’s leadership. Giving those lawyers the opportunity to make connections with big client firms like JPMorgan and giving them a shot to speak in court send a strong message that their voices and contributions are wanted at the firm. In turn this will have a successful in positive impact on the law firm’s client relationships.

References:

1. J. American Lawyer (2017 November) JPMorgan Initiative Aims to Boost Women’s Roles on Litigation Teams. Retrieved from https://www.kaplanhecker.com
2. Rodriguez, N. (2018 July) Law Schools are Diverse So Why Aren’t Law Schools, Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com
3. Abelson, M; Holmam, J (2018, June) Share of Black Employees at JP Morgan Falls for the Sixth Straight Year in U.S. Retrived from https://www.jpmorgan.com/jpmorgansblackemployees
4. Flaherty,S (2019) Instant Insights All Eyes on Big Laws Diversity Problems. Retrieved from https://www.law.com/americanlawyers https:/www.nalp.org/diversity2