Published on:

Mandatory diversity quota imposed by Wal-Mart; possible legal backlash

GC Mid-Atlantic, July 2007 at 19, mentions that “recently, Wal-Mart Inc. reportedly required that its top 100 firms include at least one woman and one minority attorney among the top five attorneys handling the giant corporation’s legal business.” E-billing software makes it easy for law departments to track compliance with such requests.

The thrust of the article focuses not on how to monitor diversity bon on whether such quotas and scrutiny are actually illegal in that they may violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. In the view of some people, both the law departments that mandate and the law firms that comply are vulnerable to discrimination charges.