Morgan Lewis Responds to MassMutual GC’s Takedown of Bingham

In a recent interview with Big Law Business, Mark Roellig, General Counsel at MassachusettsMutual Life Insurance Co., discussed how he puts pressure on law firms to improve diversity, and his willingness to cut firms lose when they fail to comply.

Asked to describe a time in the past when MassMutual had parted ways with a firm over diversity, Roellig named now-defunct Bingham McCutchen.

“I think they had about 90 equity partners in their Boston office, and not a single African American was an equity partner. I think they had one Hispanic. In their Hartford office, which we also used, there wasn’t a single African American. ...