By Joanna Colosimo
On March 17, 2025, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Acting Chair Andrea Lucas sent letters to 20 law firms, requesting information about their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) related employment practices. The letters express concerns that some firms' DEI practices may involve unlawful disparate treatment or unlawful limiting, segregating, and classifying based on race, sex, or other protected characteristics, which would be in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
In a press release, Lucas emphasized that EEOC is committed to rooting out discrimination, even within law firms, stating, "No one is above the law—and certainly not the private bar." Title VII prohibits employers from discriminating based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Additionally, it bars employers from limiting, segregating, or classifying employees in ways that affect their status or employment opportunities.
Notably, EEOC’s press release included a link to the PDF files of the 20 letters and did not redact names or email addresses of letter recipients. The letters ask for a large volume of information such as applicant and selection criteria for internships, fellowships, and scholarship programs, documentation regarding compensation for summer associates, an Excel file of applicant flow, selection-related outcomes, compensation data for multiple years, information on how partnership decisions were made, data on promotional or lateral movements, and information on certain policies. These letters represent information requests that were made public. This may be a novel agency approach.
Many of the letters are uniquely tied to the law firm or the law firm’s public statements, while other letters are more uniform in the requests for policy and data information. All the letters request the information to be turned over to EEOC by April 15, 2025, and include detailed pages of document and data requests.
Robust Data Requests
Examples of the information requested by the EEOC include the following:
Example 1: From 2015 to present, in a searchable Excel spreadsheet, please provide respective sets of data for applicants to the diversity internship:
- Name
- Sex
- Race
- Phone Number
- Email Address
- Law School
- Law School GPA (as of date of application)
- Selected for internship (Y/N)
- If Selected:
- Compensation
- Additional funds amount
- Office Location
- Reason for receiving additional funds
- If Selected:
Example 2: For each year since 2019, please provide the following data for lawyers in your firm who were considered for elevation to partner:
- Name
- Sex
- Race
- Phone Number
- Email address
- Office Location
- Member of a firm affinity group (Y/N)
- Name of affinity group
- Previously participated in LCLD program (Y/N)
- Previously was SEO Fellow (Y/N)
- Previously participated in firm diversity internship or fellowship (Y/N)
- Elevated to partner (Y/N)
- Equity or non-equity partner (Equity / Non-Equity)
These examples show the importance of employers collecting sex and race data for EEOC charges or similar inquiries from potential plaintiffs.
DCI will continue to follow this matter and provide updates on how this EEOC request of private law firms unfolds.
