These Biglaw Firms Are Officially Diversity Certified
Year 1 of a system to get Biglaw firms to consider women or minority candidates for leadership roles at the firm.
A little over a year ago, a bold idea was formed at a Diversity Lab event, the Women in Law Hackathon. Modeled after the NFL’s Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview a minority candidate for head coach or general manager vacancies, the idea first proposed by Mark Helm, a partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson, was to create a system to encourage Biglaw firms to consider women or minority candidates for leadership roles at the firm.
Named the Mansfield Rule after Arabella Mansfield, the first woman admitted to practice law in the U.S., asks firms to consider two or more candidates who are women or attorneys of color when hiring for leadership and governance roles, promotions to equity partner, and hiring lateral attorneys. And, if the firms can demonstrate 30 percent of the pool for these positions are diverse, they’ll be “Mansfield Certified.” A year later, we have our first official list of Mansfield Certified firms.
A total of 50 firms are in the process of implementing the rule, and in its inaugural year, 41 firms have been Mansfield Certified:
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Akerman;
Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer;
Blank Rome;
Brinks Gilson & Lione;
Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck;
Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner;
Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney;
Clifford Chance;
Cooley;
Covington & Burling;
Day Pitney;
Dentons;
DLA Piper;
Dorsey & Whitney;
Faegre Baker Daniels;
Fasken;
Fenwick & West;
Fish & Richardson;
Goodwin Procter;
Holland & Hart;
Holland & Knight;
Jenner & Block;
Katten Muchin Rosenman;
Latham & Watkins;
Littler Mendelson;
McDermott Will & Emery;
Miller Canfield Paddock and Stone;
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius;
Morris, Manning & Martin;
Morrison & Foerster;
Munger, Tolles & Olson;
Nixon Peabody;
Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe;
O’Melveny & Myers;
Reed Smith;
Seyfarth Shaw;
Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton;
Troutman Sanders;
White & Case;
Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr; and
Winston & Strawn.
The Diversity Lab is continuing to work with the firms that are working toward this goal.
That so many firms have signed onto the program is seen as a great success, as reported by Law.com:
“Law firms are not typically early adopters on risky endeavors, especially ones where the results will be made public,” said Caren Ulrich Stacy, CEO of the Diversity Lab, which worked with the firms to implement the Mansfield Rule.
“But these 41 firms showed their true desire to boost diversity in leadership by trying something new and tough to implement,” she said.
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Another benefit law firms have seen from implementing the rule is documenting just how well they’re doing on questions of diversity:
“The Mansfield Rule has really brought a rigor and discipline to the whole process,” said David Koschik, partner and member of White & Case’s executive committee.
“It’s also caused us to look at situations where we might either not have a female partner or diverse partner in our minds ready for a leadership opportunity [and] it’s caused us to look at why that is,” he said.
Diversity Lab is currently working on Mansfield 2.0, which will expand the rule to include LGBTQ+ attorneys.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).
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