#BlackLivesMatter protest, May 2020, Credit: Shutterstock.com

The biggest law firms are rich in history, and they haven't held back on letting the world know it. Some as old as the banks, governments and companies they counsel, the legal elite has been at the side of the world's powers for generations, giving them as much claim to the world's establishment as the storied institutions they advise.

But now, what so closely aligns the world's top law firms to the establishment is what today demands immediate and meaningful action from them—the #BlackLivesMatter movement is as much addressing law firms as anything else.

In the two weeks since an unarmed black man, George Floyd, died after being restrained by police in Minneapolis, U.S., we've witnessed social and political convulsions across the globe at whose epicentre is a profound and pervading sense that black people have for too long been marginalised, dismissed and even persecuted by the elites. 

It has jolted business leaders out of what has, up until now, been a mostly comfortable, unhurried posture on race. Among them are law firm leaders, who were some of the first to publicly mourn Floyd's death.

Clifford Chance issued 'a call to action for racial equality', and was among several to pledge $100,000 or more to equality initiatives in the days that followed Floyd's death — others included Weil Gotshal & Manges, and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. Deep-pocketed Latham & Watkins is giving $500,000. Never to be outdone, arch-rival Kirkland & Ellis has pledged 10 times that. 

And you can't say this is not immediate, nor that it is not impactful. As is so often demanded of them, they have, quite emphatically, put their money where their mouth is.

But while this is good, it should only be the beginning. The #BlackLivesMatter movement is not a plea for alms, but a call for structural, cultural and attitudinal change at the very apex of society, by those institutions that have the power and wherewithal to effect meaningful long-term reforms. And it is precisely at the apex where the world's top law firms operate. This is how #BlackLivesMatter is a call to law firms. 

So far, law firm rhetoric has been largely outward-facing. But for law firm leaders, the truest starting point for engendering change to the establishment is securing some sort of racial balance within their own firms. 

Following Floyd's death Brad Karp, chair at Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison, said he wanted to form a consortium of leading law firms to help achieve racial justice and eradicate systemic racism. In his note, 'George Floyd and the Quest For Racial Justice', he added he wants "to develop an actionable plan to promote and secure racial justice in our country". This is laudable and, if workable, could prove essential. 

It could mean, for example, helping introduce robust and creative pathways for children from deprived inner city schools to overcome disadvantage and choose law, with ambitions nurtured by top lawyers and law firms; just one step to helping obliterate the idea that law is only for the privileged. 

Let's not forget that it was just a year and a half ago that a LinkedIn post by Karp's firm precipitated industry-wide introspections on race, at great embarrassment to the firm which later vowed to 'do better' on race. The post was doing little more than announcing Paul Weiss's then-new partner class of 12 attorneys—only, there wasn't a racial minority to be found, and it featured exclusively white attorneys (11 men, and one woman). 

Still, Paul Weiss does better than most of its rivals. Of its circa-150 strong partnership, about 4% are black (six people). But across the U.S., black lawyers make up 3.3% of the industry, according to The American Lawyer's Diversity Scorecard last year. 

The study showed that the number of black lawyers has hardly grown since 2011, when it was 3.1%, while they continue to have the lowest levels of representation when compared with other minority groups.

Across the Atlantic, progress has been even slower. There have been some isolated cases of firms setting ethnicity targets, but when the 50 largest firms were asked for their diversity data by Law.com International, nearly a third declined to provide data on the number of black lawyers they employed in the U.K. 

Of those that did, around half said they had zero black partners.

One respondent to the survey said their firm didn't record diversity statistics due to the GDPR, while a significant number more omitted to provide any reasons at all for why they didn't record racial diversity statistics.

For institutions that have long existed under a cloak of 'excellence', of intellect and superior stature, the first step to change must be transparency. The lifting of the cloak to allow scrutiny may be awkward and uncomfortable, but addressing socio-economic change is often awkward, often difficult. 

If #BlackLivesMatter is teaching us anything, it's that deep and meaningful change needs to start now, and in concerted, robust fashion. This means the implementation of mechanisms that will cut through barriers created over generations by an establishment of which law firms are fully paid up members.

It will take difficult decisions and strong, brave leadership from all corners of society to tackle this issue which affects us all, including in journalism, which is also historically poor on racial diversity.

This is an urgent call to not just talk about race, but to take meaningful structural action, to take responsibility, to make up for lost time and act now.

And it starts by looking inwards, not outwards.

Krishnan Nair is deputy editor at Law.com International.

Read More:

The 2019 Diversity Scorecard

Diversity Scorecard: African American Lawyers Are Being Left Out

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