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PricewaterhouseCoopers' Law Firm Services Launches Cultural Awareness and Inclusion Survey

Posted on: Tuesday, 10 February 2009, 07:55 CST

A comprehensive study designed to help law firms evaluate their cultural awareness and diversity efforts relative to other firms

NEW YORK, Feb. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- The Law Firm Services group of PricewaterhouseCoopers' Private Company Services practice today launched the Firm's first-ever survey focused on diversity at law firms. The "Cultural Awareness and Inclusion Survey" was developed over the past year with significant input from PwC's Diversity Advisory Group, diverse attorneys and organizations, as well as law firms recognized for their public commitment to expanding diversity efforts. Questionnaires were distributed on February 6th, with survey results made available to participating firms in July 2009.

To ensure the survey provides a broad picture of a Firm's diversity efforts, the final report will include two sections. Section one will provide detailed gender and minority statistics (by office and/or practice group) for law firm timekeepers in areas such as headcount ratios, utilization, revenue, and promotion and turnover. The second section will summarize firm-wide diversity efforts in five key areas, including leadership, programs/initiatives, recruitment, retention and promotions, and client management.

"Workplace diversity efforts have a positive impact on the success of a company, including increased productivity, enhanced profitability and better employee retention," said Stanley Kolodziejczak, co-chair of the Law Firm Services Group. "We've worked with a number of leading law firms and our own Diversity Advisory Group to develop a questionnaire that we hope will become invaluable to the law firm community in their efforts to evaluate their cultural awareness and diversity efforts relative to other firms."

"As a firm, we understand the benefits of employing a diverse workforce and have increasingly seen this become a focus of our law firm clients," said David Gaulin, co-chair of the Law Firm Services Group. "During times of economic uncertainty, when employee recruitment and retention strategies are critical to a firm's short and long term success, benchmarking diversity programs against the competition could have a positive impact on the bottom line."

PricewaterhouseCoopers has nearly 100 years of experience servicing law firms and more than 50 years of providing critical benchmarking information to the legal profession. PricewaterhouseCoopers is a longtime national diversity leader and was recently ranked #4 by Diversity Inc's Top 50 Companies for Diversity.

PricewaterhouseCoopers works with a majority of the leading private companies in the U.S. Our 2,000 private company individuals focus on understanding the strategy and business objectives of private companies and their owners, working together to add value while reducing risk. Our professionals are provided with cross training to enable them to connect the dots across a number of private company issues such as compliance, controls, access to cash flow, expansion, exit strategies, succession, wealth management and the many areas that can help build or diminish long term success and value. For more information about PwC's private companies services please visit pwc.com/pcs

PricewaterhouseCoopers (www.pwc.com) provides industry-focused assurance, tax and advisory services to build public trust and enhance value for its clients and their stakeholders. More than 155,000 people in 153 countries across our network share their thinking, experience and solutions to develop fresh perspectives and practical advice.

(C) 2009 PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. All rights reserved. "PricewaterhouseCoopers" refers to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (a Delaware limited liability partnership) or, as the context requires, the PricewaterhouseCoopers global network or other member firms of the network, each of which is a separate and independent legal entity.

SOURCE PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP

Source: PR Newswire

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