Participants in Diversity Lab's Hackathon, held on July 11, 2024. Photo: Luke DiCola/Diversity Lab Diversity Pros Hope Work Allocation Offers a Key to Building Inclusive Law Firms
Three of the four winning projects at a recent hackathon organized by Diversity Lab focused on the fair distribution of work.
July 31, 2024 at 05:22 PM
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The original version of this story was published on The American Lawyer
What You Need to Know
- DEI remains a hot topic in Big Law despite social and political headwinds.
- Diversity Lab's third hackathon brought together Big Law attorneys and in-house counsel to come up with ideas to further diversity efforts in the workplace and talent pool.
- Among the four winners selected in the hackathon, three focused on equitable work allocation.
It's not an easy time to be a diversity, equity and inclusion professional, in the legal world or elsewhere, with the topic garnering significant legal, political and social pushback over the past year. But the involvement of more than 100 lawyers and in-house counsel in a DEI Hackathon organized by Diversity Lab reveals that the subject is far from dead in Big Law.
"I wanted to get involved in a project that could benefit the legal profession as a whole. … As a partner at a Big Law firm, I feel a moral responsibility to improve the profession and make it better for everybody," Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe finance enforcement and litigation partner Jay Williams, one of the winners of the hackathon, said about his decision to participate in the program. Other firms whose personnel participated included K&L Gates, Holland & Knight and Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr.
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