The legal profession talks a lot about diversity and goals for reaching parity, but it's sometimes hard to detect progress.

Coral Gables attorney Tiffany Hendricks is the only black woman at her 21-attorney law firm, which is 29 percent female.

“I definitely feel like it's still a very white-male-dominated profession, and I don't think I get any perks for being a black woman at all,” said the litigation and corporate associate at Perlman, Bajandas, Yevoli & Albright.

On the gender front, a 2016 Florida Bar survey of female attorneys offered cringe-worthy examples of widespread sexism in the justice system, with 43 percent of respondents reporting personal experience with gender bias. On the financial side, the survey found just 18 percent of equity partners at major law firms are women, indicating a gender penalty is in play on promotions.

“There definitely is some good ol' boy mentality in the legal profession,” Hendricks said, and she senses lingering sexism in court. “I've never had any judge say anything ridiculous to me.” But higher-ups have assigned her to appear before a male judge who's considered a flirt and, she's been told,  would like to see “a pretty face.”

In some ways, she considers that part of the territory.

“If you're going to be a lawyer, you've got to be tough,” said Hendricks, who joined the firm in October 2015 after starting as a law clerk. “We're paid to battle.”

The 85-attorney Roig Lawyers, which is known for its insurance defense litigation work, is a diversity exemplar in South Florida, leading in the top measures of diversity in a report published by the Daily Business Review last June.

The Deerfield Beach-based firm ranked highest in the percentage of female attorneys at 55 percent, female partners at 26 percent, female associates at 63 percent, minority attorneys at 44 percent and minority partners at 26 percent.

Roig attorney Julie Harris Nelson in Miami is a member of the Florida Bar's diversity and inclusion committee. She said the firm has no diversity committee, but she credits the example and core values set by founding partner Fernando Roig.

“You have a lot of the individual attorneys that participate in many different organizations that have a goal of diversity and inclusion in mind,” said Nelson, an African-American partner in her ninth year at the firm. “We take pride in going out to the community, and we're a part of the community.”

Diverse attorneys know they can expect to get high-level courtroom experience at the firm, she said.

“We are not afraid to show and express our diversity in the courtroom,” she said. “A lot of times, you will see many of our lawyers, female lawyers in particular, going in and trying cases and arguing motions for summary judgment. That's isn't something that is delegated to just a small group of people.”

​The 49-attorney Siegfried, Rivera, Hyman, Lerner, De La Torre, Mars & Sobel has three South Florida offices in Coral Gables, Plantation and West Palm Beach.​ ​The firm has found that attorneys with diverse backgrounds are attracted by flexible employment arrangements and the firm's ability to demonstrate a track record of success for minorities.

For example, the firm accepted 31​-year-old attorney Nicole Kurtz's request to ​keep her as a full-time ​attorney after she moved from Miami to Orlando ​even though the firm doesn't have a​n office in Central Florida. And senior associate Ivette Blanch​, who is in her early 30s, transitioned at her request to part-time status after becoming a mother.

NATIONAL LEADERS

​Newly designated Bilzin Sumberg managing partner-elect Albert Dotson Jr. and Greenspoon Marder chief diversity officer Evett Simmons, both African-Americans, have been longtime diversity leaders. Their roles include Dotson's service as chairman of 100 Black Men of America and Simmons' term as president of the National Bar Association, the nation's largest national network of African-American attorneys.

Both see diversity as very much a work in progress.

“Focusing on diversity is never an objective we achieve​,” Dotson said. “It's something that ​you live by and constantly try to improve to reflect the community in which ​you're doing business. It's not something that we say we achieved 10 years a​go.”

Simmons conceded, ”I'm frustrated to be honest with you.” Thinking back to her bar association leadership in 2000, she said, “It's like we're going backward instead of forward.”

Jackson Lewis principal Pedro Torres-Diaz in Miami, immediate past president of the Hispanic National Bar Association, said he shares Simmons' frustration.

“If you ask the national presidents of all the diverse bars, I think they will tell you the same thing,” he said, noting Latinos represent only 4 percent of all lawyers compared with 17 percent of the population.

Torres-Diaz is focused on retention rates and opportunities at Big Law firms and in-house law posts. He wants mentoring to be replaced by championing to ensure advancement. And he's counting on CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion, an executive-driven diversity group, to force law firms to be more accountable on diversity.

All three former leaders of national diversity groups are still pushing, and the legal pipeline is a key vehicle.

​”A key thing that we try to do is deal with the pipeline because if you can't get people of color into the pipeline, then it's kind of hard to get them into the firms,” Simmons said.

For the 17 years since she was NBA president, the firm has sponsored a summer law camp at Howard University, and the mock trial competition bears Simmons' name. ​She helped start a scholarship program through the Sarasota Community Foundation for law students, and one recipient became as associate at the firm.

Even if the pipeline doesn't deliver new attorneys to Greenspoon Marder, she said, “If they have an opportunity to broaden their horizons to better reflect the community we serve, then we are ahead of the game.”

Bilzin Sumberg ranked second among South Florida law firms in key measures in the DBR's 2017 diversity special report. Dotson noted his firm participates in the Street Law program partnering law firms with diverse high school law classes and offering the potential for more when students show a strong interest in pursuing legal careers.

Hendricks said her minority friends in law are “tired of the diversity talk” and in part see it as a generational problem with attorneys in their late 40s and older. She believes younger attorneys “are just attuned to equality in general” and can't wait to put issues of gender and minority diversity behind them.