We, at Resnick & Louis, believe that having a diverse, well-rounded team of attorneys and supporting staff, both in terms of gender and ethnicity, is critical to a law firm’s success in an increasingly global economy.
We feel that the diversity reflected in our firm helps provide our clients with the best possible legal services, creating broader perspectives, better ideas, and more creative solutions. Some of the best advancements result from intellectual debate regarding differences of opinions. In other words, diversity breeds innovation.
Our Team
We pride ourselves in our highly-talented team which is comprised of a wide range of backgrounds, cultures, genders, and viewpoints, and strive to create an environment where everyone feels included, respected, heard, and able to fully and authentically contribute. Our statistics speak volumes.
Race & Ethnicity
A lack of racial and ethnic diversity, particularly at higher leadership levels, is prevalent in most industries, and mimicked in law firm statistics. In fact, studies have shown that the largest firms tend to employ the lowest proportion of minority partners. In general, there is still a clear deficiency in the proportion of minorities to their Caucasian counterparts across all organizational levels. This imbalance is echoed both in the lack of diversity of insight and perspective which clients and cases receive, and in the overall satisfaction experienced by employees.
In terms of race and ethnicity, 43% of our attorneys have shared that they are African American, Asian, Hispanic/LatinX, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, or Multiracial.
Our accounting department is comprised of 39% Hispanic/LatinX and multiracial staff and our admin staff is 34% African American, Hispanic/LatinX, and multiracial.
Gender
Much like the racial and ethnicity gap, there is still a substantial discrepancy in terms of female representation in most fields, particularly in upper management, with law being no different. While there have been welcome changes within lower to mid-tier firms, larger and elite firms typically reflect a disproportionate gender gap, showing clear preference to male attorneys, particularly at the partner and stakeholder level.
Comparatively, in terms of gender, two of our four managing stakeholders are female and 42% of our attorneys nationwide are female as well. Our accounting department is 87% female and our admin staff is 91% female.
In Conclusion
In addition to the importance of social harmony, there are also key practical benefits of diversity for law firms. A diverse representation of race, ethnicity, and gender reflects reality, and law firms should strive to demographically represent the general population. A diverse set of clients should be able to relate to the legal professionals they employ, and attorneys and staff should be able to relate to one another, and see the same diversity that they experience in the world, at large, reflected in their respective firms. Whether this is shown in the ability to communicate in multiple languages or to simply see a situation with a different personal perspective, diversity matters.
