Chambers Brazil: Transactional 2021 D&I Highlights

The Chambers Brazil: Transactional 2021 guide demonstrates the continued expansion of our legal research and analysis, with more in-depth perspectives on key sectors in a rapidly growing market. In conjunction with more statistical analysis, current coverage and more ranked firms and individuals, this guide is undoubtedly the most exhaustive perspective on key practice areas in Brazil. 

These developments have included a continued focus on diversity and inclusion. While the Covid-19 pandemic and its lasting impact has dominated the news, firms have been doubling down on commitments to inclusion and expanding the scope of their diversity initiatives, often in close collaboration with clients.  

We have continued with the positive action implemented across our research teams, including updates to the submission document template to now include diversity statistics, while we also encourage a gender balanced split of partners and clients for our researchers to speak to. These changes increase our understanding of the demographics of practice areas, enabling us to better reflect the diversity of the profession.  

This positive action is increasingly yielding progressive results. The total number of women ranked in the practice areas covered by the Transactional increased from 17% in 2020 to 21% in 2021. Significantly, this increase in women ranked was seen across all ranking bands and the percentage of women ranked in band 1 grew from 12% in 2020 to 17% in 2021. The increase in ranked women was even more pronounced in the Up and Coming and Associate to Watchcategories, growing from 20% in 2020 to 31% in 2021.  

A year on from the publication of the inaugural Chambers Brazil Guide, we also analysed the gender diversity of our rankings across the whole market. We are pleased to announce that the percentage of women ranked grew from 19% in 2020 to 22% in 2021. Again, this increase was reflected at both ends of the rankings. The percentage of women ranked in band 1 grew from 16% to 19% while the Up and Coming and Associate to Watch categories saw an increase of 12%, from 28% to 40%. These positive results highlight the increased diversity of the legal profession Brazil, while also showcasing the success of our efforts to ensure we reflect the true breadth of diversity in the sector. 

The results have been positive but we know there remains a long way to go to ensure our rankings are reflective of the diversity of the profession. We will continue to work with our D&I team and the market to make progress and expand the network of firms and individuals we consider. We want to encourage firms to work closely with us by providing a diversity of perspectives to continually produce better research. 

In addition to our focus on the diversity of our rankings, we are delighted to announce that we will be holding Chambers D&I Awards: Brazil in March 2022, alongside the Brazil Forum. We look forward to recognising the firms and individuals at the forefront of diverse advancement in the country.