Of the 400 associates, only a handful were African American. The managing partner and chairman supported the idea. A committee was created. They showed that people see the same issue differently and as a result, there are differences in the workplace that have to be dealt with. Diversity is about understanding and leveraging the differences among people as a means of encouraging alignment behind the goals and objectives of the organization.
Most firms are relatively progressive, or at least they think they are.
They don't think that they are discriminating. They want to stress work performance versus who you happen to be or what family you come from. The committee's next step was to increase minority representation at the firm. The most effective way to do that, it reasoned, was to focus on expanding the job applicant pool. Firm representatives attended law school minority job fairs and participated in panels and workshops sponsored by minority law student groups.