Microsoft’s Outside Counsel Can Earn a Bonus for Increasing Diversity
Microsoft will pay its preferred outside counsel a 2 percent bonus if they meet diversity goals.
The program allows law firms to earn the annual bonus in two ways, reports The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times. One way is to increase the number of hours that women and minorities spend on Microsoft matters by 2 percent. A second way is to increase the number of women and minority lawyers working at the law firm by .5 percent.
Contract lawyers and lawyers from outside the United States cannot be included in the numbers, the National Law Journal reports.
Microsoft’s in-house lawyers are also eligible for bonuses tied to diversity improvements made by the outside law firms, according to the NLJ story.
Microsoft’s 17 preferred legal providers are eligible for the bonuses. Microsoft identified its nine “premier preferred providers” as Arnold & Porter; Covington & Burling; Davis Wright Tremaine; Heller Ehrman; K&L Gates; Perkins Coie; Sullivan & Cromwell; Weil, Gotshal & Manges; and Winston & Strawn.
