Veta T. Richardson Photo by John Abbott Photography
Monitoring and Measuring Corporate Diversity Progress
Each year, MCCA conducts a survey to measure the number of people of color who hold chief legal officer positions at America’s largest publicly traded companies.Over the years, that number has continued to climb, suggesting that corporations are doing a pretty good job advancing diverse and talented lawyers into top management roles. But measuring diversity at the general counsel level is just one piece of the overall picture of how minority lawyers are advancing in corporations. It is also worthwhile to consider how minority lawyers are faring at those managerial rungs below the general counsel, and in top spots outside of the office of the general counsel.
This issue of Diversity & the Bar spotlights several corporate lawyers whose roles have evolved beyond law to wider operational responsibilities. They are not alone; at many companies, lawyers are contributing to the corporate bottom line in new and expanded ways. It is exciting to see greater opportunities opening up for members of the MCCA network, and hopefully it’s a trend that will continue.
In the quest to determine how minorities are advancing at levels below the top general counsel spot, MCCA will partner with the NALP Foundation to conduct a diversity survey of corporate law departments. Our goal is to obtain both quantitative and qualitative data about the diversity of in-house counsel, and to offer the corporations who complete the survey the added bonus of a customized benchmarking report on how their law department stacks up against national averages as well as their industry peers. This survey is brand new for fall 2009, and we look forward to working with the many corporations in the MCCA network to gather what we believe will be insightful and helpful data.
More information about the survey will be offered at MCCA’s Annual Creating Pathways to Diversity® conference, which takes place this year on November 11 in New York City. Please see p. 53 for additional details about the conference and information about how to register. We look forward to seeing you there! DB
Veta T. Richardson
From the September/October 2009 issue of Diversity & The Bar®