United States: Intel includes diversity as criteria for selecting legal service providers

In a statement published on 21 November, the US tech corporation Intel called on its corporate law departments, located in the US, to consider performance on diversity when using external law firms. In concrete terms, as of 1 January 2021, Intel says it will only use external legal service providers that “meet two diversity criteria: at least 21% of the firm’s US equity partners are women and at least 10% of the firm’s US equity partners are underrepresented minorities (which, for this purpose, we define as equity partners whose race is other than full white/Caucasian, and partners who have self-identified as LBGTQ+, disabled or as veterans)”. The US corporation spends some $300 million per year on legal services.