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WHAT WE’RE WATCHING
ELITE SELF-DEFEAT - It’s become painfully clear that large law firms’ diversity struggles are self-inflicted—the product of an antiquated and homogenized notion of who qualifies as “Big Law material.” As we noted in a two-part Law.com Trendspotter column last October, Big Law’s lack of diversity is due in large part to its lack of creativity, particularly with regard to its needlessly restrictive law school recruitment and lateral hiring practices, which have traditionally involved casting small nets into the same shallow, overfished ponds year after year. In this week’s Law.com Trendspotter column, we look at recent events that have shed even more light on law firms’ outdated and reductive views of what “top-tier talent” looks like and where it can be found, as well as how those views are continuing to hamper diversity progress within the profession. The question now is: can large law firms permanently change this mindset?
