Ten years ago, Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft Corp. pushed its outside counsel to increase firm diversity with a departmentwide initiative.

On Tuesday, Microsoft general counsel Dev Stahlkopf reflected on a decade of the company's program, which gives participating firms a bonus if they meet diversity goals around staffing and leadership.

“We did this to ensure that the legal profession caught up to others when it came to including diverse voices,” Stahlkopf said in a blog post. “We believe it's very important that the lawyers working on our matters, as well as our key firms as a whole, reflect the diversity of our customers and other important stakeholders, such as judges and juries.”

She said the number of hours worked by diverse attorneys on Microsoft matters increased from 33.6 percent to 58.3 percent since the initiative began. Microsoft defines diverse as “attorneys who are female, racial and ethnic minorities, openly LGBT, people with disabilities and veterans.”

Three years ago, the company set goals around firm leadership to encourage diversity at the top. Since then, diversity on management committees increased 31.2 percent to 39.7 percent. Diversity in partner ranks increased from 33.2 percent to 35.9 percent. Microsoft had a diverse first or second chair in 90 percent of litigation matters “large enough to be subject to bidding.”

Of the 13 participating firms, more than 80 percent earn a bonus for hitting diversity targets each year.

The participating firms include Arent Fox; Covington & Burling; Davis Wright Tremaine; Fish & Richardson; Greenberg Traurig; K&L Gates; Latham & Watkins; Merchant & Gould; Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe; Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; Perkins Coie; Sidley Austin and Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett.

Stahlkopf announced Davis Wright Tremaine as the top performer in the 2018 Law Firm Diversity Program.

“I'm proud to recognize Davis Wright Tremaine (DWT) as the top performer in the 2018 Law Firm Diversity Program,” she said. “DWT met or surpassed expectations for all of this year's Law Firm Diversity Program metrics, which focused on management committee diversity, firmwide partnership diversity and diversity of the partners working on Microsoft matters.”

The percentage of hours worked by diverse attorneys at Davis Wright for Microsoft jumped from 45 percent to 60 percent. Davis Wright also increased the percentage of hours worked by diverse partners on Microsoft matters from 39 percent to more than 50 percent.

Still, Stahlkopf acknowledged those numbers are not perfect.

“We've seen progress and measurable successes, but we know there is more to do as long as women and minorities are still underrepresented in the legal field,” she said.

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