DEI Compliance and Legal Counseling

The federal regulatory landscape around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has shifted dramatically.

Executive orders, U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) guidance, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) enforcement actions, and False Claims Act exposure have created new legal risks for employers with existing DEI programs—and new questions for those evaluating what to keep, modify, or discontinue. Epstein Becker Green's DEI Compliance and Legal Counseling team helps employers navigate this evolving environment, assess their current risk exposure, and make legally sound decisions about their workforce programs.

DEI Counseling, Compliance, and Defense

Employers turn to Epstein Becker Green, with its 50+ years of employment law experience, for practical, defensible guidance on restructuring DEI initiatives, mitigating litigation risk, and protecting their brand and reputation. Our DEI Compliance and Legal Counseling group—comprised of talented DEI lawyers with broad backgrounds and experience across both the private and public sectors—provides counseling, training, and litigation services tailored to each client’s specific needs and goals. Below, we outline how we help.

Assess Your Exposure

Employers rely on us to gauge their current DEI exposure and to help them institute effective, compliant programs going forward. Our DEI lawyers work with companies to audit existing DEI initiatives’ compliance and work with companies to monitor and examine their workplace culture and climate. We also conduct targeted False Claims Act risk assessments for government contractors and other federal funding recipients whose DEI programs may attract scrutiny under current enforcement priorities.

Our full suite of DEI services includes examining clients’ recruiting, retention, and promotion practices, analyzing what’s working and what’s not. We review our clients’ mentoring programs, affinity groups, and sponsorship programs. Clients also count on our DEI attorneys to conduct pay equity audits, address government contracting compliance obligations, and make updates, as needed, to policies and procedures regarding harassment/discrimination and internal complaints. In addition, we review clients’ performance management, discipline, voluntary separation, and discharge processes and suggest any necessary adjustments.

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Adapt Your Programs

Epstein Becker Green helps employers in all industries evaluate, restructure, and maintain compliant programs supporting inclusion and belonging. We work with clients’ boards of directors and senior executives to institute best practices for a diverse workforce while keeping clients compliant with all applicable federal, state, and local laws, rules, and regulations—including implementing or updating DEI workplace policies that adhere to EEOC or DOJ guidelines. Our DEI attorneys take a practical approach, bringing to bear their own experience in both the private and public sectors and their extensive knowledge of employment law.

We also assist clients in documenting the business and legal rationale for program changes, creating a record that supports defensibility if decisions are later challenged.

Defend Your Organization

Claims against a company involving harassment, discrimination, or diversity-related issues can devastate the company’s brand and reputation. Clients confronted with brand- and reputation-threatening claims seek our advice on how to handle the crisis. Our DEI attorneys conduct internal investigations into the claims, recommend remedial action, and help our clients prepare and review appropriate communications to both internal and external audiences. Our attorneys have extensive experience responding to EEOC charges and DOJ inquiries, including preparing position statements and managing agency investigations arising from DEI-related complaints.

Together with EBG Advisors, we help our clients prepare and review appropriate communications to both internal and external audiences and, if needed, provide crisis management services and PR specialists to navigate potentially negative PR and media scenarios.

In addition, our DEI lawyers vigorously defend our clients if their DEI practices are challenged before administrative agencies or in court. We also advise on crisis prevention measures and apply lessons learned from litigation to further strengthen our clients’ DEI programs and mitigate future reputational and legal risk.

Train Your Leadership

Training is essential to an employer’s efforts to create an inclusive workplace. Many of our clients call on our DEI lawyers to conduct targeted training for executives and managers on navigating the current federal compliance landscape, including what recent executive orders and agency guidance mean for day-to-day employment decisions. Additionally, we provide training for executives, managers, and rank-and-file employees in other areas of increasing concern, such as bystander obligations, unconscious bias, and social media practices. We offer in-person individual and group training or a variety of digital and virtual options, each adapted to a client’s needs.

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