7 minute read
DRIVING DIVERSITY WITH DATA
LEGAL DEPARTMENTS
DRIVING DIVERSITY WITH DATA
Advertisement
By Akshay Verma and Allen Lo, Meta
Despite years of focus on the subject, diversity, equity and inclusion (‘DEI’) in the legal profession remains a significant concern. The National Association for Law Placement’s (‘NALP’) most recent report reveals that the percentage of Black or African American law firm associates surpassed 5% for the first time since NALP began collecting data in 1993. This compares to 14.2% Black or African American in the U.S. population. While the share of associates who are Black women (3.04%) exceeded the 2009 figure of 2.93%, this means that over the past 11 years, representation of Black women at the associate level has increased by only 1/10th of a percentage point. The percentages for Black and Latinx partners are below 1% and 2%, respectively.
Akshay Verma Allen Lo
Diversity in equity partnership within the largest, most profitable firms in the country continues to be a challenge. Within the legal profession, equity partners – law firm leaders and decision-makers – are widely considered role models for law students and junior lawyers, making the need for diversity of backgrounds and perspectives within this group even more critical. Regardless of whether some firms move away from the ‘equity partnership’ terminology, we need to ensure there is progression by diverse lawyers into the highest ranks of partnership.
Given the importance of diversity in leadership, Meta Legal has made a commitment to drive changes in diversity in the equity partnership ranks of those firms that provide us with legal services. This is a first step in our journey to improve diversity in the legal industry overall.
Meta Legal implemented diversity requirements for all US-based firms into our Billing Guidelines in 2017. This means that at least 33% (now 50%) of attorneys staffed on our matters must be ‘diverse’ under the ABA definition and that diverse lawyers must be given ‘high-value’ opportunities on our matters, including substantive motions practice and arguments, secondments and serving as a relationship partner.
These opportunities provide diverse lawyers with important, substantive work and visibility, and assist them with developing and expanding their portfolios.
THE META DIVERSITY ALGORITHM
More than the Billing Guidelines
In an effort to track our progress and ensure accountability for change, we’ve developed an algorithm at Meta. Analysis of the data with a custom, evolving algorithm allows us to compare and contrast firms and recognize high performers. Who we measured and why With our goals and basic metrics in place, we decided to measure our top 40 US-based firms by spend to maximize our impact. How we collect data To be sensitive to the high volume of data requests many firms receive, our survey uses the same diversity criteria as the American Bar Association Model Diversity Survey, which many of our firms complete annually. Mirroring the ABA Model Survey creates consistency where possible; we also added a section that requires firms to provide data related specifically to their work on Meta matters.
Factors that Make Up the Algorithm
At inception, three main factors comprise the algorithm: (1) diverse staffing on matters; (2) diverse attorneys’ access to high-value opportunities; and (3) law firms’ broader DEI activities (e.g., a written diversity strategy, at least one diverse lawyer candidate in hiring decisions, etc.).
After our first year, we recognized the need to measure more directly whether we had made progress on our goal to see more diverse lawyers promoted to partnership. We subsequently added a fourth factor – the diversity makeup of the incoming partner class – as one of our measurement criteria.
We also added survey questions to better understand the diversity profile of lawyers who receive ‘origination credit’ for Meta matters. We intend to incorporate this metric into our algorithm over time. What the data shows us
In Year 1, most of our firms (30/40) satisfied our diversity requirements for staffing. The results in Year 2 demonstrated significant improvement, where nearly all firms (39/40) met our minimum staffing requirements. This time, the average diversity makeup of the teams was 63%, a 19% increase from Year 1. The top performing firms in Year 2 distinguished themselves by providing more higher value opportunities to diverse lawyers working on our matters.
LEGAL DEPARTMENTS
These trends improved in Year 3, where all firms (40/40) met our minimum diverse timekeeper requirements. Again, the top performing firms distinguished themselves by providing more higher value opportunities to diverse counsel working on our matters.
Most recently, we revised our algorithm to weigh more heavily the staffing and leadership opportunities given to Black, Latinx and LGBTQ+ attorneys and gave greater weight to firms who assigned a diverse relationship partner to Meta.
GOING BEYOND THE METRICS
Collaboration for Change: The importance of ‘doing more’ than giving an award
Each year, our collection and scoring of diversity data culminates in the naming of a Law Firm Diversity Champion. In addition to the overall winner, we also recognize the next three highest scoring firms. Annual Diversity Debriefs with Our Firms
After our inaugural recognition event in June 2019, we embarked on a several months-long debrief conversation with each of the 40 firms that we surveyed. We shared with each firm their rankings and provided specific and actionable suggestions for them to improve. Our approach for creating accountability is based on the premise that we’re far more likely to change behavior by providing context, creating empathy and bringing our firms along on the journey. The meetings with our firms also revealed some key learning lessons.
First and foremost, almost every single firm told us that many of their clients had started to request diversity data, and that some asked for this data more than once a year. Despite these requests, there was little or nothing happening in the way of feedback or constructive conversations about the data supplied. Our firms told us that while scoring, ranking and recognition are important, understanding our long-term vision helps them to structure their own efforts around diversity.
Our firms also shared that staffing requests from clients increase opportunities for diverse lawyers. Based on this feedback, we now encourage our lawyers to make specific staffing requests for matters.
Our firms also pointed out that there had been several instances where clients were presented with a strong diverse lawyer for a high-value matter and selected a non-diverse lawyer instead. This highlighted the need for us to create awareness in our legal department and started an important internal conversation about our own role in improving diversity in the profession. Pipeline Programs
Separate from the law firm conversations, we wanted to launch a set of initiatives that would improve the diversity pipeline for the legal profession, as well as foster additional opportunities to develop diverse lawyers.
In 2019, we partnered with our inaugural champion, Kilpatrick Townsend, to launch the Legal Scholars Program on the West Coast. This is a two-day event that gives incoming diverse 1Ls insights and a primer to law school before they start classes. We have also launched a Summer Associate Program, which gives diverse rising 2L students an opportunity to shadow a Meta attorney for two weeks while attending seminars and networking events to get an inside view of in-house legal work.
Lastly, we launched the LeaderSHIP Connections program, which pairs diverse mid-level and senior associates with Meta lawyers so the associates can further develop client relationships and deepen their understanding of our business. Our hope is that more junior lawyers are able to leverage this experience when it comes time for them to make partner at their firms.
WHAT COMES NEXT?
At Meta, we believe that holding ourselves and our law firms accountable is the way forward – and that data can enable us. We’ve seen the benefit of continued iteration – the metrics we measure, the weight that we allocate to different data we collect and how we push our firms to change – as a critical component to make progress toward our goal of improving diversity within the equity partnership ranks in the AmLaw 100.
We have and will continue to learn more about our own efforts and results. We are excited to see our law firms make improvements on our metrics each year and we will continue to push them to do even better. We hope to work with other in-house departments to measure and track progress, and ensure accountability for creating more diversity and driving meaningful change in our profession.
