New Jersey firms have joined others in the realization that the only way to improve diversity in the profession is to have someone—a designated diversity chief, not just a diversity committee—devoted to the task.

“Lawyers sometimes make the mistake of not recognizing that it is a career. It takes a very specific skill set,” said Kenneth Sharperson, an insurance litigation associate at the Bedminster office of Weber Gallagher Simpson Stapleton Fires & Newby. Sharperson also is editor of the firm’s “Diversity Matters” newsletter and a member of its diversity committee.