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CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
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WHEREAS, The State of Texas promotes diversity throughout its |
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workforce by encouraging state agencies to recruit and retain |
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African Americans and members of other minority racial and ethnic |
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groups; as a result, the civil rights division of the Texas |
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Workforce Commission reports that, in state fiscal year 2006, |
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racial and ethnic minorities made up more than 37 percent of the |
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workforce at state agencies, with African American employees |
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accounting for over 17 percent of the total state agency workforce; |
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and |
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WHEREAS, The State of Texas also advocates diversity by |
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requiring agencies to make a good faith effort to use |
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minority-owned businesses when issuing contracts for certain types |
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of goods and services, including legal services that may be |
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required for an agency to meet its responsibilities; and |
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WHEREAS, In recent years, many Texas law firms have increased |
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their efforts to recruit, retain, and promote African American and |
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other minority attorneys, while other firms have limited |
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opportunities for those attorneys; and |
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WHEREAS, To ascertain the racial and ethnic diversity of |
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attorneys in Texas firms, minority attorney associations in some of |
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the state's major cities survey large and medium-sized law firms in |
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those areas and rank the firms based on the diversity of their |
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attorneys; for example, a January 2007 report issued by the Houston |
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Multi-Bar Diversity Committee gave its highest rankings to two |
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Texas-based law firms--Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, and |
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Winstead Sechrest & Minick--each with African Americans comprising |
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slightly more than nine percent of their attorneys; in contrast, |
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King & Spalding received the committee's lowest ranking, with |
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African Americans accounting for only 1.3 percent of the firm's |
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attorneys; and |
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WHEREAS, An annual list produced by Texas Lawyer of the 25 |
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largest firms in Texas based on the number of their minority |
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attorneys, and a "diversity scorecard" of large and medium-sized |
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law firms nationwide issued each year by Minority Law Journal, also |
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provide information that state agencies can use to determine the |
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racial and ethnic diversity of Texas law firms; now, therefore, be |
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it |
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RESOLVED, That the 80th Legislature of the State of Texas |
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encourage state agency and university administrators who contract |
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with outside counsel to include in their decision-making process |
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the diversity rankings of private law firms, giving more favorable |
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consideration to high-ranking firms and less favorable |
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consideration to low-ranking firms; and, be it further |
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RESOLVED, That the secretary of state forward an official |
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copy of this resolution to the executive director of each state |
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agency and the general counsel of each state university for |
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distribution to personnel directly involved with the selection of |
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outside counsel for those entities. |