Credit: William Brown

Clients will continue to push the pace of progress at law firms in the new year, urging them to diversify their ranks and, in turn, find new methods to recruit the right lawyers.

There has been significant movement in the diversity space of late, after more than 200 general counsel, led by Turo chief legal officer Michelle Fang, catalyzed a broad client push to bring more diverse teams into their matters last year.

Yusuf Zakir, director of diversity and inclusion at Holland & Knight, says client pressure isn't going away anytime soon, and firms will have to continue to improve or risk losing business.

"More clients than not will be making those demands, and we will reach a tipping point that will require firms to make structural changes," Zakir says.

One major change he's expecting is a re-examination of how firms expect attorneys to fit with their culture, a theme of this year's annual conference of the Association of Law Firm Diversity Professionals.

"Traditionally at law firms, we've tended to think of the concept of 'fit.' I think that's fading with time," Zakir says. "We know that that sort of thinking leads to biased decision-making. Firms are going to move toward allowing people to be themselves in their space."

The push to diversify teams will also bring wholesale changes to the recruiting and interview process, experts say. Four years ago, Thompson Hine collaborated with a team of social scientists and experts to revamp their interview process in an attempt to remove pernicious unconscious bias. Partners were given a personality test, which was then fed to the scientists to develop an index of traits that successful partners exhibit.

Candidates applying to the firm are asked to take a personality and legal writing test. Results are then overlaid on a "success index" to see how their behaviors align with empirically proven successful traits. Candidates are then brought in for two rounds of interviews, beginning with a single, structured interview and a paneled interview where each candidate is asked the same set of questions.

All these steps are taken to ensure that the interview process involves as little implicit bias as possible, says Thompson Hine's chief talent officer Andy Colón.

The first summer associate class that went through the new interview process was the most diverse the firm has ever had, Colón says. Around 70% of the 2L class was racially diverse. The numbers stayed strong, with 60% of the following year's class being racially diverse.

"Assuming that summer associates are offered a position, we'll have a wonderful pipeline in the coming years," he said. "It has worked so well that we extended it to all non-partner hires, including laterals."

Colón spoke about the new process, which has been standard for more than a decade among the Big Four accounting firms, at a conference panel in April attended by more than 200 law firm leaders. Nobody raised a hand when asked if their own firms employed a similar system. But Colón believes more firms will adopt the process in the coming year.

Milbank's extremely early announcement of their associate bonuses in the first week of November is a signal that the battle for talent will not subside in the year to come. Experts, including Harvard Law School professor Scott Westfahl, suggest that firms are looking to woo top talent, not just by raising salaries but by meaningfully changing their work experience.

Whether it be better parental leave or robust training programs, firms will look to differentiate themselves in ways more sustainable and long term than raises, he says. Another interesting trend the industry will likely see in 2020 is an emphasis on allowing attorneys to unplug when they're on vacation.

"Professionals in corporate law firms are expecting that they're going to work hard and understand that," Westfahl says. "What firms have not been able to achieve is giving junior people more predictability in their work schedules. And the ability to disengage and be offline—truly offline."