Five law firms have joined together with 26 general counsel to establish a $5 million fund for research initiatives and programs designed to address the lack of diversity in the legal profession.

Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe; Goodwin Procter; Eversheds Sutherland; and Stoel Rives have agreed to participate in the project along with the 26 GCs, who hail from such corporations as Bloomberg, Ford Motor Co., Starbucks and 3M, among others. A fifth law firm will be chosen through a blind application and selection processes.

Dubbed the "Move The Needle Fund," the pool of money will be used to incubate new approaches to tackling the pernicious issue of diversity within law firms, especially at the equity level. The goal is to boost retention, promotion and opportunities for women, minorities and others to make the profession more diverse.

The law firms are setting public goals that are measurable and will be tracked. They'll report on their progress via a website over the next five years.

Each participating firm has developed a five-year plan setting its own goals in the area of diversity. In the early stages, the firms will work closely with Diversity Lab and its data team to identify the firm's relevant shortfalls and strengths. Then, each firm will develop a handful of programs to address its goal while sharing their successes and failures.

Stoel Rives is targeting retention rates and aims to improve the retention rate of its "diverse attorneys" so it matches the rate of its nondiverse attorneys by 2025. To achieve this goal, the firm will have to raise its retention rate for "diverse attorneys" by 40%.

Goodwin wants the firm's senior associates and partners elevated within the next five years to reflect or exceed the diversity of its first-year associate class, which will, in turn, reflect the diversity rate of graduating law school classes: 50% women and 33% racial and ethnic minorities. Additionally, the firm wants to ensure that the collective composition of all firm leadership committees will be at least 40% diverse.

By 2025, Eversheds Sutherland plans to increase its partnership to 33% female and 15% ethnically and racially diverse.

Orrick is focusing on clients for its diversity goal, pledging to have 40 of its most strategic clients served by teams that are "at a minimum 55% diverse" by 2025.

Orrick chairman Mitch Zuklie said that the collaborative approach — with Diversity Lab, other firms and clients — is a vitally important aspect of this initiative.

"It gives us a chance to work with leaders both in-house and at other firms to understand what's working for them and what's not," he said.

Goodwin chairman David Hashmall said that setting public goals will be more beneficial in the long run, as opposed to the traditional approach of privately hashing out diversity benchmarks.

"We're also going out there with a public goal, which is a risk," Hashmall said. "But I believe that going public will give greater urgency and strength to our efforts."

Stoel Rives managing partner-elect Melissa Jones said the business case for diversity is evident.

"Our clients value variety of experience and viewpoint and they are insisting upon more diverse talent in their outside counsel. It is crucial to the success of our profession to continue to collaborate with organizations like Diversity Lab."

GCs and their legal departments have also committed to a few collective actions, including increasing the pipeline of junior lawyers of diverse backgrounds; committing significant legal spend to diverse law firm teams and providing new business opportunities; and requiring current outside counsel to provide annual diversity data and rewarding compliance to diversity goals.

Additionally, more than 25 founding GCs are asking other legal departments to join them in their collective action by 2020.