A week after many people and companies, including Law Trades, have called for change, how can it really happen? Attorney Donald Prophete questioned whether GCs would make their profession more equitable in a Law.com story. These are a few of the questions he asked for general counsels to ponder if they want to offer more opportunities for black lawyers.

• “Will they finally acknowledge that their inbred institutional systems are fraught with hidden, if not open inequity?”

• “Will they look into meaningful ways of repairing a system built and maintained to create opportunity for white males at the exclusion of others?”

• “Will they excuse their lack of contributions based on the excuse that they don’t want to disrupt their subordinates’ existing relationships, borne from backgrounds and relationships with people who look exactly like them?”

• “Will they continue with their explanation that their hands are tied from hiring Black lawyers and giving black lawyers business because they have historical relationships with the phalanx of lily-White lawyers who control their files.”

• “Will this be yet another opportunity for these same GCs to double down on their explanation that they hire the very best lawyers to represent them without regard to race (implicitly suggesting that Black lawyers don’t stack or measure up to their white colleagues), as the reason for their failure to provide opportunity or access to business to Blacks?”