Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat from Missouri, speaks during an interview in Washington, D.C., on March 25, 2015. Republicans blocking the confirmation of U.S. attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch risk playing into a theme that their opposition to President Barack Obama is based on race, Cleaver said. (Photo: David Banks/Bloomberg) Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Missouri, in March 2015. (Photo: David Banks/Bloomberg)

The innovation that comes with working in a technology company should also be used to find ways to promote diversity and inclusion in-house and with outside counsel, a Missouri congressman and the CEO of Diversity Lab said in interviews with Corporate Counsel following a panel earlier this week in Washington, D.C.

"Tech companies are built on innovation, problem-solving, risk-taking, nimbleness and the ability to fail fast and reboot," Caren Ulrich Stacy, CEO of Diversity Lab, said. "They embrace these traits for software development and [artificial intelligence], so they should be able to do the same as they work to create and sustain diverse and inclusive workplaces."

Diversity Lab has long challenged both in-house counsel and the firms they work with to find ways to be more inclusive in their hiring. First by creating the Mansfield Rule for law firms and earlier this year by launching the pilot program of the Mansfield Rule for in-house counsel.

The trend of diversity is spreading, and earlier this week Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Missouri, held a panel of in-house counsel from tech companies to learn more about what they do to foster diversity and inclusion.

"It has been frustrating to speak to companies who have overlooked legal issues that an advisor with an elementary understanding of marginalized communities would have understood," Cleaver said in an email to Corporate Counsel. "My colleagues and I have had numerous conversations with tech companies on their stated efforts to diversify their workforces, and it is crystal clear to me that the diversity of in-house counsel and outside legal counsel is a critical component of that discussion."

Cleaver said the panel was a follow-up to a survey that Democratic Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey, G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina, Robin Kelly of Illinois and Barbara Lee of California, and Cleaver sent in June to tech companies requesting information on how they plan to diversify legal counsel.

Stacy, who sat on the panel in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, said it is clear that many companies want to help foster diversity but have differing opinions on how to best do so.

"Luckily, companies such as HP, Dell, Intel and Microsoft are sharing their intentional actions and measuring the results, so we will soon know which approaches generate the best outcomes," Stacy said.

Along with Stacy, the panel entitled "Tech Meets Law: How Big Tech is Diversifying Representation and Promoting Diversity in Law" included Jason Barnwell, assistant general counsel of legal business, operations, and strategy at Microsoft Corp.; Jean Lee, president and CEO at Minority Corporate Counsel Association; Christophe Mosby, associate general counsel at HP Inc.; John Murdock, chair at National Association of Minority and Women Owned Law Firms, or NAMWOLF; and Kelly Walton, vice president of legal at Dell Inc.

Cleaver and Stacy have formed an informal dialogue group on best practices for diversity and inclusion. Cleaver said he plans to distribute the ideas to companies for adoption in the future and hopes to challenge tech companies to come up with ways to be more inclusive.

"I have challenged tech companies to be bold and innovative in solutions to progress legal diversity," Cleaver said. "Tech companies are seen as nimble and innovative and I believe will continue to be a key test bed for legal diversity proposals going forward. However, some tech company legal departments are moving the ball down the field and others are at home watching on the couch."

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