Leila Hock, director of legal department partnerships and inclusion initiatives at Diversity Lab.

Last July, Diversity Lab launched the pilot program for its Mansfield Rule: Legal Department Edition. The program asked the 22 participants, which included PayPal Holdings Inc. and Uber Technologies Inc., to consider 50% of underrepresented groups for internal roles and when hiring outside counsel. The in-house participants were asked to track that data and report it back to Diversity Lab throughout the year.

Leila Hock, director of legal department partnerships and inclusion initiatives at Diversity Lab, said legal departments are in the process of mailing in certifications, and corporations are signing up for the Mansfield Rule: Legal Department Edition 2.0. The second version of the program will extend the certification time from one to two years.

The data from the pilot version of the program has not been finalized, but Hock said the program was not severely impacted by COVID-19. Hock spoke to Corporate Counsel about lessons learned during the first year of the program, how the next version has changed, and the importance of keeping up with diversity and inclusion efforts during the pandemic.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Corporate Counsel: How did COVID-19 impact the pilot program of the Mansfield Rule: Legal Department Edition?

Leila Hock: The way it's structured, it didn't actually impact the certification requirement that much because the requirements are more around hiring. We ask the legal departments and because of the knowledge-sharing calls, they're careful about any restricting decisions with a diversity lens. It doesn't affect the parameters.

We shifted the tones of our conversations such as supporting diverse lawyers while working remotely. However, the rule itself was not really impacted.

CC: Did any legal departments ask to be dropped from the pilot because of COVID-19?

LH: They did not. I do know a couple [of legal departments] that have had some hard decisions throughout. About half of our pilot participants have registered for the 2.0 version. The deadline is next week, and I think most of the legal departments will sign up again.

CC: What are some of the differences between the pilot and the 2.0 version?

LH: We have lengthened the certification for the legal departments from one year to two years. Part of that is to accommodate for less hiring that legal departments do than law firms and give them more opportunities for them to actually implement the rule. I think it is going to be great timing with the market slowdown because many legal departments may not be hiring for the first year.

In addition to the 50% diverse candidate pool, we are asking the legal departments to track those candidate pools on a disaggregated basis. Rather than track those candidate pools at a lump sum, we want them to have some visibility into the diversity of their diversity so they see the gaps in particular populations that they may be missing when they're promoting or hiring.

CC: What were some of the major lessons learned through the pilot program?

LH: One was that they don't hire as much [as law firms], which caused the change of the certification period. Legal departments have a lot of support. Some of the legal departments were part of organizations that have a diverse candidate pool requirement already and they just needed to match that with the Mansfield Rule.

CC: What are some of the challenges in implementing and maintaining in-house diversity and inclusion during the pandemic?

LH: One is unconscious bias. Unconscious bias is more prevalent in unprecedented times when we're asking legal departments and law firms to move very quickly. It has more of a chance to creep in. Moving slowly is really important to combat unconscious bias. That's one of the things that the Mansfield Rule does so well. It forces participants to move slower.

What we expect to see is unconscious bias creep into work advancement, work opportunities and layoff decisions.

Another issue is visibility. This is the first time for many employees where they are working remotely and their teams are working remotely. They don't have that day-to-day interaction and diverse candidates become literally invisible and may miss out on opportunities that they could have had access to if they were in the office. Really paying attention to your teams by working closely with them and making sure that everyone is getting the right work that they will need to advance is super important.

On the resources side, we know that "nonessential" programming is being cut. We don't think that diversity and inclusion is nonessential. It does take more resources to implement and do it well. Firms and legal departments are going to make sure they have those resources and continue to collect and track the data. It's easy to think that this is something you can just take your foot off the gas then just put it back on when you have the resources again. That's not how diversity works. We saw that from the 2008-09 recession. It takes much more time to get us back to where we were if we just stop. We have to keep this consistent pressure on diversity and inclusion programs.

CC: Have you noticed that companies are more conscious of keeping up with those efforts because of the ground lost following the Great Recession?

LH: I think it's a combination of lessons learned. Since then we have better structures in place and we have firmer commitments from legal departments saying we require this of our law firms and we require this of ourselves. It's harder to pull back on firm programs and structure than it is to pull back on statements such as, "We care about diversity."

The work that we've done over the past 10 years has been super important in laying down a strong foundation and baking it into peoples' processes. I don't think we'll see legal departments lifting their commitments to diversity and inclusion.