In the highly regulated and competitive biopharmaceutical industry, legal innovation is a critical driver of business success, guiding research and development (R&D), and matters of intellectual property (IP). Innovation in IP law is especially vital for a company like AbbVie, which has been at the forefront of R&D since its inception in 2013, investing almost $50 billion to advance and deliver new medicines.
To best serve our patients, researchers and partners, we have assembled a team of outside counsel from the top global law firms to help us navigate the legal complexities of developing solutions for the world’s toughest health challenges.
Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are fundamental drivers of innovation, and we have seen first-hand that diverse representation is lacking in the upper echelons of the legal profession. According to a recent report by the American Bar Association, lawyers of colour have increased in representation by only 3% over the past decade. The Minority Corporate Counsel Association states that, while recent improvements in representation are encouraging, most of those additions have been at the junior level, rather than among partners or at leadership level.
Diversity in Law programme
At AbbVie, we recognise that through our ability to choose our outside partners and use our purchasing power deliberately, we have the power to influence the direction of the legal industry. We have decided to demand the change we want to see in law firms and across the entire industry by introducing the Diversity in Law programme, which extends our internal expectations for DEI to our outside counsel. The aim is to encourage firms to accelerate their efforts to develop diverse rosters of talented attorneys at the partner level (meaning those who are taking the lead on AbbVie’s complex legal matters and directing the future of their respective law firms).
To communicate this initiative to our partnering law firms, I wrote a letter to our top-spending firms, which account for approximately 75% of AbbVie’s legal spend. I explained the importance of DEI for staffing AbbVie matters and asked them to collaborate with us to establish goals to ensure accountability and measurable impact for the programme. Meanwhile our legal operations team, which has spearheaded the Diversity in Law programme, began its work with an extensive data collection effort. The team contacted AbbVie’s 27 outside law firms to gather diversity data on each of their attorneys working on AbbVie matters.
Tailored goals for each firm
Based on those conversations and the findings of our data collection effort, we developed goals tailored to each firm. On all AbbVie matters, we set out to:
- Ensure equal representation of female and male partners.
- Double the representation of minority partners.
- Have our partner firms maintain a mix of at least 50% underrepresented lawyers (including members of certain racial and ethnic groups, women, members of LGBT+ groups and lawyers with disabilities, based on ABA guidance).
We have consistently tracked our partners’ progress toward these goals by setting up systems to aggregate and review billable hours, inquiring into billing credit practices, asking tough questions and holding firms accountable with frequent updates and internal data review.
Tangible results delivered in a few years
Thanks to our holistic and data-driven approach, specific and measurable goals, and commitment to maintaining accuracy and accountability, many of our outside law firm partners have already exceeded these goals. Our most recent analysis showed that in 2020:
- Female partner hours contributed 53% of all recorded hours (up 64% compared to a baseline from 2017).
- Minority partner hours were 16% (up 87% compared to the baseline).
- Underrepresented partner hours came in at 56% (up 18% compared to the baseline).
As a result, AbbVie’s legal team has benefitted from diverse perspectives, collaboration and richness of thought.
Future plans for the programme
Legal diversity programmes are not an immediate ticket to substantial change as they take significant effort, commitment and persistence to develop. Fortunately there are other steps that organisations can take to successfully implement the process internally and across the industry. For example, we appointed a dedicated leader to direct our outside counsel programme and have also leveraged partnerships with organisations like the National Association of Minority & Women Owned Law Firms (NAMWOLF) to further accelerate diversity as extensions of AbbVie.
While the early results of our Diversity in Law programme are promising, we recognise that we still have a way to go at AbbVie. We will continue working with our outside partners and across the wider legal industry to promote diverse representation and, of equal importance, equitable and inclusive cultures across ranks. However, with the steps AbbVie has taken and the eagerness and involvement we’ve seen from our outside counsel, I am confident that our profession is on the path to achieving tangible change.
