Ask anyone in corporate America: When it comes to “ideas that work” in the marketplace, Microsoft Corporation is one of the most admired and emulated brands in the history of business.

And when Microsoft, acting on its overall commitment to diversity in the workplace, took on the issue of legal diversity, it brought its trademark pragmatism to bear on what has been, for the legal profession, an uphill struggle.

In 2008, Microsoft launched a groundbreaking incentive program for its top outside law firms, directly tying bonuses and compensation to those firms’ performance in meeting quantifiable diversity goals.

“One of the criticisms you hear is that lots of legal departments ‘talk the talk’ on diversity, but few show any real enthusiasm for changing the status quo,” says Brad Smith, Microsoft General Counsel and an LCLD Board member. “We wanted to create positive incentives, as opposed to simply punishing firms for not measuring up. We also wanted to create a framework for making incremental and measurable progress.”

Microsoft’s program, administered by its Department of Legal and Corporate Affairs, offers consulting law firms two ways to earn sizable monetary rewards for performance on diversity issues. A firm can qualify by increasing the number of hours spent on Microsoft business by diverse attorneys—or by increasing the overall diversity of its own legal workforce.

How’s it going so far?

“By and large, we’re pleased,” Smith says. “We’ve had a measurable and positive improvement across the board, including a 10% increase in the hours billed by diverse attorneys working on Microsoft matters.” Although overall attorney diversity remains “about flat,” Microsoft hopes that trend will change with an improving economy.

Building on the momentum of its incentive program, Microsoft has gone one step further—by tying the compensation of its own legal executives to performance against diversity benchmarks.

“We wanted to convey to our law firms that we’re all in this together,” Smith says. He hopes that the success of Microsoft’s program will encourage other clients to demand diversity in the legal firms that represent them.

“Everybody says they believe in diversity, and for the most part, they do,” says Smith. “But in the end, talk is cheap. What works is to put your money where your mouth is.”

This is the latest in a series of Ideas that Work from LCLD Members, who’ve agreed to share insights about diversifying their organizations.
If you have suggestions or tips of your own, please leave a comment below or contact me directly.

Does the guy in the photograph below look like an NBA player to you?

No? Well, you’re not alone. The number of scouts, coaches, sportswriters, and other experts who overlooked Jeremy Lin of the New York Knicks are legion, even though his athletic gifts have been on prominent display since high school. How could talent of this magnitude have been missed?

In a recent commentary for NPR, Frank Deford, the dean of American sportswriters, put it this way:

“It’s not like he was tucked away in Bulgaria. Lin was hidden in plain sight. He led his high school at Palo Alto to the California championship. No, Harvard is not Kentucky or Carolina, but he was on display for four years in Division 1. Come on.

But none of the geniuses—not one scout, one coach, one general manager—could see what everyone sees now when it’s fashionable. None of the people paid to envision, could envision. Obviously, some of it was simply that Lin wasn’t the right heritage. No, I’m not saying basketball people are prejudiced against Asian-Americans. It’s just the usual common stupidity of stereotyping. Scouts tend to be uncomfortable with anything different.”

Uncomfortable with anything different.

How many of our law firm and corporate colleagues does that statement describe? By its very nature, the legal profession tends to be risk-averse. We hate surprises. So it’s safer to overlook the talent right in front of our eyes when it doesn’t conform to our idea of what a “successful attorney” looks like. When the chips are down, with our reputation on the line, how many of us are willing to take a chance on something, or someone, different—someone like Jeremy Lin?

Yet look at what’s happened in the past month, as this gangly, Asian-American Harvard grad rose from the bench to become the hottest thing in American sports, leading his team, the New York Knicks, to their longest winning streak in a decade.

It’s enough to make you ask yourself: How many Jeremy (or Geraldine) Lins are out there working in this country’s legal departments and law offices, overlooked because they don’t fit some preconceived image of what a Partner looks like, or a corporate executive, or the leader of a team serving an important client?

As our class of 2011 Fellows demonstrate, there are a lot of very talented attorneys out there who don’t fit the stereotype. These are brilliant, motivated young people from diverse backgrounds who just needed someone—a mentor, a managing partner, a general counsel—to envision them doing great things. To send them into the game.

“What is so dispiriting,” writes Deford, “is to contemplate not only how many basketball players, but how many other athletes, how many artists and actors and musicians and writers”—and here I would add, lawyers—“never get fulfilled because the so-called experts are always looking in the same places.” The diverse talent right in front of their eyes doesn’t even register.

So take another look at the players sitting on your bench. Any superstars there, waiting for their chance to shine? And if you never give them a shot, how will you know?

Isn’t it time to take a deep breath, and send them into the game?

This is the latest in a series of Ideas that Work from LCLD Members, who’ve agreed to share insights about diversifying their organizations. If you have suggestions or tips of your own, please leave a comment below or contact me directly.

An Idea that Works, from Michele Mayes of Allstate

The word itself may be a throwback, but the concept behind it, applied to our profession, is nothing less than state-of-the-art.

A British military term coined centuries ago, “secondment” refers to the temporary reassignment of an officer to another unit, another command, or even another army (see British officer T.E. Lawrence, at right, whose secondment to the Arab Revolt changed the course of World War I). Usually the soldier would gain valuable experience while also bringing a fresh, outsider’s perspective to his temporary posting. The exchange was regarded as a win-win for everyone involved, especially the person being “seconded.”

Fast forward to 2012. According to Michele Mayes and Linda Lu of Allstate, secondments are proving to be a new and exciting way to discover and nurture diverse legal talent. At their company, attorneys from Allstate’s servicing law firms are selectively brought into the fold for a period of months to “immerse themselves in our business,” says Mayes, “giving them insight into what drives and motivates us.”

“At the same time, we get to know these attorneys as people,” adds Lu. “We work together, often on very important issues. And when they return to their law firm, they take back a much stronger relationship with us and our company. That’s good for everyone.”

Guided by Mayes, LCLD’s Partnerships and Teams committee has just launched a program that gives all LCLD Members the opportunity to share in the benefits of diversity secondments and to foster diverse talent within their own organizations.

Details of the program, including application forms and written guidelines, can be found on our web site here. In the video below, you’ll also be able to hear about secondments from two of the attorneys who’ve been there, done that—Jocelyn Bramble of Dewey Leboeuf and Leslie Davis of SNR Denton.

Skeptical at first, Bramble (who appears in the video, above) now says that her secondment to Allstate was a real turning point. Attorneys who rise through the ranks at a law firm often hit a plateau, she says, whereas “people who have done other tours of duty, either in government or in corporations” are the ones who succeed as partners. Associates, with their noses to the grindstone, rarely get those opportunities.

“Secondments are a great way to address that problem,” she says, “particularly for diverse attorneys.”

Clearly, the British were on to something.

I just returned from Chicago, where I attended a two-day conference organized by LCLD’s Pipeline Committee, led by Brad Smith of Microsoft and Laura Stein of Clorox. Brad and Laura called this gathering a “summit” to emphasize its importance to LCLD and the legal profession, and that’s a perfect word for it.

Yet the stars of the show weren’t world leaders or captains of American industry.

They were, in fact, a diverse group of exceptionally bright first-year law students, 56 in all, who’ve been selected by Pipeline to participate in the first-ever 1L Scholars program. Equally impressive were the LCLD Fellows, a group of up-and-coming lawyers from across the U.S. who’ve volunteered to serve as mentors to the Scholars throughout their law school careers.

Young, savvy, and as diverse as the country itself, these Scholars and Fellows represent an exciting new generation—let’s call it Generation L—that will change the face of the U.S. legal profession. Nurturing Gen L talent is all part of Pipeline’s visionary program to advance diversity among pre-law and law school students, and guide them towards a leadership career in the law.

“The country right now is doing a better job of graduating African-Americans and Latinos and Hispanics from college than it is at sending them to law school,” says Brad Smith.    “If the legal profession can make a difference in a single area with the most impact, it comes in persuading more diverse people to go from college to law school.”

Once these students get to law school, Pipeline wants to help them succeed. Towards that end, the 1L Scholars in Chicago soaked up two days’ worth of advice from the LCLD Fellows, who are eight or 10 years ahead of them in their careers, and from such pillars of the legal profession as Rick Palmore, General Counsel of General Mills; A.B. Culvahouse, Chairman of O’Melveny & Myers; Brad Smith, General Counsel of Microsoft; and others.

Between sessions, the Scholars were given a rare opportunity to network with both the leadership of the conference and their peers, building relationships that could serve them for the rest of their professional lives. And because communication is a two-way street, it also gave us a chance to learn from them.

I spent a lot of time with the Scholars, and frankly, I could not have been more impressed. In fact, whenever I’m around Generation L I’m struck by the following: These young professionals are hungry. Hungry for information. For insights. For connections. For ways to make a difference. And even though they realize how tough the job market is right now, their enthusiasm for justice, and the legal profession, is undiminished.

For example: When LCLD announced in an email to our 118 Fellows that there would be 30 openings on a one-day trip to Coca Cola in Atlanta for an inside view of Coke’s legal operations, all available spots were snapped up in less than 40 minutes. And judging by the questions and comments I heard last week in Chicago, the 1L Scholars are made of exactly the same stuff.

Bringing the legal profession into step with an increasingly diverse U.S. population won’t be easy. “It’s probably going to take until the end of this decade, even if we’re successful, to expand diversity on the country’s law school campuses to match diversity among undergraduates,” says Smith. But if Pipeline’s 1L Scholars are any indication, the process has already begun.

Want to know what the American legal profession will look like in 2025? Keep your eye on Generation L.

Several times a year, a Denver-based organization called the Center for Legal Inclusiveness (CLI) sifts through the latest data reports from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.  They then use those stats to compile a comparative list of American professions, ranked according to their diversity.

Kathleen Nalty, an esteemed civil rights attorney who serves as the CLI’s executive director, sent me a copy of the organization’s most recent report, from December 2010:

What’s so disappointing about Law’s place in the cellar is that our profession has actually made modest strides in recruiting a more diverse workforce in recent years. But that’s only half the battle. It’s what happens next to those lawyers that puts us at or near the bottom of such surveys.

“We are just terrible at retention,” Nalty says, citing recent National Association for Law Placement (NALP) data that show 87% of racially or ethnically diverse law firm associates leave by their fifth year—a downward trend that also affects the dwindling number of minorities (and women) who make Partner. Legal organizations must step up their investment in creating a culture of inclusiveness, by making structural changes that remove hidden barriers and consistently provide opportunities for these young lawyers to advance in their careers. If not, “absolutely nothing will change,” says Nalty, “and the legal profession will remain in last place.”

Making that investment won’t be easy.  Steeped in caution, the legal profession is notoriously risk-averse, slow to adjust to new realities or dismantle outmoded structures that marginalize attorneys of diverse backgrounds.  We are trained to deal in worst-case scenarios, and avoid uncertain outcomes.  The unfamiliar makes us nervous.

“It’s all too easy for members of our profession to simply pay lip service to this issue,” says Jeff Gearhart of Walmart, the LCLD Board member who first brought the CLI survey to my attention—“and then continue doing what we’ve always done, which is very little.”

That’s not good enough.

Which is why LCLD has made changing the legal zeitgeist one of the strategic pillars of our organization.  Led by Michele Mayes (below), General Counsel of Allstate, our Partnerships & Teams initiative aims to create a culture of inclusion within Member organizations that will enrich, mentor, retain, and ultimately propel diverse young attorneys towards the very top of our profession.  The need is urgent, Mayes said recently, “so that my tenure as a female general counsel of color is not a passing blip on the radar screen.”

We hope to accomplish this through a combination of leadership and action, building meaningful partnerships among LCLD law firms and their clients—and forging diverse teams within the law firms and corporate legal departments of LCLD member organizations. That’s the kind of commitment our Members make when they sign on, and strive to fulfill in the professional relationships that matter the most.

For the next year, Mayes and her colleagues will be working to create systematic, real-world opportunities for the diverse young attorneys our profession has attracted, the “high-value touches” that help them realize their potential and set them on the path to leadership. Ultimately, of course, our goal is to bring out the very best in our profession—and get those diversity numbers moving in the right direction.

Finally, Donald Trump and his birth certificate/college transcript sideshow have been pushed off the front pages, although it took nothing less than the death of Osama bin Laden to do it. Before too much time passes, however, I’d like to consider what the “birtherism” espoused by Trump (and shared by a quarter of the U.S. electorate, according to polls) suggests about the challenge of making America a more just and inclusive society.

The fact that Trump was able to stir up so much controversy—and draw such prolonged attention from the national news media—suggests to me that all this talk about birth certificates was actually a sideways discussion of race in America.

For political advantage, Trump exposed—some would say, exploited—a raw nerve in our collective psyche that many Americans of all political persuasions had hoped was healed by now. That nerve is unconscious bias, a source of subtle but powerful discrimination that many of us, with our modern aversion to talking about race, might not even be aware of. But I think one reason we can’t take our eyes off Trump is that he’s breaking a taboo to say, in his uniquely vulgar way, what millions of Americans secretly fear: If a black man has been elevated to the most powerful office in the land, then something must be wrong. There’s “something fishy” about this guy, Trump proclaims. Let’s see his papers.

“The birther controversy is further evidence of the uphill road that even the best qualified African Americans have always had to traverse,” writes David O. Sears, Professor of Psychology and Political Science at UCLA and co-author of Obama’s Race: The Election of 2008 and the Dream of a Post-Racial America.

According to Sears, the last presidential election brought an unprecedented number of “racial resentments” to the surface. Even though he won, “everything associated with Obama became racialized.”

For Goldie Taylor, an editor at thegrio.com, the birther phenomenon has roots in the Jim Crow South of the 19th century. As Taylor relates in the video below, Trump’s attacks on Obama, a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law and editor of the Harvard Law Review, reminds her of what happened to her great-great-grandfather, Major Blackard, who was arrested in St. Louis for failure to produce his “papers.” See Goldie Taylor’s interview here:

A lot has changed since 1899. After decades of struggle for civil rights, overt bias is against the law today. But unconscious bias, equally destructive, lives on in the shadows of our inner selves.

Such bias is not just applied to black Americans, of course. It’s society’s default position towards anyone who’s different—whether a woman, a Muslim, an Asian American, a Latino, a gay or lesbian, a man in a wheelchair, or, as Obama once described himself, a “skinny black kid with a funny name.” This is the “uphill road” that Dr. Sears refers to, which LCLD is helping to level for the good of us all.

Given enough time and proof to the contrary, we believe that the United States, and its legal profession, must evolve beyond the irrational fears and biases of the past into a more diverse and inclusive society. America elected a black president, after all—
a huge step forward.

But as the Donald recently showed us, bias, unconscious or not, still gets great ratings.