Two Atlanta-based firms, Eversheds Sutherland and Morris, Manning & Martin, are among the 64 firms this year to achieve an innovative diversity milestone, the Mansfield Rule.

That means that at least 30% of the candidates these firms considered over the last year for leadership and governance roles, equity partner promotions and lateral partner positions were women, lawyers of color or LGBTQ lawyers.

The Mansfield Rule, an initiative in its second year, is catching on. Twelve national firms with Atlanta offices met the Mansfield Rule this year compared with only nine last year. Besides Eversheds and Morris Manning, firms with Atlanta offices that are now Mansfield certified include: Akerman; Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner; Dentons; DLA Piper; Finnegan; Fish & Richardson; Holland & Knight; Littler Mendelson; Seyfarth Shaw; and Womble Bond Dickinson.

Womble's Atlanta managing partner, Joel Pieper, said the firm put a lot of effort into meeting the Mansfield Rule. "We want to have a collegial and inclusive culture that allows people from diverse backgrounds to collaborate and flourish," he said.

Last year, when the program launched, only 41 firms nationally achieved the certification from legal consultancy Diversity Lab, out of roughly 50 that signed up for the pilot project. The Diversity Lab announced this year's results earlier this week.

The Diversity Lab broadened the criteria of diverse lawyers this year to include LGBTQ lawyers–and it also added representation of diverse lawyers in client pitch meetings to the 30% criteria.

This year, Morris Manning and Eversheds Sutherland also were among 51 participating firms to achieve "Mansfield Certification Plus" for having either women, lawyers of color or LGBTQ lawyers actually make up 30% of its leadership. 

"Sometimes it is difficult to measure the results of your efforts," said Simon Malko, Morris Manning's managing partner. "Achieving the Mansfield certifications helps us see, quantitatively, that we are headed in the right direction." 

National firms with Atlanta offices that also achieved plus certification for the Mansfield Rule were: Bryan Cave; Dentons; DLA Piper; Finnegan; Fish & Richardson; Holland & Knight; and Littler Mendelson. 

To achieve the Mansfield Rule objectives, firms had to set up processes to track their talent pipelines. Before participating, only 12% of the firms were tracking their candidate pools for leadership roles and only 25% were tracking them for lateral partner hiring. Now, 100% of participating firms are tracking candidate pools for these categories, according to the Diversity Lab.

This story has been updated to reflect that Akerman is one of the firms with an Atlanta office that met the Mansfield Rule this year.