Law360 (A LexisNexis® Company) has released the results of its 7th annual Diversity Snapshot 2021 in which Seed IP Law Group proudly ranks #10 in the Law Firms With the Most Minority Attorneys listing of U.S. law firms with 100 or fewer attorneys. The firms on this list demonstrate that law firms can create minority leadership opportunities, and can build partnerships with diverse talent and perspectives.

“Seed IP Law Group is honored to receive this recognition again this year. Our commitment to building a diverse team in critical to our ability to provide high quality services to our diverse client base,” says Kevin S. Costanza, Seed IP’s Managing Partner. “Not only are we committed to diversity in our practitioner team, we are focused on creating a diverse and inclusive environment throughout the firm. We believe doing so results in a better work product that our clients appreciate.”

Law360 collected demographic data from 266 U.S. firms (or firms with a U.S. component), including 89 of the 100 largest U.S.-based firms, as ranked by the Law360 400. More than 83% of the top 200 largest U.S. law firms by head count participated. For the ranking, Law360 grouped firms based on their U.S. attorneys head count in order to evaluate their diversity as compared with similarly sized peer firms. Firms were ranked according to the percentage of minority attorneys at the non-partner and partner level. Firms were also required to disclose the diversity of their equity partnerships in order to be eligible for the ranking. Firms that declined to disclose their equity partnership data were not eligible for the ranking.

Last year's Diversity Snapshot report scored firms based on their proportion of minority attorneys and proportion of minority equity partners, awarding points based on their rank in the two categories. This year's ranking goes beyond the data submitted in response to our latest survey, showing how firms' unique headcounts would have to break down by race and ethnicity to align with the potential marketplace of hires. It creates a pipeline score to account for how attorney diversity often shrinks at each successive level of the attorney hierarchy, despite the pool of available talent. The pipeline score measures a given firm's percentage points above or below a set of benchmarks we created using data from the American Bar Association and firms' own headcounts. In order to compare firms to their peers of relatively similar size, we ranked firms within one of four headcount groups. A total of 266 firms were evaluated in this edition.

For all firm sizes, the pipeline score is best viewed as an assessment of a firm's overall headcount rather than the final word on its diversity. The underlying reasons or each score can vary, depending on the representation of minority associates, equity and nonequity partners, in relation to the total number of attorneys at each level.

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