Apparently Coca-Cola and their training wasn’t woke enough for the corporation. Now, they will only use law firms that meet “quotas” for African-Amereican attorneys.
Coca-Cola debuted a new policy this year implementing a diversity quota for the outside counsel it retains, saying it will only hire law firms that commit to providing 15 percent of billed time from black attorneys, higher than the percentage of African Americans in the U.S. population.
On January 28, the soft drink titan’s legal department wrote a letter to the company’s U.S. outside counsel outlining Coca-Cola’s new requirement that law firms must “commit that at least 30% of each of billed associate and partner time will be from diverse attorneys, and of such amounts at least half will be from Black attorneys.”
Those requirements will tighten over time, with the “ultimate aspiration” that “at least” 50 percent of billed time will be from “diverse” attorneys, and 25 percent from black attorneys. Firms are expected to work to apply that standard to their existing work with Coca-Cola as well.