It's a simple matter of supply and demand.

As the market demand for more racially and ethnically diverse lawyers increases, the pool continues to shrink. If the legal profession does not respond to the dearth of minorities in the educational pipeline, there simply will not be enough lawyers of color to fulfill the demand.

Many professions and businesses have recognized for years that diversity in highly skilled and professional positions requires investments in minority youth who form the "pipeline" to the workforce. Consider the business profession, which created the Diversity Pipeline Alliance more than five years ago. This alliance of national organizations works to increase the flow of talented potential management students through its pipeline — from success in middle school to the MBA and beyond, according to its Web site at www.diversitypipeline.org.

Yet, the legal profession's pipeline diversity efforts lag behind. Even well-intentioned legal employers cannot recruit the requisite numbers of lawyers of color if they are fighting over the same diminishing pool of candidates. In a recent report, immediate-past ABA president Michael S. Greco summarized the severity of this matter and issued a call to action:

The legal profession faces no greater challenge in the 21st century than the critical need to diversify its ranks. People of color continue to be woefully underrepresented in the bar and on the bench, while American society becomes increasingly diverse. . . In every community in America, lawyers and educators can take steps, both individually and through professional associations, to ensure that succeeding generations of lawyers are more diverse than their predecessors. I challenge all lawyers to commit themselves to this enterprise with their time, resources and mentoring skills.

Business lawyers can, and must take a leadership role in prompting our profession to take action to help diversify the pipeline into the profession. Begin by becoming familiar with the general aspects of the issue, such as those reviewed in this article. Then identify what you can do — individually or with your employer, bar association, law school alumni organization or other pertinent group — to help improve the balance between the increasing demand for new lawyers of color and the insufficient supply.

In 1999, hundreds of corporations signed on to the principle of improving diversity in their own ranks as well as in the law firms they hire. In 2004, acknowledgement of a principle became a call to action. Thus far, nearly 100 chief legal officers at major corporations have joined the growing list of signatories to the "Call to Action: Diversity in the Legal Profession," which states in part:

. . . we pledge that we will make decisions regarding which law firms represent our companies based in significant part on the diversity performance of the firms. ... We further intend to end or limit our relationships with firms whose performance consistently evidences a lack of meaningful interest in being diverse.

Just about any way you scrutinize the statistics, the outcome remains the same: At each major juncture in the educational pipeline, the percentage of minority students leaving the system increases disproportionally relative to their representation in the educational system or society overall.

For example, a 2004 report from the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University found that white high school students had a 74.9 percent graduation rate, compared to a 50.2 percent high school graduation rate for blacks. At 51.1 percent, graduation rates for American Indian high school students were slightly above blacks, while Hispanic students were at 53.2 percent. Asian/Pacific Islander students had the highest high school graduation rate, at 76.8 percent. Comparable statistics for college graduation follow a similar trend.

Then there's law school. Data from the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar and the Law School Admission Council consistently reflect an acute cumulative effect. Fewer applicants, lower admission and matriculation rates into law school, higher attrition rates during law school, and lower bar passage rates constrict the pipeline into the legal profession for students of color.

Many law school deans, professors and administrators acknowledge the plight and recognize the challenge in achieving positive changes in the diversity of their student bodies. They also offer a range of reasons on why minority students do not enter and finish law school in greater numbers. Dean Gilbert Holmes from Baltimore School of Law:

There are several reasons why the number of minority students is not increasing — some external to the minority community and some internal. I believe that the most significant external factors have been the over-reliance on LSAT scores and the pressure of the U.S. News rankings as well as the decline in acceptability of "affirmative action" activities. That decline is partially because of court and legislative decisions and partially because of the rise in the view that we have had affirmative action long enough. The internal factors include the decline in the quest for justice coupled with the rise in the quest for money; and the increasing gap between the haves and have-nots within our community. Another internal factor could be the rise in "unacceptability" of excellence among students at the middle and secondary school level. This rise is subtle and strong, and unfortunately pervasive.

Another dean, Daisy Hurst Floyd, of the Mercer University School of Law, in Macon, Ga., put it this way:

Increasing diversity in the profession is a complex challenge, but we can meet it by making it a priority and working collaboratively. Law schools must work with lawyers, educators, and others to increase interest in and access to legal education for minority groups, including removing barriers to academic success that begin in elementary and junior high and continue through law school.

Every point along the pipeline needs immediate attention, and lawyers' direct involvement — no matter how small — can make a positive difference.

This sentiment summarizes the general findings of a national pipeline diversity conference held in November 2005 (www.abanet.org/op/ pipelineconf/). The ABA Presidential Advisory Council on Diversity and the Law School Admission Council convened this working conference to bring together nearly 200 representatives from the legal profession and academy, educators (k-12 and college), and other stakeholder groups. The conference, which was co-sponsored by the Section of Business Law, confirmed two other key assumptions:

1. The breadth and depth of this problem mandates a collaborative approach. The social, political and economic factors that adversely affect diversity in the educational pipeline require groups to collaborate to achieve meaningful change.
2. Myriad pipeline programs and initiatives already exist. Law firms, corporations, bar associations, or law schools seeking to start or join a project can benefit from existing models.

One of the conference attendees, Lee Arbetman, described the program he directs, Street Law; it exemplifies both of these pivotal principles. For more than 30 years, "Street Law Inc.'s programs and curricula have promoted knowledge of legal rights and responsibilities, engagement in the democratic process, and belief in the rule of law, among both youth and adults," according to its Web site.

About six years ago, the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC), joined forces with Street Law to develop a project initially called "Priming the Pipeline to Diversity." They designed it to engage law departments and corporate counsel in initiatives that encourage students of color to stay in school and to consider legal careers.

ACC secured DuPont as a major funding partner and McDonald's Corp. accepted the offer to pilot the first year's program in its legal department. Today, the Street Law/ACC Corporate Legal Diversity Pipeline Program (www.streetlaw.org/pipeline.asp) collaborates with more than a dozen leading corporations, including Coca-Cola, General Motors, Southern California Electric and Merck. The program connects urban high school teachers with corporate lawyers to reach at-risk and disadvantaged students with the message that law is a viable career choice.

The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDRF) spearheads another innovative program that offers corporations an easy, effective way to help diversify the pipeline to the profession. In 1999, PRLDRF teamed up with Bristol-Myers Squibb to launch a corporate legal internship program. It gives rising first- and second-year law students, particularly disadvantaged Latinos and students of color, paid summer internships in corporate legal departments. In 2005, other corporate partners included IBM, Johnson & Johnson, and Pfizer Pharmaceuticals.

A fair number of law firms have also invested financial and human capital in pipeline diversity initiatives. For example, the New York City based nonprofit "Legal Outreach" has two dozen law firms (as well as several corporations) that provide internship opportunities to the students it serves. Co-founded in 1982 by Harvard Law School graduate James O'Neal, Legal Outreach prepares urban grade school and high school students to compete at high academic levels with intensive legal and educational programs.

Ropes & Gray LLP has worked with Legal Outreach for the past 15 years. One of its partners, John MacMurray, said this about why he stays involved: "Our relationship appeals to me for many reasons, principally because it permits us to have a degree of involvement that makes the entire Legal Outreach project personally meaningful. I gain a degree of self-respect from my work with Legal Outreach."

McDonald's general counsel, Gloria Santona, described her corporation's reasoning for getting involved with the Street Law/ACC pipeline program:

• By sponsoring a pipeline project at McDonald's, we would be able to marry our existing pro bono efforts with a program that would offer long-term promise to the legal profession. ... We were also interested in trying to figure out whether an existing pipeline project could be tailored to meet the criteria that we had set for our pro bono project. After having consulted with ACC/ GCCA staff, we contacted Street Law Inc, and we're glad we did.

These are only some of the ways law firms, corporations, legal organizations and individual lawyers are helping to diversify the pipeline into the profession. For more examples of existing pipeline programs, visit the online Pipeline Diversity Directory: www.abanet.org/op/pipelndir/home.html. In November 2005, the ABA Advisory Council on Diversity and the Law School Admission Council launched this directory as an ever-growing searchable database of projects, programs and initiatives that encourage and equip minority students to pursue legal careers. The directory serves as a centralized source for finding pipeline diversity initiatives across the country.

To help educate bar associations and the profession about this critical issue, the ABA Advisory Council on Diversity also presented a pipeline diversity resolution to the ABA House of Delegates at its August 2006 Annual Meeting. The Section of Business Law was one of the early co-sponsors of the resolution, which garnered wide-ranging support and more than 50 co-sponsors. More information about the resolution is available at www.abanet.org/op/councilondiversity/home.html.

Educating the profession represents only an initial step toward improving diversity in the pipeline to the legal profession. What other steps can busy business lawyers take to make a difference? Consider the following as possibilities for crafting the action plan that best fits your agenda:

• Review the final report from the November 2005 national pipeline diversity conference, which is accessible from www.abanet.org/op/councilondiversity/home.html. It concludes with recommended action items for all points along the pipeline: k-12, college, law school, and transition to practice.
• Find out if your law school is active in any type of outreach to students of color. If it is, volunteer to participate; if not, work toward starting a pipeline initiative.
• Find out if your employer is active in any type of outreach to students of color. If it is, volunteer to participate; if not, work toward starting a pipeline initiative.
• Find out if your state, local or specialty bar has any type of outreach to students of color. If it has, volunteer to participate; if not, work toward starting a pipeline initiative.
• Review the pipeline initiatives in your local area that are listed in the pipeline diversity directory at www.abanet.org/op/pipelndir/home.html. Contact one that corresponds to your interests and volunteer to become involved or make a financial contribution.

Responding to this call to action is a worthwhile investment in the short-term and long-term future of the profession. Immediate-past ABA President Greco, who hosted the national pipeline diversity conference as one of the first events during his term, called on lawyers to "take specific, measurable actions that will broaden the pipeline of diverse talent into the legal profession."

Besides fulfilling our business objectives of meeting the increasing market demand for more diverse lawyers, taking action on this issue meets a broader societal goal. "A more diverse and more representative legal profession will not only foster greater public trust and confidence in the law, but even more fundamentally it will help to ensure fairness in our justice system," said Greco.