Legal business development and marketing (BDM) professionals frequently find themselves at the heart of their firm’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) activities. Whether it’s having to quickly pull together an overview of DEI initiatives and policies for a client pitch or design a communications campaign around the DEI-specific activities the firm promotes, these professionals have a critical role to play.

At this year’s Law Firm Marketing Summit, we designed and delivered an interactive workshop session aimed at generating practical strategies and actions that legal BDM teams can take to encourage accountability, support authenticity in reporting and drive engagement with key stakeholders.

But first, we needed to have an honest conversation about what we mean by inclusive cultures.

Before we tackled solutions, we revisited the basics.

Inclusion start points

The workshop participants saw equity and fairness as core to inclusion. So, what does that mean?

We shared this statement: “Diversity is a fact, and inclusion is an act.”

It articulates how we cannot control who we are, but we can control what we do. It is who we are that defines our start points in life and work.

We then considered a popular social media image to depict equity. It illustrates how lived experiences shape barriers to equal opportunities. Ultimately, inclusion aims to remove these barriers to provide opportunities for all.

There is a business case too. Research by Disability:IN and Accenture indicates disability champion organisations have 30% higher profit margins. McKinsey & Company studies also find that firms are 33% more likely to experience industry-leading profitability if their executive teams represent more cultural and ethnic minorities.

However, as we highlighted in the session, research shows that increasing diversity alone does not increase effectiveness. Firms need to foster a culture where people feel they belong, enabling them to thrive and perform at their best.

How are our firms engaging with inclusion?

To get a sense of how law firms and BDM professionals are engaging with inclusion, we asked participants to respond candidly (and anonymously) to the following questions.

A firm commitment?

Did delegates feel their firms understood the impact of inclusion? 

A strong majority of participants responded that DEI matters to their firms (68%) and that they do have a dedicated role or roles within their firms (80%). However, results were mixed as to why firms were prioritising DEI, with a split between ethical considerations (36%), client requests (23%) and business necessity (27%).

Hausfeld’s marketing and business development director Silvia Van den Bruel reflected after the workshop: “Our clients’ expectations around DEI are often higher than we think. Asking about what they are looking for should become a part of client conversations or listening exercises and MBD teams can help with that.”

Interestingly, some (14%) felt their firms were involved in DEI because “everyone else was doing it”.

Challenge and opportunity

As we unpacked the live poll results during the session and in breakout groups, certain responses led to questions around empowerment and influence.

A lack of diversity in senior leadership roles was seen as the main challenge by respondents (59%). Relatedly, there was a recognition that diversifying senior leadership relied on recruitment and retention which more than a third (36%) cited as their firm’s biggest challenge.

Ashurst’s head of strategic marketing Helen Galanis said her group felt “a more personal approach could engage senior leaders and motivate them to drive change”. She cited the following example: “The founder of a coalition of male leaders to champion gender equality knew that a CEO she was trying to engage had twins, so she laid out the stats in terms of the likely future that his daughter would have versus his son – and that was all the motivation he needed to get on board.”

Notably, communications around DEI efforts did not seem to be an issue, but some respondents pointed to a gap in embedding DEI authentically into the firm’s strategy (23%), potentially highlighting a tension between firms “talking the talk” but not always “walking the walk”. Communicating authentically was seen as a key factor to address this.

Marketing executive Abigail McSellan from Simons Muirhead Burton relayed the conversation in her breakout group: “We felt authenticity in communications begins with understanding the diverse experiences and perspectives of the internal team – the heart of any company. Listening to those most impacted allows DEI policies to be truly effective.”

She added: “These insights can be used as a basis for transparent goals for improvement, shared internally and externally, showing our commitment to meaningful action. This approach ensures all voices feel valued and heard, representing teams authentically without tokenism.”

Count, share, change

Almost two-fifths of respondents (38%) felt empowered to contribute to their firm’s inclusion efforts, nearly half (48%) felt empowered to some extent, one in 10 responded neutrally, with others feeling limited in what they could contribute (5%).

Some attendees felt a need for “permission” to contribute. But how?

We outlined how change theory could help by drawing on examples from Clifford Chance’s inclusion strategy and the BBC’s 50:50 The Equality Project.

Both take a data-led approach: 

1. understand where we are now and where we want to be, 
2. share that knowledge with others to generate ideas, and 
3. make the change.

Burges Salmon’s chief markets officer Amelia Stirling described how her breakout group saw the need for a greater clarity of client expectations through deep listening: “Before BDM teams can respond to client expectations, greater clarity is needed on what those expectations are. Asking relevant questions around DEI ensures that the BDM team can play back their findings to the business in a meaningful way and build effective programmes that will drive change.”

She added: “Not only does this approach ensure that clients feel listened to, we also felt that we could then test new ideas/approaches with the clients which would be a win/win!”

Final thoughts and tips

If you are thinking about practical ways to support your firm in advancing DEI authentically, consider the following, some of which were ideas shared at the workshop:

• Conduct a DEI audit of your internal and external communications to identify areas for improvement and gaps in the different perspectives that are featured. 
• Report on real life DEI stories that contribute to humanising the firm and ultimately lead to building and enhancing internal and external relationships. 
• Tap into DEI community initiatives so that stakeholders and firm members can get more exposure to key issues and participate in cross-industry projects.
• Communicate with clients to find out what they really think of the firm’s DEI efforts and if it matters to them. If it matters, find out why. 
• Identify some basic data metrics to track DEI efforts and results. 
• Ensure pitch teams are genuinely and appropriately diverse.
• Coach lawyers on how to authentically and credibly respond to diversity questions that they might get from clients about the firm’s DEI initiatives.

Top takeaway

Achieving inclusion requires time and perseverance. Once embedded it establishes a culture that demands equality and benefits the bottom line.

Nina Goswami is UK head of inclusion at Clifford Chance and Reign Lee is Van Bael & Bellis’s head of strategy. Click here for more details about the Law Firm Marketing Summit, which is hosted by The Global Legal Post, and takes place in London.