Holland & Hart is proud to announce that it is one of 41 trailblazing law firms to achieve Mansfield Rule Certification after completing the inaugural one-year Mansfield Rule pilot program managed by the Diversity Lab.
Mansfield Rule Certification measures whether law firms have affirmatively considered at least 30 percent women and attorneys of color for leadership and governance roles, equity partner promotions, and senior lateral positions.
Holland & Hart is also one of 27 participating firms to achieve Mansfield “Plus” status, indicating that in addition to meeting or exceeding the pipeline consideration requirements for Certification, the firm successfully reached at least 30 percent women and minority lawyer representation in a notable number of its current leadership roles and committees.
The firm joins 65 other law firms that have signed on for Mansfield Rule 2.0, that includes LGBTQ+ lawyers as well as women and attorneys of color. It also measures consideration for participation in client pitch meetings and requires transparency in leadership appointment and election processes.
The firm’s management committee also recently approved an updated Diversity & Inclusion Plan that includes Diversity Goals modeled on the Mansfield Rule. Those goals include considering diverse attorneys for at least 30 percent of the candidate pool, for positions, roles, promotions, or teams, including:
- recruitment for open attorney positions, including partner and non-partner lateral, entry, level, and summer clerk positions
- partnership promotion, which requires certification by the Practice Group Leader to the partnership promotion committee whether s/he considered a group of potential candidates consisting of at least 30% diverse lawyers
- composition of teams making pitches to existing or potential clients
- open positions on firm committees
- succession planning, to ensure diverse lawyers are being offered meaningful opportunities
“Participating in this pilot program helped our firm further strengthen our long-standing commitment to diversity and inclusion in a variety of ways,” said Liz Sharrer, firm chair of Holland & Hart. “In particular, it helped us establish a more defined set of meaningful metrics against which to measure our advancement of diverse attorneys. We have long appreciated the equity and business imperative of diversifying both our workforce and our leadership, and we appreciate the role that these metrics will play in helping us fulfill this objective going forward. We look forward to continuing to move the needle on diversity and inclusion at the firm through our participation in Mansfield 2.0,” added Sharrer.