One in three general counsel are planning to introduce new or enhanced diversity requirements for their external legal advisers, a survey of top in-house lawyers has found.

The poll of 86 U.K. senior in-house counsel conducted by Legal Week in conjunction with New Law service Lexoo found 34% are looking to introduce targets, while 30% said they have changed or turned down external counsel for not presenting a diverse enough team.

Although still a minority, the numbers demonstrate the increased importance general counsel are placing on diversity within their external advisers, and how they are willing to enforce it by turning away law firms that fall short.

One in five survey respondents said they already require all of their external counsel to meet specific requirements for diversity, while a further 22% said they put targets in place sometimes or for some advisers.

The area of diversity that requires the most improvement, according almost half of the in-house lawyers, is the range of socioeconomic backgrounds on show in law firms.

The second most chosen option was black and minority ethnic backgrounds at 24%, then women at 17%, 4% answered LGBTQ+, and finally 3% answered neuro-diverse people.

Asked about diversity within the industry, one general counsel commented on email: "Our panel model requires all of our firms to report on their extant inclusion initiatives, internal diversity metrics and internal diversity trends on an annual basis.

"That is in addition to our requiring that information for tendering. Our firms are then benchmarked against each other, our own organisation and our broader view of industry maturity; and scored. The scores allocated through our assessment go straight to reward and retention of panel position."

In March, 65 U.K. general counsel wrote an open letter calling for law firms to work harder on achieving greater diversity. 

One part of the letter read: "We undertake to practise and advance diversity and inclusion by… considering diversity in our hiring and purchasing practices."

The letter followed an open letter by 170 U.S. general counsel in January calling for law firms to improve their diversity.

The letter read: "We, as a group, will direct our substantial outside counsel spend to those law firms that manifest results with respect to diversity and inclusion, in addition to providing the highest degree of quality representation. We sincerely hope that you and your firm will be among those that demonstrate this commitment."

Speaking to Legal Week last year, Coca-Cola general counsel and company secretary Clare Wardle said: "[We need to] expect diversity in our wider virtual team of external lawyers and consultants from the outset, including it as a criterion in our panel review and following up by making it clear we expect strong, diverse teams."