For over three decades, diversity in the legal profession has been viewed as a priority among corporations and law firms.

As far back as 1999, Charles Morgan (then general counsel of BellSouth) and other general counsel of approximately 500 major corporations signed a pledge entitled “Diversity In The Workplace—A Statement of Principle,” which proclaimed that “a firm’s commitment and progress” to diversity would be given “significant weight” in a corporation’s “selection of outside counsel.”