When Prudential Financial's Rick Meade first heard, more than a decade ago, that some top companies were prioritising the use of more minority-owned law firms, he wanted to join them. But back in 2006, he said his company's efforts on that front were not developed enough for him to jump in just yet.

During the next few years, Meade, who is chief legal officer for international businesses at Prudential Financial, collaborated with a handful of other senior lawyers who decided to be proactive and start engaging female- and minority-owned businesses through their own efforts.

"Everybody was doing their own thing, which was great, but we wanted to organise and create some momentum to stretch this idea further," said Meade, who is chairperson of the Inclusion Initiative, a group of corporations dedicated to hiring a diverse group of lawyers as outside counsel.

Within a few years, Prudential and the other legal departments at some of the largest corporations were making inclusion within legal more of a priority.

Now, a decade later, 8%-10% of Prudential's legal spend on outside counsel goes to firms owned by women and minorities. Meade declined to provide numbers on the total amount the department spends on these firms, or the total number of firms involved.

Prudential is not alone in its efforts to improve diversity numbers. The company is one of 32 corporations that are part of the Inclusion Initiative, which was founded by Prudential and 10 other companies in 2010 to commit to selecting female- and minority-led firms.

The companies – which include Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola and McDonald's – announced this week that they had collectively spent $226m (£173m) in 2016 with minority- and female-owned law firms.

Since the initiative began in 2010, companies have spent a total of more than $1.24bn (£952m) on this group of firms, allocating at least $200m (£153m) each year.

The Inclusion Initiative is administered through the National Association of Minority and Women Owned Law Firms, a group of 174 firms in 42 US states.

The group, which meets on a semi-annual basis, must spend at least $1m annually on female- and minority-owned firms. Meade said the group does not break out how much each company spends, but said most are spending well above the minimum.

As for Prudential's team, they continue to actively look for firms to do work, with an increasing focus on those that are minority-led. They have an existing list that they have vetted. The department of 181 lawyers sets financial goals each year for how much it will spend on those firms and they monitor spend on a monthly basis.

Meade said the group of members involved with the initiative has steadily grown each year. Among the newest members are Target and Toyota Financial Services, which both joined in 2017.

"I've worked with the Inclusion Initiative for a number of years and have been impressed by their work in bringing organisations together around a shared commitment to increasing spending with minority-owned law firms," said Don Liu, chief legal officer at Target, who formerly served as the top lawyer at Xerox, in a press release. "At Target, we believe that diversity and inclusion make teams better."

Full list of Inclusion Initiative participants

3M Accenture Allstate American Airlines AT&T Bank of America Coca-Cola Comcast Exelon Federal Deposit Insurance General Mills GlaxoSmithKline Google JPMorgan Chase McDonald's Macy's Merck Microsoft Morgan Stanley Nationwide NBCUniversal Prudential Financial Sempra Energy Shell Oil State Farm Target Toyota Financial Services UPS Verizon Wal-Mart Wells Fargo Xerox