Having diverse legal professionals developing solutions to legal problems is a goal for many legal leaders. General Counsel who share this goal strive to hire a more diverse in-house legal staff, while they also encourage their outside law firms to use more diverse talent. However, a segment of the legal profession offering diverse talent – minority and women-owned law firms – has faced challenges attracting work from larger corporations.

In 2005, the legal departments of five of America’s leading corporations, DuPont, General Motors, Sara Lee Corporation, Shell Oil Company and Wal-Mart began an initiative to promote the increased use of minority and women-owned law-firms when outside counsel is needed. These five legal departments had rosters of minority and women-owned firms to which they already sent legal work. However, many corporate legal departments are not aware of these firms or the solid legal work they are capable of handling.

This resulting roster on this web site includes dozens of minority and women-owned law firms across the U.S. employed by DuPont, Shell, or Wal-Mart and other corporate legal departments. The roster is organized alphabetically within each state’s listing.

Only the light green states have minority or women-owned firms from this roster. On the map, click on the state in which you need a law firm.

A list of firms in that state, along with the firm’s major practice areas, will appear in the box to the left.

Click on any law firm in the list and additional firm details will appear.