The recently released NALP Report on Diversity in U.S. Law Firms raises several important issues. NALP’s Executive Director, Nikia L. Gray, explained that “[t]he data demonstrates that we are nowhere near achieving the progress one would expect from an industry that has focused on the issue of diversity for over three decades.”

The NALP Report is a valuable resource and an important tool in promoting transparency about the employment and promotion practices of U.S. law firms. For example, the report reveals that women hold just over one-quarter of partner positions, even though they make up half of the associate ranks in law firms. The total number of Black (< 4 percent) and Latinx (< 5 percent) lawyers are significantly under-represented compared to their makeup in the total U.S. Population, at 13 percent and 19 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, Asians—a term that is widely acknowledged to be overly broad and encompassing many distinct cultural and ethnic backgrounds—are slightly over-represented (approx. 8 percent) in the total lawyer population compared to their makeup in the total U.S. population (5.9 percent).

Many law firms will tout and celebrate incremental progress because the data shows improvement in the hiring of associates over the past few years. They will also focus attention on the percentage of “people of color” in their attorney ranks. We should all be more cautious in supporting such celebrations. Gray discusses the dismal rate of progress over 30 years of reporting on the percentage of women partners and partners who are “people of color,” noting: “At this rate, we still won’t be anywhere near parity in another 30 years. By any measure, such abysmal progress is a failure and suggests that little work has been done to examine and change the exclusionary practices that create inequalities and close the partnership ranks to non-Caucasian, non-cisgender male, non-heterosexual lawyers.”

Her analysis suggests that law firm leaders take a harder look at their organizations, focusing beyond the hiring practices of lawyers, and looking at all segments of the law firm’s operations and the problem of inclusion, equity, and belonging.

I agree with that sentiment. As a Black man and a retired partner from a large law firm—with over three decades working in large law firms—I believe the legal profession must do much more to increase the participation of lawyers from under-represented racial and ethnic backgrounds at every level of the profession.

To begin, we need to have an ongoing discussion about the purpose in expanding representation. Too many organizations rely on the concept of “diversity” as their sole objective, without reflecting on why. In my view, the legal profession should have an obligation to promote our collective goals of building a robust multicultural democracy, and supporting the norms, institutions, and practices that are essential to maintaining that system. Lawyers are a fundamental cog in the machine of our American democracy, framed by our Constitution and the rule of law, and our accompanying free market economy. We need to develop and embrace participation in our legal profession from all segments of our society in order to contribute to the fair and just continuation of the American experiment in self-governance and multicultural democracy.

At the same time, law firms have been at the center of a history of intentional discrimination in the legal profession. It is no secret that law firms historically explicitly refused to hire women, Jewish people, and of course Black, Latinx, and Asian lawyers. Law schools participated in these discriminatory practices, as did the courts and our overall legal system. After intentional discrimination became more clearly unlawful, subtle practices of discrimination persisted, and continue to this day. Lawyers would also have been at the center of shaping, implementing, and defending legislation, law, and policies that were intentionally discriminatory and rooted in racism. Together, these practices have helped create the stark disparities that exist today in the profession from top to bottom. Law firms should bear responsibility for helping to change the conditions and consequences that flowed from their own historical behaviors.

Meeting the challenge is not easy. For example, in California, Latinx people make up about 40 percent of the population, and white people are about 35 percent. Yet, in Los Angeles, only 6.63 percent of all law firm lawyers are Latinx. In Washington D.C., Black people are in the majority/plurality, at just over 44 percent of the total population, yet, out of 10,000 lawyers, they only represented about 6.3 percent of the law firm lawyers. We have a long way to go.

Law firm leaders, legal scholars, judges, and non-lawyers, should work hard to find new ways to address these stark disparities. We need to be more intentional about how to create pipelines, how to promote more robust methods of inclusion and belonging, and closely examining the nature of the systemic and structural aspects of practicing law that undermine our ability to elevate more people from under-represented groups.

We congratulate NALP on its three decades of tracking data and promoting transparency on hiring and promotion in the law firm sector. Let’s hope next year’s report reflects some profound changes.

Read Bloomberg Law’s analysis of the NALP Report, “The Momentum for Black Lawyers Might Already Be Fading,” featuring SCRJ Faculty Director Rick Banks.