The Heat Is On: How Law Firms Should Respond to the Increased Calls for Diversity from Clients: Part Two
Part one of this series focused on how law firms can meet the increasing diversity and inclusion expectations of their clients by recognizing that improving…
September 13, 2017 at 02:06 AM
10 minute read
The original version of this story was published on Law.com
Part one of this series focused on how law firms can meet the increasing diversity and inclusion expectations of their clients by recognizing that improving diversity and inclusion is an organizational issue, assessing how the structures within the firm can suppress diversity rather than foster it, and holding leaders accountable for failing to meet the diversity goals of the firm. The series continues with further exploration into organizational strategies to help firms address calls for improved diversity.
Invest in long-term strategies
It is not uncommon that a crisis, exodus or other wake-up moment precipitates change. We must resist implementing quick solutions that end up short-changing long-term strategies to embed inclusion into our practices and culture. Quick fixes and measures to have quick results are not bad. For example, consider my efforts to be healthy: I am cutting the amount of carbohydrates I am ingesting, and I am also increasing my exercise and behaviors during the work day from movement to packing my lunch. My efforts include short-term investments and long-term strategies that involve commitment, planning, and new habits. Similarly, short term + long term + consistency + education + accountability = the diversity and inclusion results we want. We can hire laterals to increase diversity, but we must address our culture and leadership to keep those laterals. We can create a bold goal of increasing diversity hiring by 50 percent, for example, but we must invest in development programs to invest and develop these attorneys and support them effectively to success. We must have a plan that goes beyond now. We can send everyone to implicit bias training but we must follow up with organizational changes to promote new behaviors, measure changes, incentivize and provide tools for individual behavior change, and tweak our systems as needed to create consistently new results.
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