Hon. Constance Baker Motley Essay Competition

he Federal Bar Association’s

THon. Constance Baker Motley Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Young Member Essay Competition is created to celebrate the life of Hon. Constance Baker Motley (1921-2005) and promote her legacy by encouraging law students and younger federal practitioners to promote, achieve, and sustain diversity, equity, and inclusion in the legal profession. The competition is named after Judge Baker Motley, the first African American woman appointed to the federal judiciary and the first woman judge in the Southern District of New York. She was a key leader of the African American civil rights movement, a lawyer, judge, state senator, and Borough president of Manhattan, New York City. This year’s essay competition winner is Daniel Cardwell. Daniel is a 3L at The Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Riverview, Fla. He completed the Business Transaction Concentration, earning elective credits in bankruptcy law, taxation of business entities, securities regulation, and UCC Article III negotiable instruments. He earned his B.A., magna cum laude, from the University of South Florida and an M.A. from Northern Arizona University. Daniel is currently a fall 2022 intern at the Department of Justice in the U.S. Trustee’s Program, and he was a judicial intern for Hon. Susan Rothstein-Youakim at the Florida Second District Court of Appeal and Hon. Catherine Peek McEwen at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida.

Three Strategies: One Mission

By Daniel Cardwell

Equity, diversity, and inclusion offer broad, but important, insights for advancing the legal profession. Equity is fairness. It looks at objective standards to eliminate oppression. Diversity looks at using all forms of talent to their highest use, while inclusion addresses obstacles to participation. These three concepts form a foundation for creating a profession that recruits talent, maximizes the development of its professionals, and enables participation for all members of the profession. These objectives can be achieved through the implementation of several workable and scalable strategies, which can be applied to any pool of talent such as pre-law students, law students/recent graduates, and early career attorneys.

Strategy One

Establish basic pipelines of accessibility. Pipeline programs address a common issue with recruitment: lack of visibility. Many professionals from underrepresented backgrounds experience a lack of familiarity with opportunities early in their careers. Lack of familiarity means not knowing about opportunities and not knowing the customs and procedures to pursue them. Therefore, strategy one focuses on crafting open access pipelines. A pipeline could be a “first come, first served” event to observe a court, firm, or agency, or it can be more targeted events where students benefit from mandatory pipeline participation. The focus of mandatory programs can be tailored to individual high schools within a specific zip code or undergraduate/law students registered for a specific elective course. The purpose is to create visibility and familiarity for potential law school recruitment.

Strategy Two

Remove economic disadvantages to participation. Incorporating fee waivers and reimbursements for organizational memberships and bar examinations would dramatically improve many students’ ability to participate in all the voluntary and mandatory processes for entering the profession. For some, a $25 membership fee is enough to deter students from joining organizations or attending events and conferences while in school. Additionally, the profession should consider sponsoring events and stipends for young professionals to acquire professional attire and participate in etiquette coaching. Being familiar with and comfortable with professional style and social spaces is a real concern for many students of different socio-economic backgrounds. Establishing an “Introduction to the Profession” fellowship program for students and early career lawyers is a targeted strategy to help anyone become equipped with basic professional necessities.

Strategy Three

Invest heavily in onboarding practices for employees, especially new hires and interns. Creating a solid infrastructure for training, HR orientation, and on the job support would and should replace the trial by fire mentality. An employer’s culture should demand the creation of an elite, efficient team where everyone understands their importance and role. High turnover rates are easily apparent in jobs where the culture favors finding employees who survive, rather than purposefully creating a skilled employee. Investing in the support structure of a firm would help the profession retain the talent recruited through its diversity and inclusion efforts in strategies one and two. Taken together, these three strategies will promote sustainable diversity and inclusion within the legal profession. 