By any measure, the global pandemic brought on by COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on working professionals from marginalized communities. Women in senior management, Black women, and working mothers (who perform the bulk of the childcare, remote learning, and domestic tasks) were the communities that experienced the biggest challenges, according to McKinsey & Co. These trends appear to be consistent for lawyers as well.
As the scientific community grapples with the long-term ramifications of the pandemic’s global health impact, the legal industry and other businesses have only began to understand its potential immediate and long-term impact on the careers of lawyers. Couple this with the negligible progress the legal industry has made over the past decade towards diversifying its ranks, and it’s clear to see why the advancement of lawyers from underrepresented communities is of great concern.
Given critical nature of this situation, Thomson Reuters, the Association of Corporate Counsel Foundation (ACCF), and the Association of Law Firm Diversity Professionals (ALFDP) wanted to take a more in-depth look at the impact the pandemic has had on lawyers from underrepresented communities. The three organizations agreed to partner on a cross-regional survey, both in the U.S. and the U.K., to better understand this impact and to preserve the advances made within the legal profession thus far. More than 400 lawyers respond to the survey, and responses were collected in February 2021.
To that end, we have published a new whitepaper, Pandemic Nation: Understanding its impact on lawyers from underrepresented communities. Download your copy via the form on this page.
This whitepaper originally featured on Legal Executive Institute and has been published by Legal Insight with permission.
