Members of the Minority Corporate Counsel Inclusion Initiative spent $42.6 million with minority and women-owned law firms last year - $12.6 million above the $30 million first-year goal, it was jointly announced today by Accenture, American Airlines, Comcast, DuPont, Exelon, General Mills, GlaxoSmithKline, Microsoft, Prudential, Sempra Energy and Walmart. Google, JPMorgan Chase, Macy's, Shell Oil Company, Verizon and Xerox also announced that they have joined the Inclusion Initiative for 2011.Together, the 17 Inclusion Initiative member companies have set a goal of collectively spending $70 million with minority- and women-owned business enterprise (MWBE) law firms in 2011.
"The Inclusion Initiative was launched in 2010 to demonstrate that leading companies in an array of industries are successfully using diverse law firms for a wide variety of complex legal matters," said Thomas L. Sager, senior vice president and general counsel at DuPont. "We're especially pleased that this success came in such a challenging economic environment," Mr. Sager added.