Based on BarkerGilmore’s survey of nearly 90 GCs and Managing Counsel at public and private companies across sizes and industries, of those respondents that employ strategies to increase diversity within their legal departments (63%), intentionally pursuing slates of candidates that include underrepresented groups and diverse candidates and considering DE&I candidates in every search are the most common strategies. A plurality of respondents use one strategy, while nearly 20% use two, and 2% employ three.
Companies that deliberately employ one or more DE&I recruiting strategies reported higher percentages of individuals from underrepresented groups among their in-house legal teams and within their senior leadership than those that don’t. Among other findings, those legal departments that employed at least one DE&I recruitment strategy beat the overall average percentage of representation by individuals from underrepresented groups by 10%, and those relatively few companies (7%) that required one member of their search committee to be from an underrepresented group beat the average by 13%.
The report indicates that 69% of BarkerGilmore’s placements over the past three years have consisted of women or individuals from underrepresented groups.