Diversity becomes bottom-line issue.

In the legal profession, workplace diversity has traditionally been more lofty goal than reality.

That's changing, however, and what's creating opportunities for women and minorities isn't always social consciousness. It can be the bottom line.

In-house counsels at nearly 100 major corporations are forcing the issue with a strong message to their outside law firms: Diversify your legal team or lose our business.

In addition, the American Bar Association recently announced that it will revisit its guidelines this summer and may issue tougher diversity standards for accredited law schools. The pool of minority talent may soon be much deeper.

"Consumers Of most any product are women and minorities and a lot of corporations have adopted diversity initiatives, said Maureen McGinnity, a partner at Foley & Lardner LLP. "They're asking vendors to diversify with the expectation that it's a diverse workforce of people who are either supplying goods or services or solving problems along the line. ... From our client's point of view, it's an economic imperative."

The campaign, known as A Call to Action, was launched in 1992 by E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. and revived in 2004 by Sara Lee Corp. Two Los Angeles-area companies, El Segundo-based Unocal Corp. and Computer Sciences Corp., are among the 95 firms that have signed the initiative demanding diversity from their vendors.

Most partners at large law firms are reluctant to point fingers and loathe to discuss the issue specifically. But the numbers don't lie.

In Los Angeles, just 8 percent of partners are minorities and 19 percent are women, according to a 2005 survey by the National Association for Law Placement. Those numbers are a little higher than the national average, where minorities fill 5 percent and women 17 percent of law firm partner positions.

The initiative's backers are similarly tightlipped when it comes to identifying offenders. They decline to identify the handful of firms that have been warned or lost business for a lack of progress on diversity issues.

"Based on what I've seen, law firms that do not focus on diversity and don't make it a priority risk losing potentially enormous opportunities," said Anthony Pacheco, a Mexican-American partner at Proskauer Rose LLP. "I look at it from the perspective of lost opportunities for those firms that do not adhere to diversity in their hiring, retention and promotion practices."

The Hispanic networking organization Pacheco co-founded in 2004 with the goal of nurturing Latino law professionals now has 100 members.

Local firms also are working to increase diversity in a variety of ways: aggressive recruiting, offering flexible schedules and focusing on retaining minority employees.

Success stories

Regional powerhouse Folger Levin & Kahn LLP is something of an anomaly. Half of its 75 attorneys are women, and 13 are minorities. The numbers have been in that range for 15 years.

"A lot of the companies that have signed on (to the Call to Action initiative) have made diversity a priority," said Dominique Shelton, an African American female partner at Folger Levin. "They are looking for firms that have a synergistic approach to these issues and not just farms that have put together statistics to meet a stated need of outside counsel. We support women naturally and we support minority attorneys naturally."

Shelton pointed out that real workplace diversity goes beyond the hiring data. Firms must give women and minority lawyers and partners the opportunities to work on the high-profile cases, she said, to keep them professionally challenged.

Some firms acknowledge they've had difficulty getting minority attorneys to stay with the practice long enough to become partners. To meet that challenge, firms like Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP have established a part-time program in which associates can stay on the partner track while also making time for their families.

Men can benefit as well.

"One of our associates who was part-time, a male associate, had to take some time off because of issues with one of his children," said Sheryl Stein, managing partner at Pillsbury. "And he's made partner on part-time."

Pillsbury has also stepped up efforts to recruit gay and lesbian lawyers, offering benefits for same-sex couples. They're also doing smaller things, like a branch they held for their gay and lesbian lawyers at their last firm retreat.

Foley & Lardner is among the firms that have instituted minority scholarship programs. With the hiring of minorities and women a priority, many employers are willing to go the extra step to attract top talent.

Deborah Thoren-Peden had tired of the rat race and was happily settled in with an in-house counsel job because she has two small children. That's when Pillsbury called with a job offer.

"I told them that I needed to make time for my kids," Thoren-Peden said, now a partner who's been at the firm for 10 years. "But they told me I could leave when I needed to, and it's never been a problem.

Breaking through

Firms that have yet to embrace diverse hiring practices are faced with a chicken-or-the-egg dilemma: minorities are attracted to firms that have minority leaders already in place. They know there will be someone to mentor them and there are possibilities for career advancement.

"I'm not saying firms that don't have a presence can't hire people of color but it certainly makes it easier when you have inroads," Pacheco said. "When I came over, Carlos Martinez was in our New York office and seeing him doing so well and having him there to answer my questions was important."

Shelton said she was attracted to her firm's results, but admits the mentors there were also an attraction.

"I was attracted to the firm initially because of the amazing case results," Shelton said. "The icing on the cake was to see so many people that looked like me and shared my gender.... I've never felt anything but welcome and I when I talk about our firm being a model for the future of the profession, that's what it should be about."