A Senior Partner spots a woman in the boardroom (law firms circa 2010).
RollOnFriday's In-house Lawyer Survey is underway, and so far the majority of respondents have said a panel firm's approach to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is no longer an important factor when choosing who to instruct.
"We don't look at this when choosing," says an in-house lawyer in TMT. "We assume firms are compliant with equality laws and have all the usual diversity policies etc. but I'm not sure who they really think gives a shit to be honest. It all feels a bit passé in 2026 and, having trained at a 'big law' firm myself, I'm well aware it is all a paper-thin façade anyway".
Another respondent comments: "We noticed a lot of firms replaced their diversity wording after Trump complained. So it was clear they were paying lip service to diversity policies, without the real conviction."
"The pendulum swung too far," says an in-house lawyer in finance. "Businesses and law firms are realising there was an overcorrection with this and are now rowing back on DEI policies. It had all got a bit too woke."
Others feel that the policy on the tin may not reflect the way the firm is actually run. "It seems to be a box-ticking exercise, which comes across as tokenism, but from my experience, firms still have underlying problems of elitism that they don't address," said an in-house lawyer.
A number of in-house lawyers were hard-nosed about what they wanted from their firms: "Don't care about diversity. Let the best people do the job," states an in-house lawyer in the energy sector.
"The advice is the most important thing, not who is giving it," says a GC in financial services.
"I operate on the basis of merit and ability, not diversity," agrees an in-house lawyer in the transport sector.
Some respondents say that while they value diversity, in practical terms, it has little bearing on instructions.
One respondent in the technology sector states: "As a female in-house lawyer, diversity of gender at a senior level in a law firm is important to me, and same for broad diversity. However, in reality, a firm could have a brilliant diversity policy but we wouldn't instruct them if they didn't provide top quality advice for a reasonable cost".
"We notice when lack of diversity leads to poor outcomes - a pale, male and stale team that are more interested in performance than understanding us and our business," says one GC. "But, we don't look at express diversity policies in choosing who to work with".
However, there are some in-house lawyers who believe evidence of diversity is vital when it came to instructing firms. "Our company has a diverse range of staff, notably from different socio-economic backgrounds," said one respondent. "It helps to bring a variety of ideas to the table with different perspectives. Firms should be like this too if they want to relate to clients."
Some respondents feel a balance is needed: "While diverse teams are generally a positive thing, this shouldn't be at the expense of other factors like quality of work or customer service," says one client.
Another an-house lawyer in a bank says that while diversity is "important" to them personally, "the Bank only cares about how cheap the quote is".
The survey is still open, so the final findings could swing towards respondents considering diversity to be an important consideration. If you're in-house, fill in the fields in the survey below.
Comments
23
15
In relation to the pendulum swinging (long overdue), I recommend readers watch the 2-part Storyville documentary Speechless on BBC iplayer.
48
60
Ahhh…are we back in the 1930s.
All too frit to stand up to the bullying dictator?
Quite appalling and pusillanimous leadership displayed by the greedy and fearful.
72
20
As a head of legal at a FTSE-listed company, price and expertise are far more important factors than DEI. If anything, firms that are so obsessed with DEI that they ironically have much less diverse teams (but the ‘right’ kind of diversity apparently) end up being the worst firms we have instructed.
16
22
Looks like Wokemans are behind the trend again.
41
17
Take a look at how U.S. firms are hiring laterals in London now that the pressure to virtue-signal has gone. It’s raining men!
28
28
Demography is destiny!
Sorry to sound replacementy
It’s all down to fertility
And a love of maternity
So take the knee
Without tearing your trousers
Take the knee immediately!
Rule Britannia is history
Enoch Powell a memory
Remigration a fantasy
As demography is destiny
53
124
My heart is literally breaking reading this. It wasn’t a pendulum, it was an overdue and morally required rebalancing.
Even if it was a pendulum (which it wasn’t) it didn’t swing far enough.
We can only pray that when the orange menace leaves the white house, the world feels confident enough to restate and reaffirm its genuine and heartfelt conviction for inclusivity, which was in no way at all a fad.
DEI is literally the most important thing a firm should focus on. Meritocracy is biased, racist and outdated.
41
11
“As a head of legal at a FTSE-listed company, price and expertise are far more important factors than DEI.”
It was always so. But plenty of firms are able to offer great advice for a good price, it was always more a tiebreaker than anything. Whoever heard of a client picking a terrible counsel with no credentials just cause they had a black associate in the pitch meeting?
66
36
At my mid-market firm, I hope we can now fire the diversity team as they are clearly just a waste of money. Also, please can we start recruiting on pure merit and stop the "contextual recruitment" nonsense and the bizarre practice of having work experience schemes targetted at particular groups.
47
20
@9.50
Sorry but your heart is not literally breaking reading that, because you go on, and on, and on.
Also DEI cannot be literally the most important thing a firm should focus on unless you believe that, for example, laundering the proceeds of crime, or giving good legal advice comes second.
42
28
The whole wokeism BS / metoo movement etc etc was a complete overreaction to a non-existent problem and everyone just jumped on the band waggon. Obviously clients don't care about DEI. It is no bad thing if views quoted in the article reflect a wider view in the market.
27
16
@09:50 Please tell me that this was a wind-up post.
50
26
There is still a massive misunderstanding about DEI and the tangible benefits that genuinely diverse teams deliver. The firms that have rolled back their commitments (at the first challenge!!) likely reveal that DEI was never truly embedded to begin with - more a tick‑box exercise than a driver of performance and innovation. Lip service will always be shallow and ultimately unimpactful. DEI should not be the convenient scapegoat for poor leadership, short‑term thinking or a lack of integrity. When done properly, it strengthens organisations rather than weakening them - what a shame so many firms STILL don't get that.
42
18
In-house legal in the north here. We are concerned with (1) quality advice and (2) price and (3) speed of delivery of advice.
We do not care what sex, race or sexuality our retained firm lawyers are or what the retained firm's policies are - as long as they apply the law that is enough. EDI per se is not a relevant consideration - we are not interested in how many pride parades etc you sponsor.
23
32
@11:34
"You" may not care. Why should you?
However, the obvious truth is that firms which genuinely embody positive attitudes and policies towards DEI experience happier staff and so, lower staff turnover and lower related overheads. Respect for minority employees does not have to mean that weaker candidates are recruited. That is a complete non sequitur endlessly propagated by dinosaurs.
24
35
@11:34
"You" may not care. Why should you?
However, the obvious truth is that firms which genuinely embody positive attitudes and policies towards DEI experience happier staff and so, lower staff turnover and lower related overheads. Respect for minority employees does not have to mean that weaker candidates are recruited. That is a complete non sequitur endlessly propagated by dinosaurs.
24
31
I think that it is fair to say elements of the regime are signalling to the public that you don’t have to publicly genuflect before diversity so much as before.
Although it is very much unspoken, I think there is an understanding within the regime that it would be a little unseemly to promote diversity too aggressively after the quite brazen murder of no less than 60,000 men women and children in Gaza. sunak starmer Biden and trump have all physically stood shoulder to shoulder with Netanyahu while it was happening. They are quite clearly complicit.
I think that they know this and they are terrified that people will start talking about it openly. That’s why they have taken their boots off our necks somewhat. They are waiting for the smell of the corpses to blow away and then normal service will resume. The trouble is - new corpses keep appearing even now.
43
47
This article and the comments underneath it are really disappointing - if anything it underlines why we need to KEEP the focus on DEI and not remove it.
What the era of Trump/Reform politics has done is make it okay for people to voice abhorrent and outdated views more loudly and more proudly. The racists are no longer in the closet, they are the gatekeepers to opportunity.
39
46
To all those attacking DEI: you deserve everything you get such as Trump, Greenland etc etc
DEI will be back with such a vengeance - you just wait. The Revolution devours its children, like Saturn
Yup it’s a pendulum. Wait for it to swing back
12
16
11:07: it was indeed.
Though, given that it seems to echo the actual sentiments and thought processes of many Roffers on the message boards, I can see why you had to ask.
10.51 seems to have taken it VERY seriously.
And now I’m not sure whether all the downvotes are from people who thought it was serious, or people who thought it wasn’t.
12
14
@11:50
I don't know where to begin. I tried, but I really don't.
36
19
@10:04
Our former GC used to put more weight on DEI factors when choosing panel firms, likely down to the chip on her shoulder as a woman in law. That led to our transactions often being delayed and us having to make a negligence complaint in one case. Not saying correlation is causation but the correlation was hard to ignore. DEI should not be a factor, tie breaker or not.
35
14
Some time ago, I was in a group where we realised that, entirely through merit and not deliberate design, we had built a group that was highly diverse: different nationalities, people of colour, sexual orientation, disability, and an even mix of men and women. It was a great group, lots of views and often a lot of laughs. I don’t believe however clients noticed or cared either way as long as the advice was good.
22
14
Well, I'm as shocked as everyone else that the idea of asking consumers to buy products on any basis other than choosing the best, choosing the cheapest, or choosing on customer service has failed to last.
Who could possibly have predicted that a trend for picking products based on a factor that had zero impact on their utility would fail to last.
Perhaps if we just churned out one more wishy washy consultancy report that pleaded with us to keep believing that a diverse team would be better than the best team then it would hold.
27
33
To all those attacking DEI: think about your children. Do you really want them to be the ones paying the price for your crimes of racism and imperialism?
37
17
The whole diversity and equality thing is a way for certain people to try and get certain jobs, power and social status in society. Never seen any attempts to diversify or equalise some of the crap and dangerous jobs in society i.e. brick laying, garbage collecting, offshore rigging.
18
17
@12:01 - perhaps it would be quicker if you explained to us which public policies, sociological phenomena, and weather events you didn't think were directly related to Gaza.
27
35
Wow. Frightening to see the number of white men in the comment section. There seems to be a lot of people thinking that DEI and merits based selection are somehow opposites. Pure merit driven selection is extremely rare. The reality is that selection processes and promotions are usually based on personal bias - white men favour white men. This leads to teams that are not diverse, and the lack of diversity leads to teams with massive blind spots and group thinking. This leads to a poorer quality service. So if as inhouse counsel, you want the "best", look for a team that seems happy, has low turnover and appears to have some degree of diversity and not just a bunch of people slapping each other on the back, telling each other how great they are.
20
14
Boycott racist Brexit Britain!!!!!
27
13
Why is everything so polarised. Why can’t two truths coexist: on the one hand a lot of firms’ DEI policies were performative nonsense on which a lot of time and money were wasted, on the other hand providing meaningful routes to redress gender balance in senior roles and to allow underrepresented groups a route into a profession they’d otherwise face barriers to enter are obviously good things. Seems to me most right thinking people would agree with both observations?
20
11
Treat everyone with respect. Be fair to everyone. Give everyone the same opportunity to show their talents. End of.
20
21
I came to the comments to troll with a pro-DEI statement, but unsure if people have done that for me. I definitely would have gone for the "white men in the comment section" point myself.
My 2 cents: I was discriminated for being a white man LOADS about 13-18 years ago - i.e. the vac scheme/ TC / trainee phase. Explicit comments even, "do you really need more white men like him - look at all of you, you're all white men" etc. Having worked for multiple firms, I don't see racial bias, but most trainee intakes are mostly female and there's a bias i.e. you're more likely to get in as a white female than black (or white) man - just my opinion. After initial stages, all anyone cared about was billables. And also if I was passable on performance. Personal hygiene never mattered; I could show up with shoelaces undone, hair a mess, BO smell, white skinned as a snowball, patchy beard with an overall male appearance - if I'm on course for 2k hours, everyone liked / tolerated me.
26
26
DEI was bigotry. If you give educational or employment advantages to some people because of immutable biological characteristics, you disadvantage people who don’t possess those characteristics. This is the definition of discrimination. DEI proponents are indistinguishable from bigots throughout history who wrapped their hatred and tribalism in supposed virtue.
For a period of time, ‘diversity’ and ‘equity’ replaced ‘merit and equal opportunities at point of entry’. ‘Diversity/equity’ never means representation of, e.g. the working class, or conservatives, or Asians, it was a weapon used to advance carefully selected, politically-favoured ‘tribes’. There is no difference between (i) diversity; (ii) targets; (iii) quotas; (iv) affirmative action; and (v) anti-white/anti-Asian/anti-male discrimination. They are substantially identical except for the level of euphemism. Diversity is irrelevant: all that matters is merit.
There is no reason other than unprincipled charlatanism and cynical power politics to assert that men, particularly white heterosexual men, and their concerns, are less important or of less value than others. In fact, there is hardly an activity, a facility or a convenience that has not been built by, maintained by and or created by them. As you conduct your day, thank those who enabled: electricity, gas, oil, sewers, nuclear power, wind power, solar power, telephones, mobile phones, the internet and even Tampax. Not to mention the internal combustion engine, electric motors, batteries, satelites, GPS, washing machines, dishwashers, cookers, hobs, hoovers, nylon, elastic, textiles, microwaves, hair dryers, cosmetics, deodorants, vaccines, penicillin, x rays, MRIs, radiotherapy etc. Earn your place on your merits or STFU.
Bluntly précised, the diversity bandwagon grifters’ schtick was simply: “We can’t impose our left wing social engineering via objective measures of merit and competence, so we tried to deploy blackmail, quotas, and affirmative action - and create jobs for ourselves as the moral arbiters of wrongthink”. DEI advocates are very lucky that this ended without violence.
For further details and analysis, please see https://controlc.com/c4fa8aba
13
16
I joined the DEI group within the firm purely for the billable hours, to help me get a better bonus. I don't care about any of the DEI initiatives - they don't affect me and I have no skin in the game.
19
12
unfortunately some firms, especially a particular ROF repeat offender, are so inherently discriminatory you need measures to prevent every practice group becoming a mini-oxbridge club. that's unfortunately still the case and classism and racism are rampant. DEI measures are a step but they're also wishy-washy and can be easily gamed to produce the outcomes firms want. Some firms also just conveniently stop reporting stats when they know they're guilty...scum
16
13
Was it always tokenism?
If so that’s very sad
11
11
Diversity now: Cambridge, Oxford, or LSE.
11
15
Go woke, go broke.
11
10
I agree with the meaning of DEI and a need to rebalance within the sector. However , the solution in law firms was just to pursue tokenism / virtue signalling, this doesn’t work. There isn’t a quick fix here, can’t just fill roles with 1 group of people like a switch being pushed.