Diversity And Inclusion: Homing In

I've re-read our diversity blog and have been struck by the thread that has woven its way into the postings: the doing of diversity, the doing of inclusion. In other words, what actions does the legal profession need to take to be truly diverse and inclusive?

Well, my Galician grandmother used to say: Caridad buena, la que empieza por mi casa y no por la ajena, which roughly translates as "Charity begins at home." Diversity and inclusion do, too. But perhaps "the legal profession" is too grand a home, too broad a concept for me to tackle here. So I'm going to begin by homing in on a narrower concept: "law firms."

Law firms nationwide are working on becoming more diverse and inclusive so that all their attorneys can develop to their full potential. However, as is the case with all work-in-progress, there is doing and redoing; there is determination and hesitation; there is a step forward and two steps back. But overall law firms are—with varying levels of commitment and success—strategizing (or scrambling) to apply diversity and inclusion best practices.

Some law firms hire a chief diversity officer and designate a senior partner to lead their diversity and inclusion efforts and avoid such pitfalls as a diversity committee staffed primarily by women and minorities. However, they forget to formulate a clear vision and to put a strategic plan in place, so they end up recognizing what failure looks like (possibly owing to an unfortunate familiarity) but remain clueless about what constitutes diversity and inclusion success.

Some law firms mandate top-down diversity and inclusion training as a way to build awareness among attorneys. But they fail to identify and unequivocally articulate what type of awareness they want to raise and to what heights.

Some law firms gather data about why attorneys are leaving. They put systems in place to retain talent and use national research studies to discover the often hidden barriers that may be causing their high attrition rate. But when faced with the data that they have gathered, they shake their heads in consternation as if the data simply weren't true—as if it couldn't be true.

Other laws firms understand the need to review and tweak their balanced-hours policy because they want to keep their talent. But later, they have misgivings about the financial viability of reduced hours (What about overhead? What if everyone wants to work reduced hours?) and seem flummoxed by how to realistically control...