Promoting Diversity in Your Legal Department

As an organization grows and its legal department expands, a need for diverse viewpoints becomes ever more important to the organization’s ability to spot, prevent or address legal issues. As a result, department heads and human resources teams often work to foster diversity in the legal department.

Use the following tips to build diversity within your organization’s legal department.

Understand Where You Are Now

How diverse is your current legal department, and in what dimensions? For instance, racial and ethnic diversity may be high, but gender diversity may be low, or vice versa. Your staff may come from a wide range of economic backgrounds, or be drawn primarily from one economic class.

While taking a hard look at your current situation can be uncomfortable, it’s essential to know where your department currently stands in order to make changes that improve performance and engagement.

Set Clear Goals

Each legal department’s goals for fostering diversity will be as unique as the department itself. Your current situation will play a role in your goal-setting, as well the overall culture, values, and mission of the department and the organization as a whole. Talk to stakeholders throughout the organization as needed, in order to set specific, measurable, realistic goals on a workable time frame.

Review Policies as Needed

Uncovering hidden bias in hiring policies and practices is one of the most effective ways to understand where your department is and how to change its future. Your legal support staffing partner can help you review policies, understand how they led to your current situation, and change them to help eliminate potential hidden biases that may detract from your ability to improve diversity within the department through your hiring process.

Work With Your Legal Support Recruiter

Staffing firms understand how important diversity is to a strong, focused team that can spot and address issues effectively. For help improving your legal department’s diversity, speak to your recruiter for specific tips and advice.

At Kent Legal, our recruiters can help you expand your reach when it comes to diversity, seeking the best available legal support talent in the greater Toronto area. Contact us today to learn more.