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To Drive Efforts...Don't Tiptoe Around Your Legal Risk

By: Edward Chang and Bonnie Levine
  • Format:Print
  • | Pages:8
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Abstract

Many Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives are scuttled because DEI leaders and legal teams feel themselves to be at odds over questions of acceptable risk. DEI leaders see lawyers as guardians of the status quo, whereas legal experts, trained to anticipate the worst, believe they are protecting the company from legal risk. However, as the authors point out, businesses routinely choose to accept significant legal risk. In most situations they’re confronted with a risk-reward calculus that’s easy to quantify. But with DEI that’s harder, because the only thing on the balance sheet is the cost. Absent a foundation of trust and support, lawyers are skittish about signing off on initiatives, and the business is more likely to waste resources on performative exercises. And bad DEI poses a greater risk than does good DEI. When it comes to establishing a productive partnership between DEI leaders and legal counsel, the key is to collaborate early and often. In this article, the authors provide a framework to help you balance the nuances of legal risk with the need to implement effective initiatives.

Keywords

Diversity; Risk Management; Legal Liability

Citation

Chang, Edward, and Bonnie Levine. "To Drive Efforts...Don't Tiptoe Around Your Legal Risk." Harvard Business Review 100, no. 4 (July–August 2022): 74–81.
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About The Author

Edward H. Chang

Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
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More from the Authors
  • A Field Experiment on Subgoal Framing to Boost Volunteering: The Trade-off Between Goal Granularity and Flexibility By: Aneesh Rai, Marissa A. Sharif, Edward H. Chang, Katherine L. Milkman and Angela L. Duckworth
  • When Seeking Help, Women and Racial/Ethnic Minorities Benefit from Explicitly Stating Their Identity By: Erika L. Kirgios, Aneesh Rai, Edward H. Chang and Katherine L. Milkman
  • A 680,000-Person Megastudy of Nudges to Encourage Vaccination in Pharmacies By: Katherine L. Milkman, Linnea Gandhi, Mitesh S. Patel, Heather N. Graci, Dena M. Gromet, Hung Ho, Joseph S. Kay, Timothy W. Lee, Jake Rothschild, Jonathan E. Bogard, Ilana Brody, Christopher F. Chabris, Edward Chang, Gretchen B. Chapman, Jennifer E. Dannals, Noah J. Goldstein, Amir Goren, Hal Hershfield, Alex Hirsch, Jillian Hmurovic, Samantha Horn, Dean Karlan, Ariella S. Kristal, Cait Lamberton, Michael N. Meyer, Allison H. Oakes, Maurice E. Schweitzer, Maheen Shermohammed, Jaochim H. Talloen, Caleb Warren, Ashley V. Whillans, Kuldeep N. Yadav, Julian J. Zlatev, Ron Berman, Chalanda N. Evans, Rahul Ladhania, Jens Ludwig, Nina Mazar, Sendhil Mullainathan, Christopher K. Snider, Jann Spiess, Eli Tsukayama, Lyle Ungar, Christophe Van den Bulte, Kevin G. Volpp and Angela L. Duckworth
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