PRESS RELEASES

Increasing DEI of In-House Legal and Compliance Teams

Fairport, NY (February 21, 2023) — Legal and Compliance Executive Search Firm BarkerGilmore has released a research white paper, From DEI Statements to Action: Successful Recruiting Strategies for Increasing In-House Legal Team Diversity, which investigates strategies that companies and legal teams use to increase representation in their legal department. The study also identifies correlations between the strategies and success, with success being a higher percentage of diversity within legal teams.

BarkerGilmore conducted a survey across a random sample of Managing Counsel and General Counsel at companies across the United States. Key findings indicate most companies employ effective DEI strategies.

Key Findings:

• The top strategy used to increase representation is ‘Intentional Recruiting’ at 23%, followed by a requirement to have a historically underrepresented candidate in the slate of candidates (23%), including diversity on the search committee (7%), and networking within minority organizations (7%).
• Companies that include a diverse search committee member and who show flexibility to the candidate’s qualifications/skill set reported an increase in representation within their legal departments of 13 percentage points each, respectively.
• Legal departments without DEI recruitment strategies reported 10 percentage points less representation from the overall average than those with at least one strategy.
• Companies that include a diverse search committee member reported an increase in representation within their senior leadership team of 11 percentage points from the overall average.

“BarkerGilmore is deeply committed to increasing representation within the in-house legal and compliance community,” says Managing Partner John Gilmore. “Sixty-nine percent of our placements last year were women and/or minorities. We are extremely proud of this metric and happy to support our clients’ DEI initiatives, but there is obviously continued work to be done.”

To view the full study findings, download From DEI Statements to Action: Successful Recruiting Strategies for Increasing In-House Legal Team Diversity, a research white paper by BarkerGilmore.

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About BarkerGilmore

BarkerGilmore is a boutique firm recognized by CEOs, boards, and executives as best-in-class legal and compliance executive search professionals and leadership consultants. With a team of advisors and recruiters spanning the United States, BarkerGilmore’s client roster includes leading consumer, energy, financial, healthcare, industrial, and technology companies.