BLOOMBERG LAW — There’s an exercise I do in my law firm diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) trainings. I call it the Ten-Year Challenge. I show a slide with race, ethnicity, and gender stats for large law firms 10 years ago. Then I show stats from this year. Then I ask my group, “What has changed?” The answer? Not much. To quote Bloomberg’s law firm DEI report from November 2021:“Nine out of 10 top leaders (either CEO or managing partner) are White and 81% of top leaders are male. Of attorneys who lead firm-wide practice groups or departments, 27% are White women, 6% are minority men, 4% are minority women, and the remainder are White men.” We aren’t moving backwards. But we aren’t moving forward as quickly as we could be. At Inclusion Nation, we’ve worked with many law firms on DEI. Here are five of the biggest reasons I see for our slow progress on racial and ethnic diversity in large law firms.