ANALYSIS: Partner Diversity Lags Despite Law Firms’ DEI Efforts

The efforts by law firms to grow a more racially and ethnically diverse workforce are not yet leading to greater diversity at the partner level—even among firms that are earning accolades for their DEI practices.

Fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion is about recruiting and retaining top employees, encouraging innovation, and winning the war for talent. DEI efforts have increased in recent years throughout industries nationwide, including law firms of all sizes. Accordingly, the nation’s top 100 law firms have increasingly prioritized racially and ethnically diverse hires in recent years.

However, the vertical pipeline for racially and ethnically diverse talent obtaining partner status doesn’t appear to be widening accordingly.

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Data from the National Association of Law Placement’s 2022 report on diversity at US law firms show that racial and ethnic diversity is significantly more prevalent at the associate level than at the partner level. People of color account for 28.3% of associates but only 11.4% of partners.

Even among firms recognized by Bloomberg Law as moving the needle in recruiting and retaining associates to align with the demographics of the country more closely, racial and ethnic diversity on the partner track continues to lag.

Bloomberg Law just released the results of its third annual DEI Framework, which named 55 US-based law firms that are meeting or exceeding an established threshold for DEI among law firms nationwide in 2023.

Across key measures such as recruiting diverse new attorneys, developing retention strategies, and championing diversity in their communities, DEI Framework members meet or exceed industry averages. Still, the 55 law firms that made the framework this year closely match NALP’s race/ethnicity demographic data of law firms nationwide—including in terms of diversity among partner positions.

A comparison to US Census data shows that the race/ethnicity breakdown of partners among DEI Framework members and law firms nationwide reveals a range of diversity nowhere near that of the US population as a whole. However, the racial/ethnic makeup of law associates is much closer than that of partners.

Are Law Firms or Clients to Blame?

Recruitment strategies enacted by law firms to increase DEI most commonly place attorneys in lateral positions. For example, law firms often seek diverse attorneys who potentially started at smaller firms, government offices, nonprofits, and academia. Racially and ethnically diverse associates do not yet seem to be promoted vertically to partner level as frequently as their white counterparts.

Additionally, some corporate legal departments might also be to blame, despite their good intentions.

Some large corporations are actively concerned with DEI among the firms they hire, and hold law firms accountable while docking fees for those that aren’t, indicating that at least some clients see value in diverse legal teams delivering competent, more innovative, and well-rounded legal consultation.

But in-house legal departments that prioritize DEI tend to push their outside counsel to diversify the staff who are either managing or performing a certain percentage of billable hours. For example, in 2017, HP Inc. committed to docking fees if a law firm didn’t have at least one diverse staff managing or performing 10% or more of its work, and its policy hasn’t changed.

Under such directives, diverse associate attorneys may be tasked with at least some of the work on projects to demonstrate diversity to the end client. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are interacting firsthand with clients or receiving origination credit (e.g. financial rewards, typically awarded to partners, for bringing in new clients). The implication is that corporations’ well-intentioned supplier diversity efforts may not be as effective at promoting DEI within the law firms themselves as envisioned.

As law firms continue to increase diversity at the associate level, the hope is that diversity at the partner level will also significantly increase over the next several years. Law firms prioritizing DEI can consider creative strategies such as including diverse attorneys in deals and building in more opportunities for exposure to promote well-rounded and diverse talent—and, subsequently, partner-level status—for all members of the firm.

For more information about the 2023 DEI Framework, including the listing of member firms and overall aggregate report, as well as information on the 2024 DEI Framework timeline, click here.

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