Diversity
Wal-Mart Will Use Software to Monitor Diversity of Outside Counsel
Posted Jul 11, 2008, 04:35 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Wal-Mart has ditched four law firms for lacking commitment to diversity and will be using technology to keep an eye on the hundreds of other firms that do legal work for the retailer.
Miguel Rivera, Wal-Mart's associate general counsel for outside counsel management, told a Florida Bar diversity symposium last month that the firm will use new software to monitor diversity, the Daily Business Review reports.
The program "will allow us to measure the diversity of attorneys at your firm based on the hours billed, so the system can't be gamed," Rivera reportedly said. The law firm regularly uses 500 outside law firms and occasionally uses another 300 firms.
Rivera said the firm fired four law firms and moved $60 million in business “from majority male to female and diverse relationship partners," the story says.
Wal-Mart has 154 in-house lawyers. Thirty-seven percent are minorities and 43 percent are women.
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Comments
Posted by S. A. - 4 months, 1 week, 4 days, 10 hours, 29 minutes ago
“Diversity”. The great, meaningless, amorphous, substitute for rational evaluation of relevant differences in performance, in quality and in value.
Production and performance are the ONLY factors which should be taken into account in hiring and evaluation of value and worth. To do otherwise is to hamper and diminish the foundation of this economy and will, inevitably, bring decline and its eventual destruction.
Mandating quotas—- which is PRECISELY what is meant and intended by “diversity”—- will destroy our freedoms and our liberties and enslave us all to a culture of mediocrity.
Posted by A.B.S.D. - 4 months, 1 week, 4 days, 9 hours, 31 minutes ago
I would be interested to know how performance, production, quality, and value can be quantified to say “this lawyer is better than that lawyer” in a non-litigation context. If Wal-Mart decides to mandate quotas, I doubt it will enslave us. Wal-Mart’s not a public actor, after all. Calm down.
Posted by pv - 4 months, 1 week, 4 days, 7 hours, 44 minutes ago
It is very threatening to a person in a position of relative power to consider the possiblity that his personal success might be due to something other than his self-perceived brilliance.
Posted by Michael - 4 months, 1 week, 4 days, 7 hours, 24 minutes ago
pv—I’m going to take that comment and frame it. People like SA who are trying to protect their cultural sinecures will never admit that they are where they are today due to factors other than their own merit.
Of course, as we’re on or about the 30th anniversary of the Bakke decision (debacle) and its progeny, it’s easy for SA’s sort to rationalize since the courts are doing such a good job of propping up the system.
Posted by dc - 4 months, 1 week, 4 days, 6 hours, 12 minutes ago
The comments of S.A. are absurd. The reason why the need to stress diversity among lawyers still exists is demonstrated through the assumptions made in your message and analysis. Diversity does not equal less quality as you express in your message. Rather, diversity results in a greater pool of knolwedge and influence, something that you view as impairing your chances to succeed, but that many business owners, operators and managers view as increasing and enhancing the value of the service provided and the base of influence. I can tell you this, if you do not feel that your subjective views affect the chances of success of people you view negatively, I direct you to your own comments and assumptions about the negative affect of introducing people that look like you to the play in the sandbox. You have determined that the quality of output will be reduced without even knowing anything about their qualifications and experiences. If that type of view is not crippling to success, then you are sadly mistaken!!
Good luck and much success.
Posted by CO - 4 months, 1 week, 4 days, 5 hours, 39 minutes ago
DC, you are misguided. If Wal Mart believed that merit and productivity were naturally enhanced through diversity, there would be no need for forced quotas - they would just hire these enhanced firms (i.e. even in the case of a firm that was supremely talented, hardworking, ethical - if they don’t fit the quota they are out). In my experience, major clients who have their choice of law firms are well equipped to make assessments on the basis of merit alone. Such quotas, then, must be a function of chosing diversity over merit, at least at the margins.
I don’t think that a policy of chosing diversity over merit at the margins is undefensible, but don’t hide it in the language of misdirection as politicians do.
Posted by Sara M. Chico - 4 months, 1 week, 3 days, 4 hours, 58 minutes ago
This is a great move to understand that through diversity you are more rounded. S.A. and other’s comments are a way to say that other cultures and races have not all is needed to be excellent professionals. Wall-Mart move is not saying recruit a diversify workforce no matter what. The message is, in all races and nationalities are excellent and very intelligent people, give them a chance and do not close opportunities to minority groups.
Posted by Brett - 4 months, 6 days, 16 hours, 31 minutes ago
I’m not usually a guy who’s in favor of diversity type stuff. But people outside the law business don’t understand what it’s like. In most upscale really white collar types of business now, you see black men and women running around in positions of power. It’s only a tad uncommon. You’re not shocked by it.
The top firms in this country, that have hundreds of attorneys starting at $165,000 yearly salaries, the black partners are in the single digits. Sometimes even the black associates, while usually better, are in the single digits too.
I once calculated out that something like 3% of the nation’s over 1500 black SAT scorers came from a single upscale high school in west suburban Chicago. There’s just so few of them. Bar passage rates are like 80-95% - for black students it’s closer to half. The barriers for blacks in the law are obviously more substantial than for women (who are outnumbering men now) and more substantial than for blacks in other industries.
Take Obama - when Sidley hired him years ago it would not be exxagerating to say that he was one of the top 5 black candidates of his decade, in the entire country. There’s just so few extremely high ranking blacks from extremely high ranking schools for the top firms to hire.
On the experience side, however, I see no difference in quality between black and white attorneys. Statistically maybe it’s there, I don’t know. But anecdotally, some of the best lawyers I know are black, and some are white. Doesn’t seem to make much of a difference - just as it’s also true that the lawyers from random third tier law schools do just as well as lawyers from the top law schools, in many cases.
So long story short, this is one area where we need some kind of affirmative action if the top law firms are ever going to include minorities. The only way to get it to happen is for the clients to insist on it - and that’s a perfectly functioning market in action. No government coercion here.