Do legal employers recruit class diversity?

When employers recruit for “diversity”, what are they looking for? Joan Williams, professor of law at U.C. Hastings, argues that class diversity should be one of the metrics employers pursue. You can read her September 2018 article in the Harvard Business Review here. As I read Williams’ article, I wondered to what extent employers already use class as a measure of beneficial diversity in hiring.

Because I’m a law student, I explored this by analyzing the diversity recruiting posts circulated at my school in the 2017-2018 school year. The law is not known as a particularly diverse profession, and it is becoming aware of the need to address that reputation. Big firms now often offer “diversity fellowships,” “diversity clerkships,” or “diversity scholarships.” These are paid internships at the firm, between the first and second years of law school, that are only available to “diverse” students. There are few other positions available in that first summer which are paid.

If these internships are only available to “diverse” students, how do the firms define diversity? I looked at 25 postings for internships of this type available to me in my first year of law school.

I found three approaches: the first approach was to list categories. This was the dominant mode. Of the 25 listings I analyzed, thirteen used this strategy and all thirteen explicitly mentioned racial or ethnic diversity. Nine discussed sexual orientation or being LGBTQ; seven included disability; seven listed socioeconomic status or economic disadvantage; four mentioned women or gender; two postings touched on religious diversity; two listed veteran status; and one included status as being the first in the family to attend college or purse an advanced degree. Of the seven that listed economic disadvantage, one firm considered that factor as a “boost” to the resume of an otherwise-diverse candidate, not a basis of diversity in and of itself. Finally, six postings included broad, “catch-all” language at the end of their enumerated lists, such as “…or others of diverse backgrounds.”

Is class, then, a category that recruiters seek? It depends on how “class” is defined. Education at the level of less than a college degree is perhaps the most common way to define the working class; by that metric, only one job posting is recruiting students from working-class backgrounds. If class is defined by income or socioeconomic disadvantage, however, class diversity is widely recruited. More than half of job posts listed socioeconomic disadvantage, making it one of the top four traits named. There is still, however, the question of perception: given that race is listed in every post, will white working-class students assume that “diversity” requires racial diversity as a prerequisite? Will they read far enough into the post to see the call for students of diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and believe that they qualify on those grounds?

The second approach was to avoid defining diversity at all. Five posts used this tactic. These five used broad language like “underrepresented in the legal profession.” While this is an accurate description of the goals of diversity recruiting and is inclusive of a wide variety of experiences, it is extremely vague. It doesn’t help a job applicant know if they qualify for the position. Given the prevalence of the first approach, it seems likely that many law students will assume that these undefined listings intend to signal the same categories outlined above, of which race is dominant. Unless class migrants are aware that they qualify as “underrepresented in the legal profession,” believe that the employer will think so as well, and are able to articulate that with confidence, such broad language will not be effective in recruiting class migrants. This is especially true for white class migrants who will not qualify on racial or ethnic grounds.

In the final approach I saw in the job postings, diversity seemed not to reflect who the candidate is but rather what the candidate does. A few firms combined this approach with the enumerated categories described above, but many used this as a stand-alone tactic. A total of ten listings used some form of this tactic. These firms required the candidate to show a “commitment to diversity,” “efforts that promote diversity,” or even “involvement in diversity organizations.” One firm required that the candidate “[p]ossess an understanding of the importance of diversity and inclusion in the legal profession.”

This approach seems unhelpful. Surely the point of having separate “diversity recruitment” is not simply to get people who believe in or work for diversity; that could be accomplished in the normal recruiting process. Moreover, this approach seems likely to work against class migrants. The sorts of organizations that “promote diversity” are normally non-profits which cannot pay their volunteers. People from a working-class background are less likely to have had the option to work without pay and add such organizations to their resume. I also wonder whether there exist sufficient organizations promoting class diversity for such experience to be widespread on the resumes of class migrants.

Based on this limited and admittedly not randomized sample, it seems that Williams is only partially correct, at least as to legal employers. While law firm diversity recruitment does not seem to prioritize class migrants, the firms arguably put some effort towards increasing class diversity. Slightly less than a third of posts discussed socioeconomic disadvantage or listed a background of less education. Personally, however, I am not convinced that, in the context of all the other posts, this recruitment will be as effective in recruiting class migrants as it could be.