Pictured, from left, are Carlos Davila-Caballero, director of diversity and inclusion at Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett; Eduardo Santiago-Acevedo, vice president and senior regulatory counsel at Prudential Financial; and Heather Nevitt, editor-in-chief at Corporate Counsel.

One of the best ways to get the C-suite to sign on to diversity and inclusion initiatives is to show how they can be beneficial for business, a panel at Corporate Counsel's 2019 General Counsel Conference in New York said Thursday.

Eduardo Santiago-Acevedo, senior regulatory counsel at Prudential Financial Inc., said showing the C-suite the numbers for potential growth with diverse attorneys can motivate leaders to invest in hiring those attorneys. He said law firms do not look good in front of clients with a team of white male attorneys, and neither do business executives when boasting a non-diverse legal department.

"One of the things I've seen is CEOs and boards are getting more and more questions [about diversity and inclusion]," Santiago-Acevedo said. "It's a winning proposition to show that you're doing all you can."

Carlos Davila-Caballero, director of diversity and inclusion at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York, said besides showing numbers and the prospect for growth, he has found qualitative data has also been useful in discussing the benefits of having a diverse staff of attorneys.

"Having people on the ground is the first step," Davila-Caballero said. "The general counsel will begin to see the difference."

Prudential helps promote diverse law firm attorneys through a spotlight program, Santiago-Acevedo said. He explained Prudential's firms select up to two attorneys whom they help to develop and the legal department makes sure to give those attorneys work they may not otherwise get.

"We want the people in the room to create value and be engaged," Santiago-Acevedo said.

Davila-Caballero said when legal departments overlook diverse candidates or fail to find ways to include them on matters they are losing out on talent.

"There is talent out there. Forty percent of summer classes identify as a part of an underrepresented group," Davila-Caballero said. "You're bleeding talent."

One of the challenges to experimenting with different ways to attract and retain diverse attorneys, Davila-Caballero said, is the legal industry's risk-averse nature.

"You live in a world that lives in precedent," Davila-Caballero said.