View of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., on June 6, amid nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

Close to two dozen major law firms have announced work holidays June 19—known as Juneteenth—to commemorate the end of U.S. slavery and to encourage employees to reflect on racism. Other firms will likely follow suit this year, eager to signal their commitment to racial justice amid the protests sparked by George Floyd's death.

A handful of those firms have gone further and vowed to make Juneteenth a permanent holiday—suggesting a new industry standard in the making even as deep racial imbalances persist in Big Law.

So far Akerman; Foley Hoag; Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; and Seyfarth Shaw are among those confirming that June 19 will remain a paid holiday at their firms beyond 2020. Other firms held open the possibility, saying they haven't made that decision yet.

"The day should be marked to provide a time of deep reflection for all Americans, not just persons and communities of color, and not just in 2020, but going forward," said Paul Weiss chairman Brad Karp. "If our nation's history has taught us anything, it is that the fight for racial justice is never-ending, filled with daunting challenges and obstacles, and we must never let down our guard. Commemorating Juneteenth each year is an important step in the quest for racial justice, in my view."

Observing Juneteenth is one step law firms can take to show their commitment, said Scott Meyers, Akerman's chairman and CEO.

"Culture is what you do, not just what you say," Meyers said.

Other firms marking the day as a holiday this year, such as Sidley Austin and Ropes & Gray, said Monday that they hadn't decided yet whether to also close June 19 in future years. But both Michael Schmidtberger and David Djaha, the chair of Sidley's executive committee and managing partner of Ropes & Gray, respectively, said their firms will commemorate Juneteenth in the future. It just may not be a work holiday, they said.

"We're going to want to evaluate the best way we can support the concerns of our people, and it very well may be to make it a permanent holiday," Schmidtberger said. "But I don't know that yet."

The holiday commemorates June 19, 1865, when a Union general declared in Galveston, Texas, that all slaves in the state were free, two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

Given the enduring racial imbalances at law firms—particularly when it comes to African Americans, and particularly at the partner level—some are cynical about the rush to publicly embrace Juneteenth.

Recognizing the holiday is a positive step but accomplishes nothing on its own, said Donald Prophete, a senior name partner at Constangy Brooks Smith & Prophete who has voiced skepticism about diversity efforts in the industry. He said he doesn't want to people "to simply accept these very small, menial, inconsequential changes and just put lipstick on the pig."

Prophete wants to see corporations hiring outside counsel of color and then spending "real money" on their services. Prophete said lawyers of color get less than 1% of the business that's sent to law firms, which affects their ability to rise through the ranks.

The number of lawyers of color working at Am Law 200 firms remains stubbornly low, increasing by just 3.9% over the last decade, according to The American Lawyer's 2020 Diversity Scorecard. And there is fear that the decisions law firms have taken to stay afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic could reset some of that limited progress.

The Diversity Scorecard showed Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton as the Big Law firm with the greatest percentage of African American lawyers, with 8.4% last year, and the proportion at most firms is far smaller. In 2019, the percentage of black or African American law associates working in large law firms finally—and barely—surpassed its 2009 level, according to a 2019 study from the National Association of Legal Placement.

That same study found that "the overall arc of the storyline for large law firm diversity remains the same—it is one of slow incremental gains for women and people of color in both the associate and partnership ranks, interrupted by some recession-era setbacks, but at a rate so slow as to almost seem imperceptible at times."

For some, like Prophete, those kinds of imbalances overshadow moves to designate a holiday. "Us sharing a burger on Juneteenth is not that relevant to me," he said.

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