Edward Chang

Bonnie Levine

<article-ideainbrief class="article-ideainbrief">
 <h4 class="ideainbrief-title">Idea in Brief</h4>
 <div class="ideainbrief-contents">
  <h5>The Problem</h5>
  <p>Many DEI initiatives are scuttled because DEI leaders and legal teams feel themselves to be at odds over questions of acceptable risk. Working in a murky legal environment, both groups engage only at the last minute, when they have to.</p>
  <h5>What Everybody Forgets</h5>
  <p>Businesses routinely choose to accept significant legal risk. In most situations they’re confronted with a risk-reward calculus that’s easy to quantify and conceptualize. But with DEI that’s harder, because the only thing that appears on the balance sheet is the cost.</p>
  <h5>A Better Way</h5>
  <p>When it comes to establishing a productive partnership between DEI leaders and legal counsel, the key is to collaborate early and often, using the framework this article lays out, so as to balance the nuances of legal risk with the need to implement effective initiatives.</p>
 </div>
</article-ideainbrief><p>Superficially, a company’s DEI leaders and legal counsel appear to be at odds. DEI leaders, passionate about their cause, think of legal experts as guardians of the status quo and resent them for throwing up roadblocks to their reform-minded initiatives. Legal experts, trained to be methodical in anticipating the worst, resent DEI advocates for not reaching out early and often as they develop their initiatives. Entrenched in their perspectives, both groups engage only at the last minute, when they have to.</p>

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<p>Many DEI initiatives are scuttled because DEI leaders and legal teams feel themselves to be at odds over questions of acceptable risk. DEI leaders see lawyers as guardians of the status quo, whereas legal experts, trained to anticipate the worst, believe they are protecting the company from legal risk.</p>
<p>However, as the authors point out, businesses routinely choose to accept significant legal risk. In most situations they&#8217;re confronted with a risk-reward calculus that&#8217;s easy to quantify. But with DEI that&#8217;s harder, because the only thing on the balance sheet is the cost. Absent a foundation of trust and support, lawyers are skittish about signing off on initiatives, and the business is more likely to waste resources on performative exercises. And bad DEI poses a greater risk than does good DEI.</p>
<p>When it comes to establishing a productive partnership between DEI leaders and legal counsel, the key is to collaborate early and often. In this article, the authors provide a framework to help you balance the nuances of legal risk with the need to implement effective initiatives.</p>

To Drive Diversity Efforts, Don&rsquo;t Tiptoe Around Your Legal Risk

Many DEI initiatives are scuttled because DEI leaders and legal teams feel themselves to be at odds over questions of acceptable risk. DEI leaders see lawyers as guardians of the status quo, whereas legal experts, trained to anticipate the worst, believe they are protecting the company from legal risk. However, as the authors point out, businesses routinely choose to accept significant legal risk. In most situations they’re confronted with a risk-reward calculus that’s easy to quantify. But with DEI that’s harder, because the only thing on the balance sheet is the cost. Absent a foundation of trust and support, lawyers are skittish about signing off on initiatives, and the business is more likely to waste resources on performative exercises. And bad DEI poses a greater risk than does good DEI. When it comes to establishing a productive partnership between DEI leaders and legal counsel, the key is to collaborate early and often. In this article, the authors provide a framework to help you balance the nuances of legal risk with the need to implement effective initiatives.

To Drive Diversity Efforts, Don’t Tiptoe Around Your Legal Risk

Summary.

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