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Defining Diversity: Methodology

By Tom Broucksou
The Minority Law Journal
May 01, 2009


METHODOLOGY--We surveyed 252 of the country's largest and highest-grossing firms: the 250 biggest firms as ranked by The National Law Journal (with the exception of Adorno & Yoss, as noted in our profile of that firm, page 30), plus two included in The American Lawyer's Am Law 200 but not the NLJ 250. (The two publications are Minority Law Journal siblings.) All told, 210 firms reported ethnic data.

Firms are identified by the office with the most attorneys. If no more than 45 percent of a firm's attorneys are in one region, it is deemed national; if more than 40 percent are outside the United States, it is labeled international. Partner data is for equity and nonequity partners. Nonpartner figures include associates, special counsel, of counsel, and other staff attorneys. We do not include contract attorneys. "Other minority" covers Native Americans and those who report being multiracial. Unless otherwise noted, all data was of September 30, 2008.

In our view, ethnic diversity is defined primarily in American terms. When you ask whether a firm is achieving ethnic diversity, you're asking how well it's doing in hiring minority Americans. In the past, some firms had trouble accurately reporting the citizenship of all their attorneys. For this reason, we now ask firms to count only the minority attorneys working in U.S. offices. Dividing that number by the number of all attorneys a firm employs in the United States gives us the percentage of a firm's U.S. attorneys who are members of ethnic minorities.

In the past, rankings were based only on the minority percentage of all U.S. attorneys. This year we've revised our rankings to stress the importance of hiring and promoting minority attorneys to partnership positions. Our new diversity score was created by adding the minority percentage of all U.S. attorneys at the firms surveyed to the minority percentage of all U.S. partners at those firms.

NONRESPONDENTS--The following firms did not report ethnic data: Andrews Kurth; Armstrong Teasdale; Bass, Berry & Sims; Bond, Schoeneck & King; Bradley Arant Boult Cummings; Broad and Cassel; Calfee, Halter & Griswold; Cozen O'Connor; Nexsen Pruet; Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott; Fish & Richardson; Ford & Harrison; Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy; GrayRobinson; Hiscock & Barclay; Hodgson Russ; Holme Roberts & Owen; Jackson Kelly; Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Marmaro; Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman; Lathrop & Gage; Leonard, Street and Deinard; Lindquist & Vennum; McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter; Miller & Martin; Patton Boggs; Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges; Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren; Robinson & Cole; Saul Ewing; Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis; Sills Cummis & Gross; Steptoe & Johnson PLLC; Stevens & Lee; Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young; Sullivan & Worcester; Taft Stettinius & Hollister; Vinson & Elkins; Vorys, Sater,

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