Tipping Point

By Doug Worgul

A pivotal moment in the movement to achieve greater racial, ethnic, religious, cultural, and gender diversity in America’s law firms occurred in June 2005 when Thomas Mars, general counsel for Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer and the nation’s biggest private employer, announced that the company would end or limit its relationships with law firms who failed to meet its diversity goals. At the time Wal-Mart was spending approximately $200 million annually with outside law firms.

     Mars made it clear that firms would not be considered in compliance with this policy by simply adding women and minority lawyers to their lowest ranks while failing to promote minori-ties and women to partnerships and leadership posts.

     This move by Wal-Mart gave economic muscle to the moral imperative that the legal profession should be more representative of the diverse nature of the American population.

     Further strengthening Wal-Mart’s call for diversity was the addition of 72 other major American businesses who added their voices to the call by signing a statement in support of Wal-Mart’s policy. The list read like a Who’s Who of corporate America, and included, among others, such icons of capitalism as General Motors, Shell Oil Company, American Airlines, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Goodyear, Gap Inc., Starbucks, Sears, Federated Departments Stores, SBC Communications Inc., MCI (Veri-zon), Marriott International, New York Life Insurance, Intel, Pfizer, Merck, Dow Chemical, Eli Lilly & Co., Abbott Laboratories, Oracle, Harley-Davidson, Halliburton Company, Procter & Gam-ble, Bear Stearns, Hewlett Packard, Pepsi, Honeywell, IKON Office Sol-utions, TIAA CREF, Pitney Bowes, International Paper, Clear Channel Communications, Tyson Foods, Union Pacific, Del Monte Foods, Johnson Controls, Inc., UPS, Kellogg Company, DuPont, Viacom, and Sara Lee.