It's often referred to as a "tax"—that minority members of an organization might be expected not only to excel at their jobs, but also to champion the cause of diversity itself. As an example: Could a minority attorney be kept from reaching her full rainmaking potential if she also is expected to spend time serving as her firm's diversity committee chair?

We've had many conversations with lawyers about this and other diversity and inclusion-related issues. These discussions are heartening on the one hand, because they show that many are thinking and talking about—and most importantly, acting on—these issues. On the other hand, they can be frustrating, because there seems to be quite a lot of ground to cover and progress to make. We don't pretend to have all the answers here, but rest assured that we seek them.

As we've said before, the Law Journal's Diverse Attorneys of the Year need not be D&I champions to be selected, but very often they have taken on that role, and excelled at it, in addition to building impressive practices. Perhaps that's the tax at work. Our asking the honorees to take time to respond to our questionnaire might be a sort of tax, too, but each winner kindly responded.

With all this in mind, we urge our readers to spend some time reading through the insights. Sure, one could glance at who the winners are and move on, but please take time to really read them. To say these Q&As are chock full of good ideas for industry leaders is abjectly selling them short. There is much to learn from what is said here, and exponentially more to learn from taking the thoughts raised here and really digging into them with colleagues and others.

To the honorees, congratulations once more, and our sincerest thanks for helping us keep the dialogue rolling. Click on the links below to read the Q&As.