This is reflected in the number of men and women who fall into our emerging and associated categories, who are either in gender parity or close to parity for these categories, although the numbers have almost doubled compared to a few years ago. As the generational shift in the legal industry begins and these women and different lawyers appear in the digital tapes, we hope to see a more balanced representation of men and women as they enter the prime of their lives, which will be reflected again in the guide. The results are disturbing and underscore the lingering consequences of implicit bias in the legal sector. There will also be many other factors at play, including the psychologically self-limiting effects of impostor syndrome and the difficulty of imagining a future in partnership when there are few who look like who you are. All have serious implications for law firms` ability to retain their diverse lawyers, but as our survey results show, the careers of black and African-American lawyers are particularly affected. To learn more about how to grow your law firm through ethical legal marketing, watch this webinar. It`s no wonder, then, that the introduction of innovative hiring and retention strategies tops the list of emerging trends through 2022. M&R has already made a splash in this category with its recent announcement on partner compensation. Given our mission that our employees see us not only as an arbitrary place to practice law, but also as a law firm where careers are built and passions are realized, we have significantly adjusted our pay scale upwards and made M&R employees the highest paid in the legal industry starting in 2022.
What does it mean to be truly diverse and inclusive and how can we bring the legal profession into it? Diversity does not mean having a few ethnic or other minorities in the office. Nor is it an all-minority group. This means having people from different cultures, experiences, and backgrounds at all levels of a law firm. While not the complete answer, true diversity and inclusion in the legal profession requires more than simply checking the required boxes on a checklist or survey. They require more than mere speeches. They demand action from leaders downwards. In addition to measures to increase the number of minorities in law schools, law firms and professional associations, it is also important to implement educational programs that increase awareness among members of the legal profession of issues such as biases (explicit and implicit) in the workplace and strategies to eliminate them. Some states, such as Minnesota, require lawyers to complete legal education programs (CLEs) that address these types of issues — something all states should include in their CLE program requirements. To achieve this, a rising tide of GC is looking for legal service providers such as M&Rs that have specificities, even niches, and who can offer higher-level deliverables. The benefits of hiring such a consultant are manifold. Lawyers who foot the bill are able to easily identify not only legal concerns, but also broader business issues, meaning that dollars spent on legal purposes can actually benefit the company`s goals. With regard to racial and ethnic diversity in the legal field, the figures paint an even bleaker picture.
For example, according to the ABA`s National Avocado Population Survey, 4 percent of working lawyers identified as black or African American and 4 percent as Hispanic or Latino in 2007. By 2017, these figures had increased only slightly to 5% each. However, data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau shows that in 2016, black or African American people made up 13.3 percent of the total U.S. population and Hispanic or Latino people made up 17.8 percent of the total U.S. population. The percentage of active avocados who identified as Asian remained stable at 2 percent, and those who identified as Native American remained at about 1 percent. These numbers sometimes vary slightly from one reporting agency to another, but the fact that these minorities are woefully underrepresented in the legal profession is obvious, no matter where you look. Find out what our research on this U.S. legal market has learned this year about gender and diversity trends and their importance in the legal industry.
In the meantime, some progress has been made. For example, the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association launched a new “20×20” initiative in 2015 to enable 20 Asian American lawyers to become general counsel in Fortune 500 companies by 2020. Many companies also apply the Mansfield Rule, which requires that 30% of candidates to lead a company be from minorities and women. The ABA passed Resolution 113, which “calls on all legal service providers, including law firms and corporations, to expand and create opportunities at all levels of responsibility for various lawyers.” Many clients now require law firms to bring a diverse group to do business, and will also require these different people to bill for their business. These are good first steps, but it`s important to remember that that`s exactly what they are – the first steps. We must not be lulled into complacency. We must continue to move towards our shared goal of achieving true diversity and inclusion in the legal profession. As with most goals, there is no “right” way to achieve them, but to succeed, the strategy must be multidimensional and multidimensional and, above all, shaped to a large extent by the voices of the minority population.