Law Firms Boost Diversity Defenses After Conservative Backlash

Law firms are actively defending diversity efforts after conservative attacks and a slowing economy threaten gains.

Davis Wright Tremaine is boosting diversity, equity and inclusion education through panels, LinkedIn posts and opinion pieces. “There’s more of a call to explain it,” Yusuf Zakir, the firm’s DEI chief, said in an interview.

Foley & Lardner is spending more time clarifying that DEI at the firm means inclusion and support for all, not just ethnic or gender minorities. “The semantics of DEI are more important than ever,” said Alexis Robertson, the firm’s DEI director.

The push comes as firms try to maintain diversity gains they made after the national outcry over the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in May 2020. Numbers of women and people of color grew among associate classes as firms pushed to hire attorneys from underrepresented groups.

But after the Supreme Court struck down race-based criteria for admissions in higher education last June, firms received letters from congressional leaders and state attorneys general threatening legal action. A nonprofit led by conservative Edward Blum did sue, prompting firms to remove race or gender mentions in diversity fellowship eligibility criteria.

For the full year that included the backlash, entry-level diverse hires at the 200 largest firms fell to 2,049 from 2,371 in 2022, a Leopard Solutions report this month showed. While lateral hiring fell 23% in 2023, the recruitment of diverse hires from rival firms dropped even more—31%, Leopard found.

The data should be a wake-up call for Big Law, said Laura Leopard, co-founder of the legal database. “Not only did they change their verbiage, but they stepped back from hiring diverse individuals,” she said.

Different ‘Climate’

Big Law requests for diverse candidates have waned since the Supreme Court decision last year, said Chantal Raymond, who founded recruiting firm Inclusive Legal Search. “Firms before were just really deliberate and more proactive,’' she said. “We’re in just a very different political climate.”

The economic climate also changed. Global deal activity tanked about 20% from 2022 to 2023, meaning less work as clients held off on mergers and acquisitions. Hiring of third-year law students fell to levels not seen the Great Recession, according to a report this month by the National Association of Law Placement.

“In a down economy, laterals of color might find more comfort staying where they are,” said Virginia Essandoh, Ballard Spahr’s DEI officer. However, it’s too soon to tell what impact law firm fellowship eligibility language changes have had on hiring, she said.

Many firms don’t see language tweaks as a retrenchment of their diversity agendas. “Awareness of our need to clarify our efforts is not backing down,” Robertson said.

First to Go

Firms over hired to satisfy demand during the pandemic and now carry excess capacity, NALP executive director Nikia Gray said. Fenwick & West laid off nearly 10% of its attorneys and Wilson Sonsini cut a large number of associates in recent months.

Diverse attorneys are often the first to go when firms go through layoffs due to Big Law’s implicit biases, said Bryson Malcolm, founding recruiter with Mosaic Search Partners.

Still, DEI fellowships at law firms have proven to be resilient in the aftermath of the legal onslaughts they faced, NALP’s report found.

About 57% of reported summer 2023 first-year law students were diversity fellows, up from 55% in recent years, the report said. These fellows received return offers from firms on par with all first-year summer associates.

“It gives me hope that their evaluation processes, and their recruiting processes, haven’t changed too much,” Gray said of law firms.