Association of Corporate Counsel Foundation and Justice Bid release DEI tool for law departments

The Association of Corporate Counsel Foundation (ACCF) has partnered with Justice Bid to provide law departments with tools to evaluate and advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices among outside counsel.

ACCF is a non-profit organization serving the needs of the in-house bar through research, leadership and professional development opportunities, and support of diversity and pro-bono initiatives. Chicago-based Justice Bid is an outside counsel selection and diversity analytics company. This collaboration between ACCF and Justice Bid is expected to drive DEI progress within the legal industry.

ACCF and Justice Bid have released a "first-of-its-kind" report titled, Advancing DEI Strategy with Actionable Law Firm Diversity Data: An In-house Legal Resource. A research team at the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) prepared the report using aggregated data provided by Justice Bid. The report showcases legal industry DEI data for over 50,000 lawyers among 224 self-reporting law firms on the Justice Bid platform, allowing law departments to benchmark their firms. The report further provides in-house counsel with best practices from industry-leading companies on engaging their outside counsel on DEI matters.

Law departments gain access to Justice Bid's diversity analytics technology through this partnership. Diversity data plays a crucial role in ACCF's DEI Maturity Model at the three maturity levels—early, intermediate, and advanced. The data is also a critical component of ACCF's Assessment Tool. However, the diversity data piece of the equation has proven to be a significant struggle for law departments. Justice Bid has reimagined the diversity data tracking of law firms and other suppliers to help them get intersectional diversity data needed for collaboration and making meaningful progress across underrepresented groups.

ACCF executive director Jennifer Chen emphasized that in-house counsels are at the forefront of driving DEI internally and externally with the outside counsel and vendors they use.

"The DEI Assessment Tool, powered by Ethisphere and based on ACCF's DEI Maturity Model, was a first step to help law departments assess and advance their internal DEI strategy. Now, we are proud to have partnered with Justice Bid to offer additional insights," Chen said.

ACC's senior director of business intelligence Blake Garcia led the analysis of Justice Bid data. Garcia said, "My team was pleased to play a role to couple law department best practices with use of Justice Bid's diversity data so that law departments can set baselines and expand DEI practices with their outside counsel."

Garcia further said that combining the DEI Assessment Tool and the report provides in-house counsel with a powerful suite of resources to help advance DEI within the legal community. The full report is available for download from the ACC website.