More Carrot, Less Stick Needed to Boost Legal Diversity: Panel

Increased collaboration between in-house counsel and their outside law firms will be needed to make permanent gains in law firm diversity, according to a group of attorneys and civil rights advocates.

That means setting concrete diversity and inclusion goals—and giving both sides proper incentives to see them realized, said the group of attorneys and civil rights advocates at the “Partnership in Diversity” panel discussion on Tuesday at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington.

In other words, more carrot and less stick may be the answer, they said. Some corporate law departments, like Intel Corp. and ...