Diversity and Inclusion highlights Chambers Latin America 2022

As the Chambers Latin America Guide continues its evolution in keeping with client demands, technology and sector developments, the 2022 guide and legal coverage provides more detailed insights on leading law firms and lawyers than ever before.  

While the COVID-19 pandemic and its lasting impact has dominated the news, legal providers have been doubling down on commitments to inclusion and expanding the scope of their diversity initiatives across Latin America, while clients continue to drive change with a variety of measures.  

At Chambers, we have updated the submission document template to include department diversity statistics, enabling us to clearly measure the presence of diverse lawyers in each department within a law firm. This information increases our understanding of the demographics of practice areas, enabling us to better reflect the diversity of the profession.  

As a consequence of this positive action taken by our editorial, D&I and leadership teams, the headline figure shows that the percentage of individual rankings held by women in the 2022 Guide stands at 21.3%, up from 19.9% in 2021.

Since 2018, this percentage has grown by 3%. Analysing unique individual rankings, in which rankings across multiple practice areas are discounted, the percentage of ranked women increases to 22.9%. This number has increased by 2.5% over the last five years.  

Following the success of our trials in Argentina and Colombia to create more opportunities to speak to women lawyers, we implemented this strategy across the whole region. As the headline figures suggest, the percentage of women ranked in each jurisdiction year-on-year increased in most countries, with Paraguay and the International Counsel chapter showing significant growth at 4% and Panama and Honduras leading the way with a 5% increase.  

There was also steady growth across the different ranking bands, with the proportion of women ranked increasing in most designations. Of particular note, the proportion of women ranked as Star Associates increased dramatically from 17% in 2021 to 57% in 2022. 

It is clear that, as those associates marked out for future rankings progress in their careers, the highest bands will significantly increase the percentage of women holding rankings. However we do not necessarily have to wait to see improvements in the higher bands, as there was significant growth in the proportion of women ranked as Star Individuals, growing from 5% to 12% year-on-year.  

These results are positive, but we know there remains a long way to go to ensure our rankings are reflective of the diversity of the profession. By working together on this vital movement, together we can achieve this goal. We do not currently have data for lawyers that do not identify within the gender binary, but welcome disclosure of this information and hope to include this data in future analysis. 

These changes build on the D&I initiatives we have rolled out in Latin America, with seminars taking place since 2014 and awards since 2015. This year's Chambers D&I Awards: Latin America will take place in conjunction with the Latin America research awards, on 3^rd December in Miami. Find out more here. 

The data presented was collected on Chambers Business Intelligence, utilising data collected through Chambers research. Request a free demo for your firm below.