Yet another study confirms what most of us intuitively know: that the recession has had an impact on diversity in law firms. The latest statistics released by the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) reconfirm findings from Legal affiliate The American Lawyer and the Minority Corporate Counsel Association that diversity at law firms fell over the past year, and that the decline resulted, in large part, from the recession.

The results are disappointing because, for the first time in the 17 years that NALP has compiled data from law firms, diversity among law firm associates fell. In addition, Vault.com and the Minority Corporation Counsel Association released their latest data which show, for the first time in the 17-year history of their Law Firm Diversity Database, that there was virtually no increase in the percentage of minority equity partners at law firms. However, relaying these disappointing statistics is not the purpose of this article. We all either know, or can surmise, the statistics — the real question is, “What can we do about it?” I will also not focus on bringing diverse attorneys into our organizations. Many of us try very hard to do that — and the Philadelphia Diversity Law Group does a wonderful job through its first-year law student program — the problem, in my opinion, is how we keep them.

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