The Minority Law Journal has released its 2006 Diversity Scorecard. After polling 255 top U.S. law firms, the journal tallied up the number of partners, associates, special counsels, of counsels, and other staff attorneys of color.



Taking the number one spot is Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, where minorities make up 23% of all attorneys. Morrison & Foerster comes in seconds with nearly the same amount of minority attorneys. Both firms have around 10% minority partners. The firm with the most ethnically diverse partnership is Wilson Sonsini, with over 17% of its partners minorities.





Last year's top spot went to Miami’s Steel Hector & Davis. That firm merged with another, however, allowing Paul Weiss to make great strides toward diversity and snag the leading position on the chart. A total of six firms were able to increase their diversity score by over five points this year.



Monica Bay over at the Common Scold blog (http://commonscold.typepad.com/) says that this is hardly surprising. As more and more corporate clients begin to demand increased ethnic diversity among their counsel, law firms have little choice but to comply.



See the complete Diversity Scorecard here (http://www.law.com/jsp/mlj/PubArticleMLJ.jsp?id=1146560724517&hubtype=Scorecard).