2018 Fall - Diversity & The Bar Magazine

A Thousand Cuts

Can the Virtual World Help End Racism?

2018 Rising Stars | Big Business Takes A Stand | When Global Goes Local

CONTENTS

FALL 2018

FEATURES

STAPLES

13 2018 GENERAL COUNSEL SUMMIT

04 | NOTES FROM THE CEO

MCCA, together with Bar organizations HNBA, NAPABA, and NBA hosted a GC Summit, bringing together highpotential diverse lawyers to help them develop the skills for Fortune 500 roles. By Catherine McGregor

07 | LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

22 MCCA RISING STARS 2018 Showcasing the best of a diverse lineup of lawyers whose professional excellence and public service contributions let them shine. By Jodi Bartle

08 | ADR MOSAIC

Theo Cheng lists the practical tools needed to move the ADR diversity conversation beyond awareness to industry change, from pledges to riders to the targeted appeal to decision-makers who shape the practice.

50 | INTERNATIONAL FOCUS

Nokia’s global reach is wide - what does that mean for diversity and inclusion across the company? Jodi Bartle investigates the challenge of managing global corporate ethics with local culture and values.

42 A THOUSAND CUTS We investigate how virtual reality can help shift an experience from mind to heart. The VR 1000 Cut Journey lets participants ‘become’ a young black male who suffers from three incidents of everyday racism. By Catherine McGregor

58 THE LONG WAY BACK

53 | YOU CAN’T CHANGE WHAT YOU CANT SEE (PART 2) Catherine McGregor in conversation with Michele Coleman Mayes, longterm in-house lawyer and champion for diversity and inclusion, on her groundbreaking report “You Can’t Change What You Can’t See”.

How some organisations have recognised the need for veteran programs, set up to assist ex-military personnel settle back into both civilian and, in some cases, corporate life.

By Jodi Bartle

ALSO 11 + 38 | COMMUNITY VIEWPOINTS 53 | YOU CAN’T CHANGE WHAT YOU CAN’T SEE 66 | BIG BUSINESS TAKES A STAND

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MCCA BOARD OF DIRECTORS A.B. CRUZ, III USAA & MCCA CHAIR Enterprise Shared Services Senior Vice President, Chief Legal Office

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JEAN LEE MCCA President & CEO STUART ALDEROTY CIT GROUP, INC. & MCCA CHAIR-ELECT Executive Vice President, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary RICARDO ANZALDUA FREDDIE MAC Executive Vice President & Special Legal Adviser to the CEO DAMIEN ATKINS THE HERSHEY COMPANY Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary

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CRAIG B. GLIDDEN GENERAL MOTORS COMPANY Executive Vice President & General Counsel KIRKLAND L. HICKS LINCOLN FINANICAL GROUP Executive Vice President & General Counsel

DUANE HOLLOWAY UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer & Corporate Secretary SANDRA LEUNG BRISTOL-MYERS SQUIBB Executive Vice President & General Counsel LINDA LU NATIONWIDE INSURANCE Senior Vice President, Property & Casualty Legal Personal Lines SUZAN A. MILLER INTEL CORPORATION Corporate Vice President, Deputy General Counsel & Corporate Secretary SAMUEL M. REEVES WALMART, INC. Senior Vice President & General Counsel Walmart International Legal ROBIN H. SANGSTON COX COMMUNICATIONS, INC. Vice President & Chief Compliance & Privacy Officer

DAWN SMITH MCAFEE Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer RICHARD J. WALLIS MICROSOFT CORPORATION Vice President & Deputy General Counsel NEIL H. WILCOX USAA Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Enterprise Shared Services MICHAEL T. WILLIAMS Former Executive Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary SIMONE WU CHOICE HOTELS INTERNATIONAL Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary & External Affairs

D&B MAGAZINE PUBLICATION STAFF

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EDITOR-IN CHIEF Catherine McGregor

DESIGN/ART DIRECTION Elfatrany Design

PRESIDENT, MCCA ADVISORY PRACTICE Sophia M. Piliouras

ADVERTISING Catherine McGregor

MCCA® STAFF

Tieara Jones Sherla Allen Sophia M. Piliouras Jodi Bartle Kevin Wong Lauren Hossfeld

GENERAL INFORMATION ADVERTISING For advertising inquiries, contact Catherine McGregor, catherine.mcgregor@mcca.com

MCCA MEMBERSHIP Please visit https://www.mcca.com/membership/ for details or email membership@mcca.com

PERMISSIONS AND REPRINTS Reproduction of Diversity & the Bar in whole or part without permission is prohibited. To obtain permission, visit https://www.mcca.com/db-magazine/reprint-request/ COPYRIGHT

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Copyright® 2018 by the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, Diversity & the Bar is published four times a year and is distributed to supporters and subscribers, 1111 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20004. The information contained in this publication has been provided to the Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA®) by a variety of independent sources. While MCCA makes every effort to present accurate and reliable information, MCCA does not endorse, approve or certify such information, nor does MCCA guarantee the accuracy, completeness, efficacy or chronological sequence of any such information. Use of such information on the readers’ part is entirely voluntary, and reliance upon it should be undertaken only upon independent review and due diligence. References to any commercial product, process or service by trade name, trademark, service mark, manufacturer or otherwise shall not constitute or imply endorsement, preference, recommendation or the favor of MCCA. MCCA (including its employees and agents) assumes no responsibility for consequence resulting from the use of the information herein, or in any respect for the content of such information, including (but not limited to) errors or omissions; the accuracy or reasonableness of factual or other data, including statistical or scientific assumptions, studies or conclusions; the defamatory nature of statements; ownership of copyright or other intellectual property rights; and the violation of property, privacy or personal rights of others. MCCA is not responsible for, and expressly disclaims and denies liability for, damages of any kind arising out of use, reference to or reliance upon such information. No guarantees or warranties, including (but not limited to) any express or implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular use or purpose, are made by MCCA with respect to such information. Copyright in this publication, including all articles and editorial information contained herein, is exclusively owned by MCCA, and MCCA reserves all rights to such information. MCCA is a tax-exempt corporation organized in accordance with section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Its tax ID number is 13-3920905.

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NOTES

FROM THE CEO

THIS YEAR HAS BEEN ABOUT CHANGE; BOTH WITHIN AND OUTSIDE MCCA. SPECIFICALLY, MCCA PARTNERED WITH OUR LAW FIRMS AND COMPANIES TO EMPOWER CHANGE WITHIN THEIR OWN ORGANIZATIONS AND TO FACILITATE A CULTURE THAT EMBRACES DIFFERENCES. One example of that was our partnership with Microsoft and Russell Reynolds Associates to conduct our Inclusion Index Survey and Inclusive Leader program. And, as we prepare for our Creating Pathways to Diversity Conference and Diversity Gala, we continue to focus on changing culture and how we can advance together.

Why are we focused on culture? Culture defines our value system and guides how we interact with each other. We can create and change our culture to shape our daily experience. Therefore, how we change culture to create a more inclusive workplace where colleagues can be themselves has to be a collective effort between leaders and staff. Without that collective effort and agreement, there may be unintended negative results. We saw the negative consequences over and over again during the past few years and the impact on a company’s bottom line.

That is why our collaboration with Microsoft and Russell Reynolds is focused on working with people to create an awareness of their leadership styles and how each leader can be more inclusive, which we hope will produce leaders who understand the value of including diverse thoughts and ideas. The goal of our collaboration is to help leaders share their lessons learned with their direct reports or partners who can further impact everyday culture of a law department or a law firm.

After awareness is the need for buy-in from the majority of constituents. This is where the tough work begins; to bring different people across different groups to embrace the same message of inclusion and to work together to effectuate meaningful change. We will collaborate with our members and start the hard work on November 1 in Seattle at our inaugural Inclusion Summit. We will leverage our bias interrupters research, which we published in collaboration with the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession and Center for Life at UC Hastings, to provide the necessary tools. We are excited to partner with our members, Davis Wright & Tremaine and Microsoft on this pilot.

It is more important than ever that we are #advancingtogether because we cannot achieve diversity, inclusion and equity without everyone’s collective efforts. We hope you saw that theme come to life at our Diversity Gala where we honored leaders, everyday people, students and you who believe in advancing together to make a difference in our profession.

Sincerly,

Jean Lee

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Candor. Insight. Results.

At Baker Tilly, everything we do is built around seamless collaboration. As an accounting and advisory firm with global reach, coupled with local insights and decades of regional experience, our industryfocused professionals address tomorrow’s business challenges today.

Connect with us: bakertilly.com Patrick Yu, CPA, Partner 212 792 4802 patrick.yu@bakertilly.com An independent member of Baker Tilly International Š 2018 Baker Tilly Virchow Krause, LLP. Baker Tilly refers to Baker Tilly Virchow Krause, LLP, an independently owned and managed member of Baker Tilly International.

NOTES

FROM THE EDITOR

WAS COMPLETELY BOWLED OVER BY THIS QUARTER’S COVER IMAGE. BUT EQUALLY AMAZING WAS THE EXPERIENCE OF WRITING THE RELATED FEATURE ABOUT A PROJECT THAT USES VR TO COMBAT RACISM. The 1000 Cut Journey is a collaboration between the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University and Columbia University’s School of Social Work, and the objective of the project is to use this new technology in raising empathy and promoting action in regards to racism. It may be something you can use in training within your own organization; use of the project in corporate America is one of the advances the researchers are exploring.

In another example of tangible change, Jodi Bartle explores why and how companies decide to take a stand on particular issues. Companies are increasingly using their platforms with consumers and legislators to advocate for or against certain issues. Many of these issues are around inclusion; it’s currently a hot topic with Nike’s new campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick. But it’s also one that can reap commercial rewards as well as ethical kudos - Nike’s sales have apparently been up since the campaign, notwithstanding those who disagreed and burned their sneakers. As Jimmy Kimmel commented, “Why not just burn your money? You already bought the clothes.”

We’re also delighted to feature this year’s crop of Rising Stars, selected for both their commercial and their social acumen. Finally, in this issue’s International Focus, we’re delighted to feature MCCA’s first international member Nokia, to showcase the work they are undertaking around LGBTQ inclusivity.

As ever, if you have thoughts, comments, ideas or want to write for us, email me at: catherine.mcgregor@mcca.com.

Sincerly,

Catherine McGregor Editor in Chief D & B M A G A Z I N E FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 8 | W W W. M C C A . C O M

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D&B/TALK

THE ADR MOSAIC

Moving the Conversation Beyond Raising Awareness of Diversity

by Theodore K. Cheng

EVERYONE SEEMS TO AGREE THAT, OVER THE LAST SEVERAL YEARS, THE ADR COMMUNITY HAS SUCCESSFULLY RAISED THE ISSUE OF THE LACK OF DIVERSITY IN THE FIELD IN A NUMBER OF DIFFERENT WAYS. There have even been some noble attempts to have individuals and companies sign on to “pledges,” committing themselves and/or their organizations to support diversity policies. For example, several years ago, the CPR Institute (cpradr.org), an independent, non-profit organization that helps businesses and their counsel prevent and resolve commercial disputes more effectively through the promotion of ADR, promulgated a Commitment on Diversity, calling upon companies and law firms to “include qualified diverse neutrals among any list of mediators or arbitrators they propose.” This pledge not only raised awareness, but also identified those companies and law firms who were willing to make a tangible, public commitment to expand their search criteria to consider and, ultimately, select diverse arbitrators and mediators for their commercial disputes.

More recently, the arbitration community has focused on the under-representation of women on international arbitral tribunals. A pair of Law.com articles from 2016 sets out vastly different statistics for the U.S. federal courts (where, for example, in excess of 30% of judges are women) and for ADR (where, in cases involving disputes over $500,000, less than 30% of selected neutrals are women, and for international disputes, well under 20%). In 2015, members of the arbitration community drew up the Equal Representation in Arbitration Pledge (arbitrationpledge.com) to address the lack of women arbitrators on international tribunals. The Pledge “seeks to increase, on an equal opportunity basis, the number of women appointed as arbitrators in 8

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order to achieve a fair representation as soon practically possible, with the ultimate goal of full parity.”

In its preamble, the Pledge notes that the arbitration community is “committed to improving the profile and representation of women in arbitration” and “consider that women should be appointed as arbitrators on an equal opportunity basis.” To achieve this objective, the Pledge outlines specific steps to ensure that, for example, wherever possible, committees, governing bodies, and conference panels in the arbitration field include a fair representation of women, and that lists of potential arbitrators or tribunal chairs include a fair representation of female candidates. As of July 2018, the Pledge has collected nearly 3,000 signatories, many hundreds of which are corporations, law firms, and other organizations, including a growing list of U.S. firms, institutions, and companies.

These initiatives are commendable and should be continued, if only to maintain a vigilant awareness about the lack of diversity in the ADR field and to insist that companies, law firms, providers, and other organizations strive to make demonstrated commitments to increase diversity. But we can do more. We can move the conversation forward by focusing the dialogue on developing helpful, practical tools that would be readily accepted and easily implemented to address the underlying diversity problem. Let me tell you about three such tools.

The first tool attacks the diversity problem long before any dispute has even arisen. This past May, JAMS (jamsadr.org) – a major, well known ADR

provider – became the first provider to include an optional rider in its portfolio of sample dispute resolution clauses to support the business community’s diversity efforts when selecting an arbitrator or arbitration panel: The parties agree that, wherever practicable, they will seek to appoint a fair representation of diverse arbitrators (considering gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation), and will request administering institutions to include a fair representation of diverse candidates on their rosters and list of potential arbitrator appointees.

As you can see, the rider is modeled after the language found in the Pledge, which JAMS took in 2016, becoming one of the first major American ADR provider signatories.

Notably, consideration of this voluntary and optional rider attacks the diversity problem at the critical time when the underlying commercial contract is being negotiated by the business, legal, and other transactional professionals. By raising and addressing diversity at a moment when the parties are willing and interested in consummating a deal – before any dispute between the parties has

arisen – it reaffirms and elevates the importance of diversity as a shared and legitimate (albeit not sole) criterion upon which the later selection decision(s) will be made. As JAMS CEO Chris Poole stated, this rider will “empower organizations who value diversity in their business initiatives, including their dispute resolution processes.”

The second tool addresses the diversity problem after the dispute has arisen, but, again, before the selection process. At last year’s annual meeting of the College of Commercial Arbitrators, during my panel presentation on diversity and ADR, my friend and colleague Stephen Gilbert (spgadr.com) proposed the idea of making available to ADR providers and court ADR program administrators a one-page slipsheet to hand out to parties and their counsel about the benefits of having a diverse panel of arbitrators: Diversity.

What does that word mean?

In your arbitration, it could mean quite a lot.

Sound research proves the substantial benefit of having a diverse panel making the decisions.

Intrigued? Puzzled? Skeptical?

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It then provides outtakes from a pair of authoritative business and scientific sources on how diverse groups outperformed more homogeneous groups and, more generally, the benefits of diversity. It ends with the following: Please let us know how we can help you. Who serves on your panel is one of the most important decisions you will make in your arbitration.

Because the sheet is given to the entities and individuals actually engaged in making those selections before any list of potential arbitrators is provided to them, it prompts them to think about diversity as a criterion (albeit not the only or even the principal criterion). It relies on the neurological principle of “anchoring” in decision-making – an individual’s cognitive bias of relying heavily on an initial piece of offered information to make subsequent judgments – to lay the groundwork for diversity immediately preceding the time period when selecting the arbitration panel is to take place. It can, of course, be customized to better fit the particular provider, court program, or end-user.

It has since been championed by an organization I helped co-found in early 2017 called the ADR Inclusion Network (adrdiversity.org), which comprises representatives from stakeholders in the ADR field who are committed to increasing the awareness of, use, visibility, availability, and selection of diverse neutrals within New York State in all aspects of the ADR field. We have informally called this tool the “mindbug” sheet, naming it after the term coined by Professors Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald (creators of the Implicit Association Test, available at projectimplicit.com) in their book, “Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People,” to refer to implicit associations/biases.

The last tool also addresses the diversity problem after the dispute has arisen, but, this time, impacting the course of the arbitration proceeding itself. In March of this year, CPR became the first arbitral institution to promulgate a “Young Lawyer” Rule in its revised Rules for Non-Administered Arbitration of Domestic and International Disputes, 10

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which affords discretion to the arbitration tribunal to “encourage lead counsel to permit more junior lawyers with significantly less arbitration experience than lead counsel to examine witnesses at the hearing and present argument,” while also permitting “experienced counsel to provide assistance or support, where appropriate, to a lawyer with significantly less experience during the examination of witnesses or argument.” The rule also makes clear that “the ultimate decision of who speaks on behalf of the client in an arbitration is for the parties and their counsel, not the Tribunal.”

The rule is modeled after similar rules and standing orders established in the federal courts, which, as noted by CPR President & CEO Noah J. Hanft, “have reported that it has indirectly but naturally increased the opportunities for women and people of color” because it “helps to create a culture where such critical opportunities are encouraged, and the mechanisms are put into place so all stakeholders feel comfortable following through.” CPR expects to incorporate the new rule into its other rules for both domestic and international administered arbitrations.

So let’s put our thinking caps on and move the conversation beyond merely raising awareness about the diversity problem. As the above tools illustrate, we can strive to spark a dialogue over finding innovative and creative ideas for real, practical tools to move the needle towards increasing diversity.

THEO CHENG

TCHENG@THEOCHENG.COM Theo Cheng is an independent, full-time arbitrator and mediator and serves on the rosters of the American Arbitration Association, the CPR Institute, FINRA, Resolute Systems, and several federal and state courts, focusing on commercial/business, intellectual property, technology, entertainment, and labor/employment disputes. He has over 20 years of experiencing handling intellectual property and commercial litigation matters.

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COMMUNITY VIEWPOINT A Guide to Hiring a Diverse Legal Team: Seeing Past the Smoke and Mirrors

By Anthony P. Ashton, Esquire

THERE ARE MANY ADVANTAGES TO HIRING A DIVERSE LEGAL TEAM. FOR EXAMPLE, DIVERSE TEAMS GENERATE DIVERSE IDEAS, RESULTING IN INNOVATIVE STRATEGIES AND BETTER ULTIMATE DECISIONS. Hiring a diverse legal team also sends a message to your customers and employees that diversity is important to your business. The list goes on, but you probably already know this because you’re reading this article. As with all goals, to achieve your diversity goals you may have to overcome obstacles. Some of those obstacles come in the form of the law firms that are vying for your business actively taking steps to overstate their diversity or hide their lack of diversity.

This article is addressed specifically to corporate clients of legal services, including in-house counsel.

It gives some examples of bad behavior and recommendations to see past a law firm’s smoke and mirrors. The recommendations require little time from, and no expenditures by, the client.

THE BAIT AND SWITCH This is perhaps the most blatant and egregious example of faking diversity. When trying to get work, some law firms put together a “pitch book” – a brochure that showcases the firm and its relevant lawyers. When compiling these pitch books for businesses that express an interest in diversity, the firm makes sure to have bios and photos of lawyers of color and women. The pitch book is the bait. The switch comes after the engagement when the work is actually performed. The diverse lawyers whose photos and bios you saw may have little to no involvement in the actual legal services performed.

Some firms do not even bother to send the diverse attorneys on the in-person interview with the prospective client.

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RECOMMENDATION Before engaging a legal team, have the law firm set forth each attorney’s anticipated role on the team, and the number of hours he/she is expected to work on the matter. If the role attributed to a diverse attorney is so amorphous that you can’t quite figure out what he/she will be doing, this is a red flag. If the role that a diverse attorney is expected to fill is duplicative of that which his/her non-diverse counterpart is filling, this is a red flag. If the hours that a diverse attorney is expected to work seems too high or too low for the work he/she is to perform, this is a red flag.

Once you hire a law firm, review the invoices with diversity in mind. Make sure that the diverse attorneys whose bios and photos were presented to you before the engagement are actually performing the legal services you were told they would perform.

Be sure to tell the law firm before hiring it that you will be reviewing the invoices with diversity in mind.

Hopefully, this will prevent undesirable behavior.

Equally important, be prepared to penalize the law firm if you discover that it has baited and switched.

This penalty may include refusing to engage the firm for any future work or severing ties with it on the current engagement. Repeated engagement of firms that do not provide your business with actual diversity sends the message that your business is not serious about diversity.

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ing witness interviews; and creating charts are just some of the tasks that can result in the lawyer performing them racking up a large number of billable hours. They, however, may not require much legal skill. As I used to say: “If you’ve ever walked past a law school, you may be able to do a doc review.” In transactional work, these tasks may be equated to performing “due diligence” or “redlining” simple documents. Although someone must do this work, and by doing this work junior attorneys can learn basic skills, if these are the only tasks or most of the tasks that diverse attorneys are performing, it creates a trap for these attorneys. Although they may easily make their billable hour requirements and earn year-end production bonuses, they are not growing as attorneys, not becoming proficient in the skills necessary to sustain their careers. Eventually, their billable rates exceed their skill levels, resulting in their involuntary departure from the firm. Other diverse attorneys voluntarily leave because they do not see the opportunities they want, and see an unattractive trajectory to their careers. Still, by packing a project with diverse attorneys performing menial tasks, a firm can give the illusion of true diversity.

RECOMMENDATION Review law firm invoices with diversity in mind. If a client looks solely at timekeepers’ names and hours billed, it may miss the fact that diverse attorneys have been utilized only for the most basic of tasks.

Again, be sure to tell the law firm before hiring it that you will be reviewing the invoices with diversity in mind. It should come as no surprise that people tend to behave differently when they know they are being watched from when they think no one is 12

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watching. If you discover that the firm is assigning

diverse attorneys solely or primarily to menial tasks, tell the firm it must give diverse attorneys more substantive roles. The truth is, you’re the client; you have the power. Don’t be afraid to use it.

FUNGIBLE ATTORNEYS

Although numbers may not necessarily lie, they

can mislead. For example, if over a five-year period, a firm consistently has an 18% diversity rate for its lawyers, the numbers make it look as though the

firm is holding steady with regard to diversity. In

measuring diversity, however, it is not just about the numbers, it is also about names. In other words, if

when a junior diverse attorney leaves the firm, he/

she is replaced with another (probably more junior)

diverse attorney, the numbers remain the same.

This constant turnover is a red flag that the firm’s

diversity plan (assuming it has one) is not working.

Furthermore, junior attorneys typically are assigned to perform only basic tasks, leading to the results described above. A better indication of diversity are

the demographics of attorneys elevated to partner over the past few years.

ANTHONY P. ASHTON APA@BBSCLAW.COM Anthony is a commercial and franchise litigation partner and has practiced for more than 20 years. He is an expert in diversity, and has taught continuing legal education courses in, and written articles on, diversity. He has served throughout the United States as a speaker on issues of diversity in the legal profession. His firm, Baxter, Baker, Sidle, Conn & Jones is a full service law firm.

2018 General Counsel Summit Working together to make a difference By Catherine McGregor

A key strategic focus for MCCA in recent years has been working together with other diversity and inclusion groups to really make a difference.

Nowhere can this strategy been seen in action more clearly than with the General Counsel Summit run in New York with the participation of the three major diverse Bar organizations - HNBA, NAPABA and NBA. The two-day Summit brings together high potential minority in-house lawyers in a program which aims to help them develop the skills they need to attain Fortune 500 GC roles.

And it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach; delegates are streamed according to their readiness for a GC role and their programs are tailored for their experience level.

I spoke to three of the participants to find out about how the event was for them.

WHY IT’S UNIQUE “The summit is a unique approach. I believe it starts with the premise that we have plenty of talent out there in the field that is diverse and that we are capable of being general counsel. It’s not a programme that addresses the talent gap – I don’t think there is one really - but builds a strategy, a visibility and a tighter network of support. It also addresses getting the chances to be out in front of the opportunities so we can compete for them.”

—Willie Hernandez, Deputy General Counsel, HPE

“What is unique to me about the event is that it challenges issues that may be common to all minority professionals and makes us think about what are the strategies to address those challenges - not just from an emotional perspective but also from a practical perspective. The conference is full

“For me, the most important part of this conference has been the effort made by MCCA to bring the minority Bar associations together. The conference provides a great opportunity to meet people from across the country and across different industries – we can appreciate that we have similar challenges and can help each other out.

Historically it has been a struggle to bring all of us together – our Bar associations have been a bit siloed; this event really allows us to work together, get to know each other, and help each other advance.”

—Peggy Ho, Executive Vice President Government

Relations and Chief of Staff Compliance, Legal & Risk, LPL Financial

Spencer Stuart session on Understanding Cultural Fit for the Right Role

of people who are used to doing well but are also asking what it’s going to take to get to the next professional goal.

MCCA is not afraid to be controversial with this topic; one strong message that came through was that you need to stick your neck out, challenge yourself, and make smart decisions about unique endeavors. They reminded us to take advantage of opportunities, but also remember ultimately to give back and help younger attorneys in their journeys.

In many ways, I believe that you are getting an experience akin to a group executive coaching session. I think it would be difficult to get something similar unless you pay for your own executive coach!”

—Sheea Sybblis, Senior Counsel, Boehringer Ingelheim

MEETING RECRUITERS IS CRITICAL “First, from a process standpoint, it is helpful to learn how searches for GCs get put together from recruiters, how they are run and then how the interview process goes. We can learn to be better prepared when we start the process ourselves, as well as how to talk and to present ourselves. We have all moved up in our organizations but there is something about the final step that is unique; understanding the process is therefore very helpful.

Building relationships with recruiters was critical as they are instrumental in many of these searches. Having interaction with them in this setting, outside the context of a specific search, and getting to know them allows them to see us as qualified lawyers and general counsels, not just diverse lawyers.

I do think this is a key problem that needs to be addressed – while it is progress that some companies want diverse candidates on the slate, there can be a tendency to view them through the process as the diverse candidate instead of just one of the candidates. We’ve seen this issue in the Latinx community, in particular. Oftentimes, we are only approached when a company has major opD & B M A G A Z I N E FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 8 | W W W. M C C A . C O M

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erations in Latin America or needs a lawyer who speaks Spanish. We have so much Latinx talent in the field - that is, legal talent - that we need to be considered for global positions just like our non-Latinx peers. Ironically, I don’t actually speak Spanish and lot of my experience has been in Asia and Europe!

This is not to ignore our advantages as diverse lawyers; the fact we do bring a diverse background to the executive table is a key advantage, especially when so many executive tables lack diversity.

We want recruiters to see our diversity as much as our talent as lawyers, full stop.”

I also met other recruiters socially during the networking events which was a great benefit – it’s nice to get different perspectives and make new connections.

At the end of the day, after a certain point in your career, your network really matters and it’s important to continue to build these connections.

Of course, you need to be good at what you do and you must have the technical skills - but it’s critical to have strong relationships and learn how to leverage them to find the right opportunities.”

“It helps that they reach out to recruiters, to give us an understanding of the process and what the interactions are like in hiring for GC roles. If you were one of the first people in your family to go to college or law school, in figuring out your path you may not have the requisite social network for guidance.

As a strategic legal advisor in a highly regulated industry, a challenge can be getting the executive-level managerial experience needed to get to the next level. It was helpful to get feedback and perspective on different ways to get the range of experiences necessary to be a well-rounded leader in an organization.“

“I think the selective approach taken to the institute of streaming people according to readiness for the GC role is one hundred percent the right one.

People who are in the ‘ready’ category are focused on different things like making the final push, versus someone who is ten-year qualified and focused on building their resume. This approach tailors the content and guidance to the needs of people at different stages in their careers and it increases the impact of the program.“

—Willie Hernandez, Deputy General Counsel, HPE

—Sheea Sybblis, Senior Counsel, Boehringer Ingellheim

“There was a session focused on deconstructing the mystique around the recruiting process. The content of the session was spot on, and the very open and honest discussion the whole group had was very insightful.

MCCA also set up session for us to have oneon-one meetings with a recruiter. I appreciated this opportunity as it’s always good to get insight into their thinking and how they approach things.

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—Peggy Ho, Executive Vice President Government

Relations and Chief of Staff Compliance, Legal & Risk, LPL Financial

—Sheea Sybblis, Senior Counsel, Boehringer Ingelheim

“It is very useful that the event breaks the sessions down to where you are in your career - not just a junior or senior professional. This approach means delegates can pinpoint and address issues head-on. For example, are you really GC-ready?

In addition to technical skills, have you supervised a team? Or, how do you get opportunities to undertake larger management roles as organizations get flatter and flatter?

One of the panels that really stood out for me was the one that featured four individuals at the senior-to-GC level. They went through the audience of about twenty professionals asking the following

types of questions: Where are you now? How many years post-qualification are you and how many steps are you out from the GC? The session resonated with me because these dynamic individuals were taking the time to really assess and figure out exactly what we each attendee needed to think about. Often conferences are good at identifying the problem for our communities, but this really focused on and highlighted what we need to do with that information. People were very candid which was also very helpful.”

—Sheea Sybblis, Senior Counsel, Boehringer Ingellheim

“The tiered approach is a good way to make sure participants derive value out of the two days. It’s always going to be hard to tailor the sessions it’s difficult to identify topics that will appeal to everyone. But you have a better chance at success if you can take into account where participants are in their professional journey.

Of course, putting people into different tiers can be difficult – some may be frustrated to be placed in a more junior program – but the goal for everyone is to get objective feedback on where we are in our careers and what we need to work on. This unbiased feedback is what will allow each of us to take the steps needed to get to our next stage.

I might get a call for a role not suitable for me and I can refer to someone in the network. This value was only expanded by bringing the various Bar associations together. We want to advance true diversity, diversity that truly reflects our community, and there is no question we are stronger in numbers and when we work together.”

—Willie Hernandez, Deputy General Counsel, HPE

“It was good to get the opportunity to speak to leading minority general counsel, network and gain insights and to reflect - to look at your goals

and your roadmap. Also, the conference is not focused on simply getting a new employment

opportunity, but rather provides insights on how

to build relationships and navigate a career path in the organization you are in now.”

—Sheea Sybblis, Senior Counsel, Boehringer Ingelheim

“For me, while the program was solid, I definitely feel that the biggest value was bringing people together. It builds your network which is central to your own success and that of others.

The program also allowed each of us to assess our strengths and what we bring to the table.

—Peggy Ho, Executive Vice President Government

Meeting a variety of other people from different

Legal & Risk, LPL Financial

similar professional objectives, gave each of us

Relations and Chief of Staff Compliance,

NETWORKING TOGETHER WITH OTHER BAR ASSOCIATIONS STRENGTHENS THE PROGRAM AND OUR NETWORK “This may get overlooked, but the fact that we got to network with people who are similarly situated was extremely valuable. An outsider might look at us as competitors, but we look at each other as a network and one in which we can help each other.

backgrounds and experiences, but who share the opportunity to learn from each other. In some cases, we could benchmark our own skills and experiences and determine where we need to invest.

And all of this is great learning for our own professional development.”

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D&B/TALK

PAYING IT FORWARD Ricardo Anzaldua

By Catherine McGregor

IN THIS REGULAR FEATURE, WE ASK A SUCCESSFUL DIVERSE ATTORNEY TO REFLECT BACK ON THEIR CAREER, AIMING TO HIGHLIGHT THOSE REFLECTIONS AS A TOOL TO ADVISE YOUNGER LAWYERS ON HOW THEY SHOULD MANAGE THEIR CAREER. THIS TIME WE SPEAK TO RICARDO ANZALDUA, INCOMING GENERAL COUNSEL OF FREDDIE MAC. Prior to joining Freddie Mac, Ricardo was Executive Vice President and General Counsel at MetLife, Inc. In his role there he led the company’s global legal operations and oversaw MetLife’s government relations team, corporate secretary’s office and corporate ethics and compliance group. He also designed and led the execution of the company’s one-of-a-kind successful legal challenge of its ‘too-big-to-fail’ designation under the Dodd-Frank Act. Ricardo joined MetLife from The Hartford Financial Services Group, where he was Senior Vice President and Associate General Counsel.

Prior to joining The Hartford, Anzaldua was a partner with Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton LLP in New York. He began his legal career with the firm upon graduation from Harvard Law School in 1990.

Before law school, Ricardo was the Publications Director and Senior Editor of the Center For U.S. - Mexican Studies, a University of California think-tank focusing on research relating to Mexico and U.S. - Mexican relations, as well as Latin America more generally.

Ricardo is a member of MCCA’s board.

Diversity & the Bar: You started your career working for the Center for U.S. - Mexican Studies at The University of California editing its publications, after your graduate studies in Latin 18

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American history. How did these experiences inform your career in the legal profession?

Ricardo Anzaldua: I think the story is layered and interesting. I started my academic career at Brown University, where I studied development economics and Latin American history, and then pursued graduate studies at UC San Diego.

There I continued my study of Latin American history and economics and was working on improving economic development for people in the poorest countries in Latin America. But I became aware that a career in academia would likely not allow me to have a practical impact on these issues.

As a first-generation college graduate with no experience in academia, business or government, I had to learn from experience that the academic field was not seen as a place for having a practical impact on the policy questions I was most interested in. Later, I felt frustrated by this and I decided that being a professor was not for me. As a publisher and editor for the Center of U.S.- Mexican Studies I was still marginal to decision-making regarding economic development. At the Center I met an attorney who suggested that a way to have a more direct impact was to study law and then work for a law firm that advised foreign sovereigns on development issues.

RICARDO ANZALDUA Ricardo Anzaldua from the Bloomberg Law Business Diversity and Inclusion Summit, New York, NY, October 2015 @BloombergBNA

I did extensive research — which was quite time-consuming as we didn’t have the Internet then — and I concluded it was worth a shot. So, my experience at the Center for U.S. - Mexican Studies proved seminal and illuminated my path.

D&tB: What first made you want to become a lawyer?

RA: Aside from my desire to effect a real practical change in the field of economic development, I was interested in being a lawyer because I’d been told over the years that I had the competencies for being one; good at speaking in public and with good analytical and writing skills. However, I didn’t want to end up in law for the sole reason that it was the default career path for liberal arts majors, so I really had to find my own path to the profession in order to work on what I was interested in.

D&tB: What were the key steps and challenges you faced in first achieving success as a lawyer and how did you overcome these?

RA: At the Center for U.S. - Mexican Studies I spent five years as an editor, so I really learned about effective writing and communication for those particular audiences. But when I moved into legal practice, I quickly found out that the world of business and policy communicates in a language that’s different from the ones used by academia and the courts.

A key challenge for me initially was learning how to boil down complex concepts into succinct, persuasive language, but it wasn’t so hard to learn to do once I got the gist of it. What was hard was learning the technical details of business accounting and analysis. I did a bit of accounting for lawyers to help me learn how complicated deals get done, but it took me a D & B M A G A Z I N E FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 8 | W W W. M C C A . C O M

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good year and a half of legal practice to get my head around this skill. What was a great help for me was the partners at my firm who were very patient in helping me understand these business concepts.

D&tB: Do you think the fact you had prior experience and that the law was in many ways a second career influenced the way the partners treated you?

RA: Without a doubt my prior experience helped how I was viewed. Partners could see I had a lot of skills and capabilities in terms of having done things before and that I had a maturity and equanimity that many junior lawyers coming straight through college and law school did not have.

This meant they were likely to place me in front of clients because of the maturity I could bring to the table in dealing with them.

D&tB: You’re Hispanic and have been a very outspoken advocate for greater diversity in the profession. What, in your opinion, can and should law firms and legal departments be doing in regards to extending the pipeline for diverse entrants? What would be your top practical tip to achieve that?

RA: The diversity needle has moved, but it has not moved much. There is a greater awareness and greater consensus in the legal profession around the need for greater diversity. When I came into the profession, law firms thought of diversity as basically “let’s identify people who look diverse, but are actually just like us, or whom we can remake in our image”. Rather than looking at themselves as the impediment to engaging diverse talent, they looked at the talent as the problem because they might not fit a certain mold — but that has started to change.

There’s more need for diversity today, as we as a society have grown more aware of its advantages. As you know I have done a lot of work for diversity — not just Latinx and Hispanic, but 20

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all diversity. In my view, the foundational impediment to diversity is unconscious bias in the profession broadly. The profession still has not understood the issue to be structural. I think both law firms and in-house teams need to understand that merely being aware of diversity does not serve to change unconscious bias.

I think this is a broader issue for the workforce.

It’s also a significant challenge to make sure the legal profession remains attractive and vital for the next generation, including white male millennials.

What organizations need to get better at is creating pathways to advancement for all professionals regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation, etc., or whether they want to be totally immersed in the profession or instead to devote substantial time to family, community or any other pursuit. Success needs to be available to all who enter the door as junior professionals. Institutions need to hold up their end of the bargain, so that when newly minted professionals commit to the institution, then we in management need to reciprocate by investing in their advancement. An important factor in this equation is to recognize that there is not a one-size-fits-all definition of success.

Senior leadership also needs to be held accountable for, and their remuneration directly linked to, their success in advancing diversity.

My commitment as a law firm client is to help firms understand they need these structures of accountability.

D&tB: The pipeline is one thing but all diverse attorneys can face challenges in moving into leadership. Are there key practical tips you would give a younger lawyer who wants to become a General Counsel?

RA: It’s already a complicated equation to be able to succeed as a GC at the upper levels of an organization in the Fortune 500 as there are

WHAT ORGANIZATIONS NEED TO GET BETTER AT IS CREATING PATHWAYS TO ADVANCEMENT FOR ALL PROFESSIONALS REGARDLESS OF THEIR RACE, GENDER, SEXUAL ORIENTATION, ETC., OR WHETHER THEY WANT TO BE TOTALLY IMMERSED IN THE PROFESSION OR INSTEAD TO DEVOTE SUBSTANTIAL TIME TO FAMILY, COMMUNITY OR ANY OTHER PURSUIT. only 500 roles. Not everyone who has the aspiration of being the GC of a public company will get there, and there are many pieces of the puzzle that an aspiring GC needs to think about.

First, and most importantly, you need to have superior expertise in a subject matter area — to be a superb litigator or a superb corporate lawyer, for example. Those substantive competencies will direct the candidate to a type of institution that needs those skills. For example, Uber picked Tony West (who was a leading litigator in the Obama administration) as its GC, as the company’s risk profile defined the competencies it needed.

Second, effective communication — a GC needs to be able to communicate in the business context in a succinct, clear and assertive fashion.

You also need to know when it’s time to talk and when it’s time to shut up and listen.

Third, you need to project confidence and inspire your team.

Only after you have all of that do you need to think about a fourth factor: networking, which others often put at the top of the list. People need to know you and know how capable you are and what an inspiration you are, but only when combined with the rest of the GC “chops” will this land you in the c-suite.

D&tB: Was there a particular individual or individuals whom you would say has been most influential in helping you achieve your success?

RA: Alan Kreczko, my GC at The Hartford, was

a strong proponent of my candidacy to be his successor and has since continued to promote my success, even though I didn’t become GC at The Hartford.

Also, Ken Bachman and Jack Murphy, who both sponsored me for partnership at Cleary, have continued to be my mentors all through the years since I left private practice.

My advice is you can find a mentor, but you really need to find a sponsor who will give you a mission-critical assignment. Someone who will give you big opportunities and difficult assignments, but who will be there to catch you if you fail.

D&tB: Finally, with hindsight, what would be the one piece of advice you’d give your younger self?

RA: One thing that I wish I had done a little bit more thoughtfully and attentively is pay attention to the moment when I needed to start moving on and looking for the next challenge.

Lawyers can have a predilection for being riskaverse, particularly if they have a lot of security.

You reach a point in your relationship with an institution where you stop growing, and that is the moment when you need to start thinking about what’s the next good thing to be doing to increase your influence in the profession and your impact on the world.

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2018

The Rising Stars Emerging leaders who stop at nothing for excellence

By Jodi Bartle

MCCA’s annual list of ten Rising Stars is a stellar roll call: lawyers who play at the very top of their game across diverse legal fields and specialisms and who are wholly diverse geographically, racially, and in sexual orientation. What they do share is an overwhelming grit, ambition and tenacity, propelling themselves from varied minority backgrounds into the fast-paced, pressurised, lucrative and powerful career path of the law. The 2018 Rising Stars have written their own narratives and gone against the tide of bias and institutional prejudice that is woven throughout on their own careers, and stand tall.

We’ve sought to highlight these ten lawyers not only for undeniable excellence in their respective practice areas but also for their commitment to diversity and inclusion, pro bono offerings and public service. They’ve managed to balance billable hours and the demands of their high profile careers with an unwavering belief in the power of giving back to their communities and to the younger lawyers emerging right behind them - as volunteers, speakers, mentors and sponsors, and community leaders.

Many of the Rising Stars spoke of the importance of mentors on their careers, ranging from venerable judges to beloved grandmothers. Family remains a centre point to keeping them sustained and grounded, and the desire to keep bringing their whole and authentic selves to their work is an imperative. For these lawyers, their value lies in much more than the deals they make and the networks they forge.

Juan A. Arteaga

Partner Crowell & Moring - New York An early introduction to the potency of the legal profession - by way of a sixth grade lesson on the U.S. civil rights movement - saw rising star Juan A. Arteaga recognize the law was the right career path for him to take. “We spent several weeks discussing the civil rights movement and it became readily apparent to me that lawyers were key players in developing and executing on the strategy.” He began reading books about the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Thurgood Marshall, and the various civil rights decisions issued by the Supreme Court during this period, “becoming convinced that the practice of law can help communities and make society more fair and just for everyone.”

In his current role, he serves as an antitrust and white collar partner in Crowell & Moring’s New York office, focusing primarily on advising companies, boards of directors, special committees, and executives on a broad range of civil and criminal antitrust matters. Juan also represents clients in a wide range of high-profile and complex regulatory investigations and commercial litigation, including securities litigation, shareholder derivative actions, class actions, and international arbitrations.

He is a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, where he led and oversaw various high-profile civil and criminal investigations and litigation. He has extensive experience representing Fortune 500 companies and financial institutions in high-stakes investigations and litigation, and has received various awards for his pro bono work and volunteers on the boards of Legal Outreach, Northern Manhattan Improvement Corp., and Free the Slaves.

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Diversity & the Bar: What has been the most valuable piece of advice given to you?

Juan Arteaga: Early in my career, I became close friends with Latino federal judge Hon. Edgardo Ramos who came from a similar background and shared many of the same values as I did. During one of our early conversations, he told me that I should avoid limiting my network of mentors solely to other minority attorneys - to seek out non-minority mentors as well because these individuals would serve as great mentors and could turn into effective sponsors later in my career. He was absolutely correct - some of my most effective advocates have been non-minority mentors when it came time to ensuring that I received the right opportunities and recognition for my work.

D&tB: What has been the highlight of your career thus far?

JA: The biggest highlight has been serving as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division during President Barack Obama’s administration. It truly was a privilege and honor to work for a President who sought to unite our country through our shared values and who sought to reach the right decisions for the right reasons.

During my four years at the DOJ’s Antitrust Division, I was able to work with some of the best lawyers

During one of our early conversations, he told me that I should avoid limiting my network of mentors solely to other minority attorneys - to seek out non-minority mentors as well because these individuals would serve as great mentors and could turn into effective sponsors later in my career. and economists in the world and had the opportunity to help lead some of the most important antitrust investigations and litigation in recent years. Our team was able to secure several significant victories on behalf of the American public, including blocking over 20 anticompetitive mega-mergers, prosecuting hundreds of companies and individuals for colluding to raise prices, and collecting billions in fines from anticompetitive conduct.

D&tB: Do you have a mentor? In what way has your mentor influenced you?

JA: One of my closest mentors has been Chief Judge Roger L. Gregory of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. During my clerkship for him after law school, he constantly provided my co-clerks and I with pearls of wisdom about life and the legal profession. One thing that he said which always stuck with me is that “you can do good while doing well.” He made this comment when I told him that I was torn between going to work at a law firm where I could provide my family with financial security and going to work at a non-profit organization or government agency where I could have a more direct and 24

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significant impact on society and impoverished inner-city communities such as the one where I grew up.

He explained there are many excellent and civic-minded lawyers who decide to work at law firms because of their family obligations, and these lawyers also make sure they provide pro bono services to indigent clients, support non-profit organizations and volunteer with civic organizations. Thus, he said that I did not need to choose between providing for my family and serving my community and helping those in need.

Tamira Chapman

Attorney Ford Motor Company - Detroit Tamira Chapman lists life-long entrepreneurship as one of her accomplishments, alongside establishing an online retail business that achieved #1 in market share, pioneering Ford Motor Company’s health care and global social media compliance marketing strategies and representing globally-recognized companies and entertainers as an attorney.

She earned a Juris Doctor degree from Wayne State University and practiced law as an associate attorney at Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone in Detroit.

During her tenure, she negotiated software and data licensing, distribution, and technology agreements with several Fortune 50 companies, worked on high-profile intellectual property cases, and represented many well-known public figures.

Tamira then joined Ford Motor Company where she successfully took on several entrepreneurial roles ensuring innovation, managing Ford’s worldwide employee benefits strategies, providing legal counsel for benefit plans for employees and members, and developing Ford’s HIPAA compliance program. Tamira also assisted in developing and directing Ford’s comprehensive global social media compliance strategy throughout North America, Europe, and China.

Committed to improving communities and growing organizations through fundraising efforts, Tamira developed a rapidly expanding subscription box and fundraising-as-a-service company that enables organizations to generate an additional revenue stream with turnkey fundraising solutions. In 18 months, the business entered licensing deals with some of the world’s largest and most renowned brands and secured tens of thousands of online subscriptions to ensure sustained fundraising for licensed partners.

Diversity & the Bar: What led you to a career in law, and did you have a plan B? Tamira Chapman: My grandmother, the matriarch of our family, died of cancer when I was nine years old.

For five years she visited doctors at Henry Ford Hospital and was misdiagnosed with asthma; by the time she sought a second opinion, the cancer metastasized and she died, and a lot of dreams died with her.

From a nine-year-old girl’s perspective, the only thing I could do to avenge her death was to become a medical malpractice lawyer. From that day forward, I vowed to practice law and seek justice for people who were denied a chance at life because of misdiagnosis. There was never a plan B. D&tB: What has been the most valuable piece of advice given to you, and the least useful?

TC: The most valuable has been to never be afraid to re-invent yourself and your practice. You must innovate and change with time; old ways won’t open new doors. The least valuable advice has been to fit in. I almost became a stranger to myself by attempting to blend in with everyone else. The biggest wins came when I was my authentic self.

D&tB: What has been the highlight of your career so far?

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TC: Joining Ford Motor Company as a health care lawyer in 2012 has been the highlight. I developed and managed compliance for Ford’s global employee benefits strategies, negotiated contracts of >$1.6bn per year, reduced benefits litigation by 40%, and directed the Affordable Care Act’s implementation. This was a full circle moment – my grandmother was an hourly worker in the plant and this was a way to honor her life by serving others who were similarly situated. Instead of practicing medical malpractice and directing litigation at Henry Ford Hospital, I was given an opportunity to join Ford Motor Company and serve over 200k employees in a health care capacity.

D&tB: Do you have a mentor? In what way has your mentor influenced you?

TC: I have several mentors, and the resounding theme from each of them is to create balance, to find the time for family, service and self. This isn’t communicated by words, but rather by how they live. I routinely receive out-of-office messages, view their family photos and see them serving in the community. I’ve learned that when each of these tenets are fulfilled, there’s greater happiness and purpose in professional work, and this leads to heightened success. I now live by these principles and teach them holistically to colleagues and friends.

D&tB: Is there something that you do in your personal life that contributes to your professional success?

TC: I spend time searching for opportunities to increase my faith and to practice compassion. In that regard, I founded a rapidly expanding subscription and fundraising service company that enables non-profit organizations to generate an additional revenue stream by deploying turnkey fundraising solutions, forming and managing all of its legal, marketing, advertising, and consumer protection strategies as it expanded on all continents and achieved 400% annual revenue growth. This experience allowed me to be cross-functional at Ford and to champion projects that included social media, privacy, e-commerce and big data.

Roy Haynes

Director & Associate General Counsel Citigroup - New York Roy Haynes - first and foremost a proud husband and father of two little girls - is both extremely curious about the world around him and eager to use his talents to make it better. This sense of curiosity led him to become director and associate general counsel at Citigroup Global Markets (CGMI) structuring complex financial transactions, while remaining deeply involved in various community volunteer activities.

Outside of CGMI, Roy is the vice chairman of the board of directors for Legal Information for Families Today, a non-profit organization which empowers 25,000 unrepresented families yearly to advocate for themselves in New York City Family Court by providing legal advice, information and compassionate guidance. He also mentors at-risk youth in Bedford Stuyvesant Brooklyn through his church, high school males through his fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, law students of color through the Practicing Attorneys for Law Students program and a host of other youth through informal relationships.

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Roy Haynes: My parents noticed I was an inquisitive child who liked to problem-solve and stand up for other children, and they encouraged me to become an attorney. However, with no lawyers in my family or my neighborhood, these career conversations with my teacher mother and auto mechanic father always seemed an abstract and borderline fantasy.

The game of baseball seemed more real and I dreamed of being the center fielder for the New York Yankees. In college, however, my athletic talents were surpassed by bigger, stronger and faster players and so I began to seek opportunities to use my talents as an advocate. I learned that many issues negatively affecting communities were not organic but the result of laws written and interpreted without input from diverse cultural viewpoints. Law allowed me to be part of conversations where I could add my voice to interpretation and to share my views to affect change. In the end, I’m enjoying my plan B career…at least until the Yankees give me a call.

D&tB: What has been the most valuable piece of advice given to you, and the least useful?

My parents noticed I was an inquisitive child who liked to problem-solve and stand up for other children, and they encouraged me to become an attorney. However, with no lawyers in my family or my neighborhood, these career conversations with my teacher mother and auto mechanic father always seemed an abstract and borderline fantasy.

RH: The most and least valuable career advice I’ve received has been diametrically opposed. At the onset of my legal career, a well-meaning partner advised me to make work my sole focus in life. Despite his good intentions, I was fortuitously instructed by another partner to view being an attorney as only a part of me and not who I am, urging me to not lose focus of the things most important to me - such as God, family and my unquenchable curiosity for learning about the world and the diversity that inhabits it. I have followed that advice throughout my career and believe I am a better attorney and father for doing so.

D&tB: What has been the highlight of your career so far?

RH: The highlight of my career occurs each time a junior attorney comes to me for advice. I remember how painfully difficult it was for me to potentially expose my ignorance by asking a “dumb” question to a senior attorney. Yet the ability to ask questions of colleagues is one of the most critical developmental tools for any attorney. I am heartened that young attorneys view me as a trusted safe space to aid their growth and development.

D&tB: Do you have a mentor? In what way has your mentor influenced you?

RH: My manager of thirteen years, Shannon Hales, is my mentor. I cannot help but be inspired by how Shannon, a woman of color, has succeeded in overcoming professional barriers throughout her career. She always makes herself available for questions and challenges me to use my critical thinking skills to answer them. She is quick with praise but consistently reminds me that there is more to accomplish.

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D&tB: What do you wish you had known before you began your legal career?

RH: I wish I had realized that gaining financial stability as a legal professional and using my legal skills to advocate for social issues are not binary choices. Since I come from a lower middle-class family, my goal after graduating law school was to gain financial stability and I saw corporate law as the way to accomplish that. But I fell in love with corporate law and am equally passionate about my pro bono work. Now, when I mentor people who are wrestling with the choice of chasing money or their ideals, I tell them they do not have to choose one or the other.

Robin Nunn

Partner David Wright Tremaine - Washington Robin Nunn is a partner and co-leader of the supervision, enforcement, and litigation group at Davis Wright Tremaine. Her practice includes counseling clients on consumer regulatory matters and proceedings and defending corporate and individual clients. She has an active pro bono practice and was selected to be on the DC Access to Justice Commission’s Capital Pro Bono Honor Roll.

A passionate advocate of diversity and inclusion, Robin was selected to be DWT’s first LCLD Fellow and a member of DWT’s Future Leaders program, and is active in the ABA’s Business Law Section. Robin’s pro bono contribution has seen her win various accolades, such as a Dartmouth College Senior Fellowship Award for a novella she wrote on the Kenya Kikuyu Women’s role in the Mau Mau Movement of the 1950’s.

Diversity & the Bar: What led you to a career in law?

Robin Nunn: Growing up, I dreamed of being a lawyer, but I was poor and black and there was not much hope of attending college, much less law school. Interested in helping people, I decided to pursue a governmental career but found I wanted to help people in more of an advocacy role.

I decided to apply to law school after working in rural Tanzania and witnessing a developing nation for the first time. This experience became a catalyst for me; drawn by the extreme poverty of the region, I helped community leaders fight social injustice and promote rights, an experience that prepared me for legal practice.

D&tB: What has been the most valuable piece of advice given to you?

RN: As an adolescent I received powerful guidance from my mother: “No matter how much time you spend thinking about, worrying about, focusing on, questioning the values of or evaluating people, it won’t be enough,” she said. “People are the only thing that matters, and they are the only thing you should think about, because when you get that part right, everything else works.”

Her advice drives not only how I think about people and mentor them but also how I form a business strategy and make critical decisions. Life is about people. Ideas don’t come out of the air; they come from human beings, and without people, we don’t have anything.

D&tB: What has been the highlight of your career so far?

RN: I worked for over two years to help my pro bono client, Ana Patricia Centeno Caceres, receive asylum.

As a lesbian and a gay and women’s human rights activist, she was persecuted for her sexual orientation and 28

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activism in Honduras which led to a sexual assault by Honduran paramilitary forces and repeated threats to her life. Although Ms. Centeno was finally able to escape, her sexual orientation and status as a social and political advocate placed her at tremendous risk throughout Honduras. Years later, I successfully petitioned for derivative asylum status for her children whom she had not seen for ten years since fleeing Honduras.

More recently, my immigration law experience has helped me protect immigrant rights in airports and volunteer clinics.

D&tB: Do you have a mentor? In what way has your mentor influenced you?

RN: I hail from a close, supportive family, and my grandmother continues to be personally and professionally instrumental. Even as a child, it became apparent to me how much the community respected her; a strong leader but also modest. Her example helped me develop an affinity for group dynamics and team competition in athletics as well as in academic and professional environments. I have followed her example by seeking opportunities to promote social good throughout my career.

At work, my environments have demanded teamwork on a daily basis, and a large part of my success in these very intense situations is attributable to my willingness to share ideas and learn from more senior members of teams, as well as my ability to operate among people who often don’t agree with each other – a skill my grandmother perfected.

D&tB: Is there something you do in your personal life that contributes to your professional success?

RN: I volunteer with a group of Tanzanian community leaders to provide education workshops, gathering information about housing, health, and unemployment problems faced by residents - we then pressure Tanzanian government officials to respond. My experience in Tanzania has been invaluable in terms of strengthening my flexibility, creativity and leadership skills.

I also enjoy mentoring and sponsoring women and minorities inside and outside my firm. I am active in diversity networks, including speaking at American Bar Association, National Bar Association and other conferences regularly. I spend a vast amount of my free time helping others which I believe has made me a better person and a better lawyer.

Shayne O’Reilly

Associate General Counsel Facebook, Inc. - San Francisco Shayne O’Reilly is associate general counsel for IP Litigation at Facebook, Inc., where he manages domestic and international intellectual property litigation matters. Prior to joining Facebook, Shayne worked for Kilpatrick, Townsend & Stockton where his practice focused on intellectual property law, with a primary focus on patent litigation, client counseling, technology transactions, due diligence investigations, and contentious inter and ex parte post grant and reissue work. Shayne is a registered patent attorney before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Diversity & the Bar: What led you to a career in law, and did you have a plan B? Shane O’Reilly: When I was in high school, I participated in PACE (Program for Acceleration in Careers of Engineering), which was a Saturday morning program for students interested in science and engineering.

Each week before our math and engineering classes, there was a 75-minute “Eye Opener” session where guest speakers discussed career options and tracks for scientists and engineers. One of the guest speakers was an attorney from AT&T who discussed careers in IP law. His talk piqued my interest in learning more D & B M A G A Z I N E FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 8 | W W W. M C C A . C O M

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about IP and confirmed for me that I wanted to pursue a career in IP law, believing it would allow me to marry my two passions of technology and protecting innovations.

I did have multiple backup plans along the way. One was to continue to work as a quality engineer at IBM where I had worked for one year before law school, and another was to earn a master’s degree in electrical engineering with a focus on artificial neural networks.

D&tB: What has been the most valuable piece of advice given to you, and the least useful?

SO’R: In addition to performing at a high-level, the best advice I’ve received is to make building relationships a top priority. I received this advice from Michael Martinez de Andino, a partner with whom I worked at Hunton & Williams. He encouraged and supported my involvement in local and national Bar associations - and many close friendships have developed naturally from my relationship-building with colleagues and others I met at Bar and legal events. These relationships have been invaluable to my career in many ways, including giving me speaking and writing opportunities and other career advancement. What is even better

...the best advice I’ve received is to make building relationships a top priority. I received this advice from Michael Martinez de Andino, a partner with whom I worked at Hunton & Williams. He encouraged and supported my involvement in local and national Bar associations - and many close friendships have developed naturally from my relationship-building with colleagues and others I met at Bar and legal events. is that I’ve been able to use the network I’ve created to help my mentees and others develop their careers.

The least useful advice I received was while in was in private practice; that the sole indicator of success at a law firm is whether you’ve hit your billable hours goal. While meeting that goal certainly is important, it is only one factor of many that contributes to success within a firm.

D&tB: What has been the highlight of your career so far?

SO’R: The highlight has been working as an associate general counsel for IP litigation at Facebook; a dynamic, innovative, mission-drive company and an exciting place to be. I work on interesting, challenging and complex legal issues and cases on a daily basis, and spend time with friendly, helpful and intelligent colleagues in the process. While I have been in great work environments before, the environment at Facebook has been the best and I am able to say that I truly love my job.

D&tB: Do you have a mentor? In what way has your mentor influenced you?

SO’R: My mentor is Wab Kadaba, chair of the intellectual property group at Kilpatrick, Townsend & 30

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Stockton. Wab influenced me by taking a strong interest in my career growth and development; particularly by ensuring that I worked on interesting intellectual property litigation matters that would help me grow in my career. During my time at Kilpatrick, my wife gave birth to our three lovely boys. As a new dad, Wab made time for me to ask questions about work/life balance, advising me on how best to balance a robust and busy legal practice while still spending time with family.

D&tB: Is there something that you do in your personal life that contributes to your professional success?

SO’R: Completely disconnecting from technology and any work-related devices when I am spending time with my family (my wife Cherie, also a lawyer, three young boys and a 90lb boxer), helps. I’ve found that disconnecting allows me to enjoy precious moments with my family and to reset and recharge for when it is time to work. I also spend time strengthening my relationships and building new relationships, whether I am grabbing drinks or dinner or playing golf or poker with friends.

Christine Pompa

Senior Patent Counsel The Kraft Heinz Company - Chicago Christine Pompa is senior patent counsel at The Kraft Heinz Company, responsible for the company’s global patent portfolio and technology agreements for its research and development function. Prior to joining Kraft Heinz, Christine was a partner at Fitch Even where she was a litigator focused on patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret litigation as well as opinion counseling and technology transactions.

An active member of the legal community, Christine was president of the Filipino American Lawyers Association of Chicago and has served on the Board for the Asian American Bar Association of Greater Chicago. She also served on the steering committee to start-up the Chicago Chapter for ChIPs (a national organization dedicated to advancing women at the confluence of technology, law, and policy) and on the Corporate Committee for Chicago Women in IP. Her pro bono work includes the representation of low-income clients in guardianship proceedings and civil actions through Chicago Volunteer Legal Services and providing legal services through Lawyers for the Creative Arts. She serves as the Treasurer of the Comfort Station Logan Square, a local arts organisation that provides multidisciplinary arts programming.

Diversity & the Bar: What led you to a career in law, and did you have a plan B? Christine Pompa: From a very young age I was involved in music, dance, and theatre, but my entire family was in the medical field so early aspirations were to a career in medicine. When preparing for the MCAT, I started to feel that I was not on the right path; so in some respects, a career in law was my plan B. I had an office job on campus and one day, a professor from the medical school stopped by and said: “Don’t go to med school - I think you should consider going into law.” He gave me his son’s number who was a patent lawyer - I called him and his description of his practice as an IP/patent lawyer was revelatory: I would be able to combine my passion for the arts, the creative process, science, and technology into one job.

D&tB: What has been the most valuable piece of advice given to you?

CP: The most valuable piece of advice I have received is to get out of your office, develop personal relationships, raise your hand and always help if you can. Taking leadership roles in various Asian American Bar associations and engaging in organizations that advance women IP have had a profound effect on my career and enjoyment in the legal profession.

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D&tB: What has been the highlight of your career so far?

CP: I now have the privilege of working closely with an amazing R&D organization. I went to law school so that I could help creative people, and the fact that I now directly partner with talented R&D teams from idea to commercialization is a full realization of what I had hoped to find in my legal career.

D&tB: Do you have a mentor? In what way has your mentor influenced you?

CP: I have had a variety of mentors and sponsors throughout my career and all of them helped me realize that I can be myself and to recognize that one of my strengths is my ability to balance strong leadership and authenticity to truly connect with people. Incorporating my personality into my practice has helped me develop good relationships with clients and colleagues.

D&tB: What do you wish you had known before you began your legal career?

CP: First, I wish I knew the importance of taking care of myself - self-care and being a great attorney are complementary rather than mutually exclusive. Second, I wish I knew that my definition of success would change over time. Early in my career, success was about making partner. Now, my definition of success is about a sense of accomplishment through helping others and the opportunity to choose and do things that make me happy and engaged in my career and my personal life.

D&tB: Is there something that you do in your personal life that you think contributes to your professional success?

CP: About two years ago, I started weight-lifting. In the beginning, I knew nothing about lifting weights or strength training and was intimidated by the equipment, the foreign terminology, and the general “scene”, but now I am proud to say that I can squat 200 pounds and deadlift 180 pounds. Weight-lifting has radically changed my mindset: reinforcing discipline, goal-setting and helping me expand my problem-solving skills by teaching me to push through obstacles with more focus, proper planning, and perseverance.

Ana C. Reyes

Partner Williams & Connolly - Washington Ana C. Reyes first came across law firm Williams & Connolly when she was in high school, after getting hold of the firm’s founder Edward Bennett William’s biography “The Man to See” while working as a night-time receptionist at a law firm in Kentucky. “A lawyer walking by saw me reading it and indicated that Williams & Connolly was an excellent firm. Not knowing much at the time about law firms, I said off-handedly that I might want to work there one day - but the lawyer told me not to hold my breath.” Tenacious and ambitious, Ana was spurred on to get a job offer from Williams & Connolly one day and she did just that - and now serves as a partner, co-chair of its International Litigation practice group and a member of the firm’s Executive Committee.

She focuses her practice on complex litigation and international arbitration, handling matters for foreign governments, foreign officials, multi-national corporations and international organizations. Recently, she successfully defended a former president of a foreign country in a three-week jury trial - the first time a former president has been tried before a jury in the United States. Her pro bono efforts are spent on the representation of individuals who seek asylum.

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Diversity & the Bar: What has been the most valuable piece of advice given to you?

Ana Reyes: It is something I have had to re-learn often; that no matter how good, diligent, and smart you are, you are going to have failures. Sometimes they will be your fault, sometimes they will be totally out of your control. It’s imperative to learn from those failures and, most importantly, to get back up and back at it. The most important lessons I have learned have been from having to understand why bad outcomes turned out the way they did.

D&tB: What has been the highlight of your career so far?

AR: My first asylum client was a mother who had been subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM), and both she and her husband were adamant that it was not going to happen to their daughters. One day, while the father was gone, villagers came to their house, tied down and gagged the mother and took the oldest daughter, held her outstretched by her hands and feet, and cut off her clitoris. No anaesthesia, no anaesthetic; they used a common sewing needle and twine to sew her up and then they sat her outside of the house with an eggplant signifying that she was now eligible for marriage. When the father returned, the family fled their village, leaving everything and everyone they had ever known to protect the two younger daughters.

I worked with the family for over a year and after every single session with them I asked the mother if she had any questions. She always said no, except for our last session before the asylum hearing. She then asked her question, trusting me enough to overcome her own fear and conditioning, and everyone in the room was stunned. At that moment, I felt for the first time like a true advocate. The next day the immigration

...no matter how good, diligent, and smart you are, you are going to have failures. Sometimes they will be your fault, sometimes they will be totally out of your control. It’s imperative to learn from those failures and, most importantly, to get back up and back at it. The most important lessons I have learned have been from having to understand why bad outcomes turned out the way they did. judge granted her asylum. She didn’t understand English, so I turned to her and gave her am enthusiastic thumbs up and I saw her smile for the first time. The family later came by to the firm and said: “Our daughters will know about you; their daughters will know about you, and their daughters will know about you. Thank you.” The case was maybe fifteen years ago, and I have never forgotten that smile or that thank you. Whenever I think I’m just not cut out for this I picture those two moments and resolve to dig back in for whatever client I’m working for at the time.

D&tB: What do you wish you had known before you began your legal career?

AR: That being a good litigator is more often about being cooperative with opposing counsel than being obstructionist. Anyone can say ‘no’ to whatever opposing counsel asks for in discovery but the smart lawyer learns how to say ‘yes’ or to compromise. That way, when opposing counsel does raise a dispute with the D & B M A G A Z I N E FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 8 | W W W. M C C A . C O M

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Court, you have the Court’s trust that you did everything you reasonably could have to provide the case with relevant information and if you are saying no, that there’s a really good reason for doing so.

E. Martin Estrada

Partner Munger, Tolles & Olson - Los Angeles E. Martin Estrada is a partner with LA’s Munger, Tolles & Olson, and his practice is focused on trials, arbitrations, complex litigation and internal investigations.

Representing major corporations and executives before both federal and state courts in a variety of areas, his clients include Twentieth Century Fox Film, Amgen, BNSF, LG Electronics and the Norton Simon Museum.

His public interest work and pro bono representations are centred in the areas of asylum, education and domestic violence prevention. In July 2018, he obtained a landmark victory in one of the largest educational rights cases in the country seeking to establish equal rights to education for Latinx and other minority groups in New Mexico. He is an active member of the legal and civic communities and served as a board member of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, the Alliance for Children’s Rights and as a member of the Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation (JNE) of the State Bar of California. He also teaches appellate advocacy at Loyola Law School.

Diversity & the Bar: What led you to a career in law, and did you have a plan B? Martin Estrada: My academic interests in history and government, along with a desire to be part of a profession that gives back to others, led me to a career in law. If I had not become a lawyer, I likely would have become a physician or a teacher. There is something noble in those professions, as they are intellectually stimulating while helping others.

D&tB: What has been the most valuable piece of advice given to you?

ME: When I was leaving my firm for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, one of my current partners simply told me to have fun and get the most out the experience that you can. That person is one of the top litigators in the country, so the advice seemed surprisingly simple, but over time I learned how profound it was. In whatever job you do, you need to enjoy what you do, take risks, and be bold.

D&tB: What has been the highlight of your career so far?

ME: The privilege of serving my country and doing justice as a federal prosecutor has been one of the pinnacles of my career, and it is hard to imagine a higher calling. But being afforded the opportunity to lead a successful education-rights trial on behalf of the children of New Mexico was beyond humbling and uplifting.

D&tB: Do you have a mentor? In what way has your mentor influenced you?

ME: I have several friends and advisors who have been a tremendous blessing to me and I could not have achieved what I have without their support and advice. Not having any lawyers in my family, there have been several individuals – including judges I clerked for, senior lawyers, and peers – who have helped me along the way. Given all the support I have received, I see it as my responsibility to give back by mentoring others and providing the same support that I have received, particularly to other people of color. Increasing diversity in the profession is central to my mentoring efforts.

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D&tB: What do you wish you had known before you began your legal career?

ME: One of the best trial lawyers I ever faced – a lawyer who had practiced for over 40 years and has now passed away – once told me during a break in trial that the great thing about the law is that, unlike some other skills or jobs, you can continue to learn and you generally get better and better over time. I wish I had understood that earlier, as I likely would have been more forgiving with myself when I was first starting out.

D&tB: Is there something that you do in your personal life that contributes in some way to your professional success?

ME: Very simply, it is my family. My mother and father, who emigrated from Guatemala without knowing English and without any connections to speak of, have been my inspiration and motivation. They, and my siblings and extended family in Guatemala, have been my foundation; always providing me with support and letting me know that they will be there for me through the good times and bad. As I’ve gotten older, my family has grown to include an amazing wife and three phenomenal children. They continue to push me to be my best as a professional and a person.

Uzma Saghir

Corporate Counsel Liberty Mutual Insurance - Boston Uzma Saghir provides legal counsel on a broad range of matters within the Corporate Legal Services group at Liberty Mutual Insurance, including acting as the primary attorney for their procurement department which oversees $6bn of supplier spend per year. Uzma is also legal counsel to the Office of Diversity and Inclusion and Meeting Management & Event Strategy group. Prior to joining Liberty Mutual in 2012, Uzma was a corporate securities attorney at a large Boston law firm with a focus on private equity.

Uzma serves on the board of directors for the Women’s Bar Foundation where she also represents victims of domestic violence and asylum seekers, and serves on the board of directors of the South Asian Bar Association of Greater Boston where she is chair of their public relations committee.

Diversity & the Bar: What led you to a career in law, and did you have a plan B? Uzma Saghir: There was no plan B - I knew early on that I liked educating and teaching people and it led me to becoming an attorney. I relished reading and writing, which in turn helped me develop and articulate my own thoughts in an increasingly clear and concise manner. I always knew I could express myself; I knew I could win some arguments. As I thought about my passion for presenting, reading, writing, learning and how it often led to greater empathy for others, I realized law school was a good fit.

Ten years later, I interact with clients daily and find my work is intellectually stimulating and diverse. I get paid to do what I enjoy and find great satisfaction in, so it has become more than a job - it has become a calling.

D&tB: What has been the most valuable piece of advice given to you?

US: Always do your best. A lot of people have regrets or play out the ‘what if’ scenario in their lives because they know, that in the situation that they are dwelling on, they did not indeed do their best. I make it a point to take responsibility for my life by being eager and driven, which is what I define as my ‘best’. You will consistently see me working to hone my technical skill set to one that is exceptional.

D&tB: What has been the highlight of your career so far?

US: I have had many career highlights: moving from big law to in-house much sooner than I expected, applying my finance and investment background to counsel and lead sophisticated private equity groups, D & B M A G A Z I N E FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 8 | W W W. M C C A . C O M

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and currently counseling our company’s procurement group with over $6bn of spend a year with suppliers.

I have written papers on policy development, legislative and regulatory advocacy at federal and international levels and spoken on numerous panels regarding my practice areas and been involved in excellent community projects through various platforms such as the Women’s Bar Foundation, ensuring access to justice for low-income women.

These achievements are wonderful but what stands out as the highlight of my career is the fact that I am in a space where I continue to purposefully grow and advance as a leader. I am enabled to invest in my learning and take on new challenges even if they are risky.

D&tB: Do you have a mentor? In what way has your mentor influenced you?

US: A few men and women have acted as mentors by investing their time in me throughout the years.

Recently, I got more intentional about seeking out a mentor and decided that I needed a coach as much as a cheerleader. Laura Studen, partner at Burns and Levinson, was introduced to me via the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts and its Women’s Leadership Initiative, a program that brings together accomplished women attorneys and up and coming stars of the legal profession.

Laura and I have had direct and candid conversations where she has taught me to think strategically about how to take control and set myself up for success. Through my storytelling about my weekend or work week, Laura has provided an opportunity to broaden my perspective, navigate organizational and social dynamics more strategically, and to gather the conviction to speak up when it mattered most.

...what stands out as the highlight of my career is the fact that I am in a space where I continue to purposefully grow and advance as a leader...

D&tB: What do you wish you had known before you began your legal career?

US: I wish I had travelled more and spent more quality time working in global markets and cities understanding how the locals live, their consumer behavior, and their culture. I wish I had spent more time interacting with global senior leadership, lawmakers, and government ministers. International growth is a critical part of most businesses, and as a corporate attorney, it would have only been value added.

Quyen Ta

Partner Boies Schiller Flexner LLP - San Francisco Quyen Ta is partner at Boies Schiller Flexner LLP and a sought-after and experienced litigator and trial lawyer. Her practice focuses on consumer class action defense, intellectual property, trade secrets misappropriation, and other highstakes complex civil litigation. Prior to joining Boies Schiller Flexner, Quyen was a partner at San Francisco litigation boutique Keker, Van Nest & Peters.

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Quyen serves as lead counsel in numerous class action matters in state and federal courts throughout the country. She recently litigated a class action lawsuit which involved a $1 billion claim getting dismissed at the summary judgment stage. She speaks regularly on diversity and inclusion issues and lives in Berkeley with her husband and twin sons.

Diversity & the Law: What led you to a career in law, and did you have a plan B? Quyen Ta: Plan B was law school - plan A was to become an English professor because education changed my life. I was raised as a poor Vietnamese refugee in the subsidized housing projects of East San Jose, and learning to read and write opened doors for me; I wanted to pay it forward by educating others. But after I studied for the GRE and completed my honors thesis at UCLA, I decided that something was missing. I wanted to serve my community and ended up becoming a community organizer at the Asians Americans Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus. With my Vietnamese proficiency, I represented many clients who were not much different than my own family. That year changed the course of my life and I knew then that a career in the law was the right path.

D&tB: What has been the most valuable piece of advice given to you?

QT: “Always keep the doors open behind you; you may be the first but make sure you are not the last, and remember that someone always had it worse that you did.” I know that there are many other trailblazers who have opened the doors for me, and it makes me remember there is much to be done in continuing to open doors for younger diverse lawyers coming after me.

D&tB: What has been the highlight of your career so far?

QT: The highlight has been gaining the trust of a number of in-house lawyers who turn to me with their most serious problems. I was a young partner when Public Storage (specifically, MCCA members Lily Hughes and Eric Alderete) entrusted me and my then-firm with their sensitive $1bn class action lawsuit just three months before trial, which we successfully resolved. Since then, I’ve been the go-to lawyer for Lily and Eric and a number of other public company lawyers. It is a true honor to be a valued business partner and to be invested in my clients’ careers and successes.

D&tB: In what way has a mentor influenced you?

QT: My first important legal mentor was my late judge, the Hon. Larry Karlton. He experienced discrimination as a Jewish lawyer and always carried with him a level of humanity and empathy. He taught me that the law is about people, and that I must use my position of privilege to help others, ensuring we seek not only the ‘right’ result, but also a ‘just’ result. His mentorship has made me a better lawyer and human being.

D&tB: What do you wish you had known before you began your legal career?

QT: I realized early on in my career that it is imperative to be a successful business person if I wished to have a successful career in private practice. As a good friend constantly reminds me, “You can be an excellent lawyer, have no cases, and be a complete failure” because being a good lawyer is not enough. Had I known what I know now, I would have taken more time off after college to work in a few companies to understand their problems from the inside, to gain insight into how to be a better business partner.

D&tB: Is there something that you do in your personal life that contributes in some way to your professional success?

QT: I try to spend as much time with my family as I can and am also very committed to community service and in mentoring others. I have been the beneficiary of many caring individuals who helped me get to where I am today; so I’ve been a big proponent of paying it forward through community activism and volunteerism, and in trying to make our profession more diverse and inclusive.

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COMMUNITY VIEWPOINT A Motto For Your Career: Fear Less and Leap High

By Kathleen C. Henry

THE MORE YEARS I WORK (WHICH IS A POLITE WAY OF SAYING THE OLDER I GET), THE MORE I HAVE TO SAY TO MY YOUNGER PROFESSIONAL SELF. AND SINCE I CANNOT GO BACK IN TIME AND WHISPER IN MY OWN EAR, I FEEL COMPELLED TO SPEAK TO THE WOMEN COMING UP BEHIND ME. Not because I am smarter, but because I have lived longer. I have let fear hold me back and I have taken fantastic leaps. I want the women in my life – my mentees – to fear less and leap higher. I want them to be ready to take risks, to know when it is time to make a professional change and how to make that change. I want them to bet on themselves.

TAKE THE RISK Having a career as a lawyer is tough. The hours are long. The standards are high and the consequences of being wrong are intimidating. You work alongside highly educated people who have lived their lives at the top of any game they’ve played. It’s intense. Once you’ve settled into a job – at a firm, in the government, in-house – it becomes very hard to leave, even when you want to leave. Images of the boss from hell hold you back from applying for a job. The idea of starting over, of learning something new, keep you in your seat. Get up. Apply. Take the risk. The monster boss you’ve conjured up could be the best boss you’ve ever had. The next job could be your best job yet. Or, it could be a stepping stone to the best job yet. You’ll never know if you stay seated. I have been a lawyer for 18 years and am working at my third company. I started at a law firm in a class of thirty first year associates. I was one of the last people in my class at my firm. Countless other friends left during my tenure. While the firm was a terrific experience, I don’t know anyone who regretted leaving. Not one.

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When you have outgrown your job, get a new one. When you feel like you’ve hit the ceiling of advancement and you still want to advance, see what’s out there. When you go to work feeling like a rat in the rat race, leave the race. And don’t be paralyzed by fear. What you do today as a lawyer need not limit what you do tomorrow. Instead, your current expertise can serve as a foundation to future skill-set development and knowledge building. You take what you learned, apply the ever-important soft skills of working hard and playing well in the sandbox with others, and you learn new areas of the law. One of my closest friends went from practicing reinsurance law to becoming a superstar homicide District Attorney. She now works at the SEC. She pivoted, learned, pivoted and learned. She stretched. She grew. She was happy. You can do it too. The lesson: set aside the fear of the unknown. Get going.

MAKE THE MAGIC Ok, so how does one get going? By getting on it.

There are a number of ways to search for your new opportunity: tap into your network, apply for jobs online, work with a recruiter. Meet people for coffee a few times a week, and give them your resume and ask them to let you know of any opportunities.

(Be on time and very grateful they met with you.)

Your network and your network’s network can be a powerful resource for future opportunities. My big leap out of my law firm after 11 years resulted from a cup of coffee with a friend of a friend. There was

no job offer to discuss, just a very interesting conversation about work experiences and life. I asked him how he pivoted from the government into the private sector and what he thought made a lawyer successful in-house. I put myself out there to talk to someone who had a non-traditional legal career, and it resulted in a job offer a few months later. While meeting strangers for coffee is a little awkward, it can lead to magic. I was at that very same coffee shop about five years later when I met a friend about my current job. I used my network in this instance to find out more about a prospective employer and get the inside scoop about the company and culture before an interview. I asked about the leadership and the direction of the company. This made me better prepared for my interviews, and ultimately helped me get the job.

You can create your own magic in your current company. Maybe you really like your firm/company/ employer but want to work in another practice group or department. Or maybe in a perfect world you would leave your current company, but you are not in a position to leave. (Let’s face it, sometimes you are not able to leave for financial or personal reasons.) Look for opportunities within your current company. If there is a person you want to work for, tell her. Ask her for work; she will not say no. If there

is a type of case you want to try, ask for it. If you’d like to change your practice group, seek out a mentor in that prospective practice group to better understand it and develop a strategy to join it. Attend practice group meetings and learn the substantive legal issues. Rely on allies who know your work and will advocate for you to the people with whom you want to work. Find other people who have made internal transitions and ask them for advice. Build a business case as to why your change adds value to the company. And speak up. No one is reading your thought bubble. The lesson: asking for what you want is the only way you will get it.

After I had my children, I was at a crossroads, worried I could not continue to litigate with three children under three. My dad had serious health issues, and I was burning the candle at home and at work. It was impossible. I had an honest conversation with a senior partner at my firm, and the firm graciously agreed to create a position for me, melding my passion for pro bono work and working with young attorneys. I don’t know how I summoned the courage to admit I needed to make a change, but in having that difficult conversation, I ended up hanging onto my career at a time when that felt almost impossible. And I got to do inspiring work at a firm I loved. The job didn’t exist before we

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started talking. We made the magic. It helped that I had worked with this senior partner and he trusted that I would do well in the new position. He was also in a position of power and could advocate for this change. The lesson: in order to make magic, you must seek out and collaborate with those who have magical powers.

MARCH IN PLACE Despite everything I’ve just written, sometimes your career stalls. And that is ok. Don’t panic. Our careers are not endless ladders up. Sometimes you stay on the same step for longer than you thought you would. Sometimes you climb down a few steps.

Sometimes you get off. I had twins. I was on bed rest for two months, then took an extended maternity leave. I went back to work and had my third child.

As a result, it took me an extra year to make partner.

While I had a period of time when I worried I had missed too much and my career was “behind,” I knew that I had gained a lot more by taking extra time for my family. And during the next few years, while my friends continued on a litigation path and I did not, I feared that my career was stalled. But I could not do anything about it. I was juggling three little ones with my job. I was getting into work in the morning exhausted from getting everyone up, fed, clothed and out the door on time. I still have flashbacks of running from school, running to my car, running to the train. I was in a constant state of sweat during these years. Showing up on time and ready to work was a win. I had nothing to give to future career planning. Marching in place was all I could do for those years. So I marched. And I was not alone. Other working parents shared their own versions of juggling little ones with work and feeling like they were barely making it through their days.

Finding a community among my peers, understanding that the lawyers who seemed to be speeding ahead with ease were actually marching in place next to me, soothed my worries. It also helped to

speak with lawyers who were on the other side of the juggle, whose kids were older and whose careers were more developed. They helped me see that things would not always be so … circus-like. The lesson: your career path may stall; find a community to support you if it does.

DON’T QUIT…IT GETS EASIER The one thing I would tell my younger self is not to quit: it gets easier. When your career is in its early years, everything is new. You are not fully developed, and self-doubt slows you down. It’s hard.

But it gets easier. You see repeat legal issues. Your writing improves. You can handle conflict without taking it personally. Your voice becomes stronger.

You get smarter at reading people and interpersonal dynamics. You begin to own the room. You arrive. When your career is in its middling years, the challenges are different, but it may not feel easier.

Maybe you are climbing with little ones. Maybe you are taking care of family members. Maybe you are just plain struggling. Hold on. It gets better. It gets easier. Rely on your network. Talk to your friends.

Find an ally or advocate at or outside work. Look to your mentors and those powerful magicians. Gut it out. When the hill is high, put your chin up. Don’t stop marching, even if you are marching in place for a while. You can do this. We have done it. The women before us did it and had fewer women to lean on. You are strong and smart. And you have a legion of women you don’t even know, willing you on, whispering their lessons. Go get it.

KATHLEEN C. HENRY K.HENRY@EASTERNBANK.COM Kathleen C. Henry is executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of Eastern Bank, where she oversees all aspects of legal risk and corporate governance.

She serves on the board of directors for the Political Asylum Immigration Representation Project (PAIR), advises the Northeastern University School of Law’s Women in the Law Conference, and participates on the Boston Bar Association’s Advisory Committee for the Women Leadership and Advancement Forum.

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s t u C d n a s u o h T A lusion

nd Inc a y t li a e R l a Virtu r

e McGrego

By Catherin

WHAT WOULD IT TAKE FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND THAT RACISM IS MORE COMPLEX THAN BEING CALLED A NAME OR EVEN VIOLENCE AT THE HANDS OF POLICE? What would it take for you to accept that we still live in a world where the color of someone’s skin can get them killed, passed over for a job, denied a loan, denied housing, denied a fair shot?

What would it take for the reports of black bodies being gunned down by police to register as a pattern of racism, not merely insubordination or criminality?

What would it take for the outcries of racial injustice to register not as a sensitivity or a card to be played but as an unacceptable social reality?

What would it take for the data you see and that you say you “get”; what would it take for you to feel the reality behind that data?

— Dr. Courtney Cogburn What would it take for you not just to feel bad and to empathize but to act and think differently?”

In the second of our series on the positive impact and potential future positive impact of technology, we take a deep dive into virtual reality through examining an ongoing project which aims to use VR technology to help foster greater understanding of the impact of the experience of racism. We spoke to the architects of the project Dr Courtney D. Cogburn of Columbia University and Professor Jeremy Bailenson of the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab to get behind the platitudes.

IN SOMEONE ELSE’S SHOES

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raphy and gaming (neither of which are generally very inclusive) the fact that the technology and the industry is still so nascent does mean its potential is still wide open.

The fact that VR literally can allow you to walk in somebody else’s shoes means it has huge potential to encourage empathy and to be used very powerfully in training situations for inclusion.

The quest for a fully sensory experience outside of one’s own reality has a long genesis and could encompass a wide range of art forms and experiences. What is traditionally understood as the beginning of today’s virtual reality journey happened in 1987. Jaron Larnier founded the Visual Programming Lab (VPL), and either coined or popularized the term “virtual reality”. VPL developed a range of virtual reality gear including head-mounted goggles and gloves. The haptic experience (being able to touch and pick things up) of the new technology started to increase its potential and also the media’s interest in it. During the 1990’s, films such as The Lawnmower Man and The Matrix trilogies explored the concepts of virtual reality but real-life uptake was still some way off. Both Sega and Nintendo introduced VR gaming headsets that were flops.

During the 21st century VR has had an upturn, partly due to greater technological capacity and the development of smartphones and tablets.

Recent years have seen the movement of many of the technological giants such as Google, Microsoft and Facebook invest and research into the field.

EMPATHY MACHINE

The immersive aspect of VR inevitably can lead to dangers which those working and researching in this field have highlighted. Exposure to violent video games has been shown to increase violent impulses in users and this is likely to be heightened in the use of immersive technology like VR. There’s also the danger of reality drift which can 44

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occur through lengthened exposure to VR. Users become disorientated as to what is real and what isn’t. I will return to consider the implications of this for inclusion.

In 2015 Chris Milk created a VR documentary entitled Clouds Over Sidra. In this film, viewers get to experience life in the Za’atari refuge camp in Jordan, home to over 80,000 displaced Syrian refuges. The film is narrated by Sidra, an eight year old girl. It does not show anything highly dramatic, rather the realities of day-to day-life in the camp.

Describing seeing the film at the Tribeca Film Festival, Jeremy Bailensen, head of the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab, in his forthcoming book ‘Experience on Demand’ explains how the experience does not employ any of the traditional tools used by film-makers to heighten empathy and engagement but rather simply uses the experience of having walked in the shoes of the refugees.

Chris Milk has spoken of his film, which is only eight and half minutes long, as being able to truly connect the experiences of the refugees to those who can help change that reality. Chris has deemed VR ‘the ultimate empathy machine’, highlighting the fact that it can connect people to other’s in a way no other media can; and to that end he believes that it can change the world.

Indeed, Clouds Over Sidra was created with the help of the United Nations and Samsung and the UN has reported that seeing it doubles the amount of people who donate to refugees.

Experiences like this mirror Jeremy Bailenson’s own work in VR, which over the last twenty years has broadened the experience of walking in another’s shoes - or even hooves. In his book “Experience on Demand” Jeremy describes a project spearheaded by a student of his, Joshua Bostick, which focused on giving participants the same experience as cows who were being reared for meat consumption. In this study volunteers would crawl

on all fours, wearing a special vest which allowed them to mirror the gait of a cow. Participants saw the cow they were controlling via a head-mounted monitor but could also ‘feel’ how the cow felt, by seeing their cow avatar get prodded, simultaneously getting prodded in the side themselves and also feel intense sound vibrations through the floor to mimic the sensation of getting an electric shock.

While running the VR experience, Jeremy and his researchers also ran a control group where participants viewed a video of cows going through the experiences in the VR simulation but without experiencing the sensations themselves. At the end of the experiments, those who had been through the VR simulation reported much greater empathy with the cows. In this case, the aims of Jeremy Bailenson and Bostick’s study was not to promote whole-scale veganism but to make participants think about their consumption of meat.

In recent years the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab has worked on a range of projects which explore using VR to enhance empathy.

These have included projects where participants experience aging and homelessness. The lab also works with different organizations, using VR experience in training to increase empathy which certainly seems to have tangible effects in the real world. Jeremy explained: “Overall we are very pleased with the level of user engagement and initial outcomes of using VR for empathy-related training within actual organizations. Fidelity saw a ten percent improvement in

customer satisfaction scores after employing VR for empathy training, using VR to help employees form a better understanding of their customers.

Recent work with Stanford Children’s Hospital points to VR helping doctors trained using a perspective-taking simulation to feel more prepared to have tough conversations with patients. VR

Chris has deemed VR ‘the ultimate empathy machine’ and has spoken of the fact that it can connect people to other people in a way no other media can; and to that end he believes that it can change the world. helps people to better manage their biases, by giving them practice on how to behave in intense situations which are rare but have a high impact in the real world.”

But how easy is it to actually measure the effectiveness of VR experiences? It’s all about measuring behavior, according to Jeremy. “When one is trying to change ‘entrenched’ behaviors ones that are built up over decades and hard to change - it is not enough to use questionnaires.

Therefore, we look at how people actually behave later on. For example, in a large-scale, longitudinal study where thousands of people have become ‘homeless’ in VR, our measure for effectiveness is whether or not they will actually sign a real petition that will increase their personal taxes to support affordable housing.”

What’s interesting though is that the work that Jeremy and his researchers have been doing suggests that VR can help create more empathetic responses in those who might traditionally not D & B M A G A Z I N E FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 8 | W W W. M C C A . C O M

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be as able to show empathy.

“We have published a number of papers now that demonstrate VR empathy-training works best for people who have a hard time, in general, at taking the perspectives of others, for example, the first study in this paper: https://vhil.stanford. edu/pubs/2013/the-effect-of-embodied-experiences-on-self-other-merging-attitude-and-helping-behavior/.

The “Inter-Reactivity Index” measures the ability for people to engage in perspective taking as an individual difference, and VR has shown uniquely effective for those who score low on this measure.”

It might then also prove very useful in training for diversity and inclusion, as a key aspect of inclusivity is often being able to understand the perspectives of others.

In recent years the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab has worked to confront the issues of systematic racsim through their ongoing work with Professor Courtney D. Cogburn of Columbia University in the 1000 Cut Journey project.

1000 CUT JOURNEY

This project aims to create an immersive experience of racism from the perspective of a black male, allowing participants to become Michael Sterling who encounters racism as a young child, an adolescent, and as an adult. The genesis of the project is not just to stimulate empathy but to help others understand the social realities of racism, which is critical to promote effective and collective social action. Courtney Cogburn explains what led to the project: “We communicate racism and racial inequality through language and symbols, such as through media representations that have an impact on health; it led me to think about how to leverage the media and engage a more complex narrative around racism. That eventually led me to VR drawing on the adage of walking in someone else’s 46

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shoes. My feeling was that many white people do not really understand racism or its impact: could I create something that gives them some firsthand insight into experiences of racism? Could we improve people’s competence around racial inequality? My position is that emotional empathy is insufficient; we need people to act and think differently but what experience could we create that could push people to think in a different way?”

The target audience for 1000 Cut Journey is self-identified white liberals who are most likely to espouse beliefs of racial equality but may lack understanding of what that really means in terms of lived experiences of racism. There is an increasing body of research which suggests that true systemic change cannot be achieved unless the real pain of oppression is addressed, not just in its extreme forms but its everyday forms. It’s those ideas that informed Remi Eddo Lodge’s “Why I am No Longer Talking to White People About Race”, where Eddo Lodge suggests that too often the burden of eliminating racism is falling to black people and that what is needed is greater consciousness and action from white people. It’s this consciousness and action that 1000 Cut Journey seeks to stimulate.

The experience of the 1000 Cut Journey makes the participants experience three moments in the life of Michael Sterling a black man; first as a young child in a classroom, as an adolescent in an NYC neighborhood and then as young adult in a professional work environment. I asked Courtney why she chose the experiences of a black man over a black woman?

“At the moment, I think that our public discourse is heavily focused on black men and thus it was a salient point to begin engagement. I have written about and am personally quite aware, however, of the ways in which black women are made invisible in this discourse. Subconsciously I think that, for me, creating an experience about a black

Experiencing the 1000 Cut Journey I feel like a little child with a big world pitted against me.

I want to curl up and just cry.

I realize I am crying uncontrollably. At that point the feeling of the VR headset feels like some sort of shield or protection.

These are my immediate reactions at taking part in the 1000 Cut Journey developed by Professor Jeremy Bailenson and Dr Courtney D. Cogburn. I had wanted to take part in the experience for writing this article but had worried that knowing what it was through research for this story might lessen its effects. I was wrong.

During the first segment when Michael is a child in kindergarten and wrongly accused of playing roughly, I just felt confused. But during segments two and three, when Michael is stopped by the police as an adolescent and then faces discrimination in the workplace as an adult, I felt a very powerful throwback to feelings of childhood - feeling completely vulnerable, powerless, feeling threatened and unfairly treated, but there was nothing I could do about it.

I was also amazed at how attached I got to Michael‘s body in a short space of time. It felt quite sad to say goodbye to my ‘Michael self’, maybe because of what we had experienced together.

Did it change my perspective? Well, I am certainly predisposed to be empathetic but the VR experience takes this to another level. Afterwards I retreated to a nearby coffee shop to reflect. While there I read a newspaper report about the British rapper, Giggs, criticizing The Sun newspaper for their coverage of knife crime in London. It referenced an earlier Instagram comment from Giggs, which took to task Piers Morgan for his remarks on stop and search.

“Have you yourself ever experienced the traumas or violations, and a lot of the time abuse of power of being ‘stopped and search’ because you look like …”

Whilst I previously would have sympathized with this remark, it would have been academic.

I did feel a subtle shift in perspective coming off of my virtual experience as Michael being stopped and searched.

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woman would be more personal, complex and challenging. Trying to talk about a more deeply personal experience and the intersection of sexism and racism would be more complicated for me but it is definitely something I hope to explore in the future.”

For Courtney, the key aspect of the experience is the accumulating effect of the different experiences throughout various phases of the life cycle. “The cumulative effect is important; we want participants to go through the three experiences. We wanted to give people the sense that it’s not just a one time encounter and also that it starts very young.

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Similarly that it’s not going to affect school or work because racism permeates every space and facet of society.”

This amalgamation of experiences is derived from a range of narratives shared with her research team in the School of Social Work at Columbia University and also from empirical data drawn from multiple disciplines.

In the first segment of 1000 Cut Journey you are the young child Michael who is singled out and put on a ‘time out’ by his teacher for playing more roughly than his non-black peers, even though this isn’t the case.The racism is arguably more subtle and

certainly less dramatic than the second segment but demonstrates how the narrative of the ‘violent black male’ starts incredibly young and how this trope is being imposed unfairly on Michael.

In the second segment you are a teenage Michael going out to play basketball with a friend; reports come in of police searching for a young black man who is implicated in a crime. The suspect is wearing something similar to you and your mother urges you to change. The segment concludes with you (the user) being stopped and searched by the police, including being forced onto your knees with your hands in the air.

In the final segment you’re a 30 year old Michael at a job interview. You’re waiting with a white candidate to be called in. The interviewer, ignoring you, walks over to the white candidate and cheerfully states “You must be our applicant from Yale.” But he’s not, Michael (you) is the candidate from Yale; the receptionist points out his mistake and you are ushered in for interview but you don’t get the job.

The experience premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April, and afterwards, participants were asked to write their responses on a wall.

Responses were expressed differently but generally focussed on the fact that it’s an incredibly powerful experience for the participants. In a number of cases the responses stated that this behavior is unacceptable and that something has to change.

These reactions to the experience heartened Courtney. “Based on the reactions throughout the festival I became more encouraged that we were doing something meaningful and impactful.

All of the comments were focused on ideas like, ‘I thought I understood this but I didn’t’, and that was really important to us, as were the delegates’ emotional responses - people were upset and crying; really churned up.”

Jeremy Bailenson also sees the potential for

greater application after the experience of pre-

miering the piece at Tribeca. ”Since then, we have been in conversations with dozens of or-

ganizations to install it as a part of their diversity

and inclusion training. The idea is not to replace

their existing curriculum, but instead to use it to augment the substantive information with an

intense experience, one that is only possible in VR.”

THE LIMITS OF THE VIRTUAL One caveat that might be raised by the use of

VR in training for inclusion is that it’s not a magic

bullet despite its effect often being very potent and it cannot replace the need for other aspects of training; a point highlighted by both Courtney

and Jeremy in their conversations with me. Uncon-

trolled and unlimited access to VR experiences could lead to ‘reality drift’; in inclusion terms, this

could potentially lead to non- diverse participants imagining their diversity VR experience was the

real thing and that they themselves were diverse.

Without thoughtful application this could become an aspect of diversity tourism.

But the immediacy of walking in someone else’s

shoes is certainly a truly valuable part of training.

Would the white manager in the third segment of 1000 Cuts Journey blithely assume a black

candidate couldn’t be the Yale candidate if he had been in Michael’s shoes? Hopefully the emotional

memory of that moment would stop future assumptions in their tracks.

1000 Cut Journey is a project which is still

ongoing and Courtney and Jeremy and their teams are looking at further ways to apply this in

real life. If your organization would like to find out

more please email either Courtney at cc3803@ columbia.edu or Jeremy at vhil@stanfordvr.com.

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D&B/TALK

INTERNATIONAL FOCUS LGBTQ and Globalization

By Jodi Bartle

“FOR ME, AS A NOKIA LEADER, PRIDE IS ALSO ABOUT ENSURING EVERYONE FEELS

WELCOME TO WORK AT NOKIA. NO ONE SHOULD FEEL ANY PRESSURE TO HIDE AN IMPORTANT PART OF WHO THEY ARE WHEN THEY ARRIVE AT THE OFFICE OR LAB IN THE MORNING. AND, CERTAINLY, NO ONE SHOULD EVER, EVER ENCOUNTER DISCRIMINATION OR HOSTILITY FROM ANY NOKIA COLLEAGUE FOR ANY REASON, INCLUDING BECAUSE OF THEIR SEXUAL ORIENTATION OR GENDER IDENTITY. THAT IS CLEARLY NOT THE NOKIA WAY; RESPECT IS A PART OF OUR CULTURE AND DNA, AND A KEY ASSET FOR INCLUSION DEEPLY EMBEDDED IN OUR CULTURE.” —Maria Varsellona, president of Nokia Technologies and the group Chief Legal Officer

Global behemoth Nokia, whose beginnings trace back to a Finnish paper mill in 1865, creates technology to connect the world. Its reach extends internationally, encompassing over 100,000 employees from more than 170 countries, with different cultures, races, belief systems, laws and religions, and serving local populations that may exist outside of the global echo chamber of the company-wide culture at Nokia.

As reflected by a score of 100% in the latest Human Rights Commission Corporate Equality Index, Nokia has made great strides in recent years to do the right things to address gender imbalance and improve workplace diversity.

Maria Varsellona, president of Nokia Technologies and the group’s chief legal officer, believes that equality and respect are fundamental to the culture at Nokia, which is built on its Finnish roots. She credits that culture with providing the impetus for the 2016 launch of an ambitious, five-year action plan aimed at leveling the playing field in leadership for talented women and inspiring the next generation.

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Although Nokia has focused on gender diversity during the last few years, recently the focus has begun to broaden to other diversity initiatives including LGBTQ+. But how do an inclusive company culture and LGBTQ+ diversity initiatives translate in practice across global locations and multiple jurisdictions, some of which may be traditionally against ideas of sexual tolerance and openness to ‘other’?

Maria, who also serves as executive sponsor of EQUAL!, the educational and support group for LGBTQ+ employees and their allies at Nokia, posted a Pride-friendly, company-wide missive on the Yammer internal communication platform in June. While the gesture was enormously supportive and chimed with the company’s core value of respect for all people, it also generated some online discussion questioning the need to single out the LGBTQ+ group over any other.

Nassib Abou-Khalil, VP, global head of Legal & Compliance for Customer Operations, has worked closely with Maria and others on the Legal & Compliance leadership team to broaden the scope of diversity initiatives at

Nokia. In a recent discussion with MCCA, Nassib commented that responses to the EQUAL! piece from the employee community around the world showed that “in certain geographical pockets of our organization, there is a great opportunity for us as a global organization to do more education on why diversity is an important topic.

Her blog helped create awareness for the need for employee support and resource groups, and of why it is important to talk about inclusion and diversity and the underlying issues. If you take the multi-jurisdictional element of our business and layer it over our company-wide differences in culture, religion, belief and laws, then it becomes more complex, because these are all components that people usually resort to in order to form and shape their beliefs.” The challenge, Nassib suggests, for Nokia or any global other organization, is to create a globally uniform company culture so that employees with differing belief systems are behaving in the same way and embracing diversity and inclusion as one of the organization’s cultural principles. How do we do that? “One step at a time.”

Nassib’s colleague, Alexis Mendoza, VP, general counsel for the Nokia Software and IP/ Optical Networks business groups agrees that support for LGBTQ+ inclusion is culturally complicated and may be more difficult to deal with depending on the country and region. “After the flurry of conversation generated by Maria’s post, I got the sense that people were talking past each other on the topic. LGBTQ+ inclusivity wasn’t even so much the issue - it was more the notion that we were talking about certain groups and some people were questioning ‘why that group and not this group?’ How the company deals with that is an interesting question and is still a work in progress. Nassib and I, following Pride month, have found it interesting how different pockets of the company have weighed in. It’s a healthy debate and can

be much more of a taboo topic depending on where you sit.”

Nassib maintains that, regardless of the specific local culture in the hundreds of countries in which Nokia does business, some company values must be held paramount and sacrosanct. “While recently talking to someone about how to translate principles of diversity into a company language, he commented that in his region they have religion and law to contend with which may be impediments. I countered that we also have countries where we hear that paying bribes is considered normal, but as a company our code of conduct prohibits this. In such cases, we see direct correlation between the bribe and a penalty, but with diversity issues we don’t see the direct correlation and the value it brings to the company - that’s the connection we need to make. Everyone understands the importance for us as a company to adhere to certain global standards - I don’t see why we should not embrace the same approach for diversity and inclusion.”

Nokia has undoubtedly made purposeful, objective strides to become an aspirational place to work. Just what is the company doing to push its diversity and inclusion agenda so successfully? Alex is cautious not to overstate the gains Nokia has made in this space. “We have to define what ‘doing well’ really means. It can be a struggle to keep it top-of-mind - until recently, the company was talking about diversity specifically relating to gender and workforce, which of course is very important. But for me, it is equally important to partner with organizations like MCCA to broaden the conversation - there is work to be done still in LGBTQ+ for sure, and in racial diversity. We are a very global company, so one could look at all the countries we are in overall and draw a conclusion. But if you go to individual countries I question whether we are as diverse as we think we are.”

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Nassib comments that while Nokia has a good track record with positive initiatives in place, there is always room to improve. “We are at a point where we have a solid platform and will continue to build on that platform and do very well.” Alex champions the initiative that Maria and the Legal & Compliance organization overall is demonstrating in this area ‘“taking the topic and running with it, driving it for the company rather than waiting for other stakeholders to pick it up. In this case, L&C is not content with just tending to its own garden.” This may well be a challenge for other companies looking to make company-wide changes - instead of looking to HR or marketing or any other function, just start the conversation and work to proactively shift internal culture, ideally with buy-in from the top. At Nokia, the leadership that Legal & Compliance is showing with respect to D&I is not surprising given the high performing culture and innovative thinking that Maria has fostered within her organization.

There is no better example of this than that in May, in addition to her role as CLO, she was appointed president of Nokia Technologies, the company’s most profitable business group.

Alex maintains that while Nokia has a strong core message on culture, the challenge is taking generic words and concepts and making them relatable. “The Nokia ideal is there, but more work needs to be done to translate that into individual issues, topics and initiatives. Maria’s piece really teed off what Nokia is about - the company has a long history and is in the process of transforming itself into a top ten technology company; her post is about making sure that Nokia’s culture and people are also that of a modern company, and that we are attracting and developing top talent. Many are forward-looking, progressive, with common values; they will seek out and/or want to stay with an employer that not only pays them well but also shares 52

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their values. Lots of data show the value of diversity in the workplace, but we should avoid being too reductive when speaking about it.

You either get it or you don’t - that a culture of diversity and inclusion is the right thing to implement, leading to an environment we all want to be in. Those looking for a hard business case on the merits of diversity are missing the point. The question should really be about what kind of workplace we want to show up to every day?”

Nassib does not see Nokia’s cultural globalization as a challenge, but rather as a wonderful opportunity. “One thing that struck me from the comments generated by Maria’s and the Pride month posts was our ability to reach people all over the world and to make them feel included regardless of borders and laws. For example, an employee originally from the Middle East and now living elsewhere wrote to the effect that he is proud and happy to feel safe and accepted as he is at Nokia. Another from Bogota spoke of the challenges and the discrimination that the LGBTQ community still faces. I hope that our work here at Nokia on diversity and inclusion will help people feel accepted and proud regardless of where they are. That is the beauty of our global reach and global message. At the end of the day, transforming culture and influencing legislation is important but so is the ability to affect lives.”

JODI BARTLE

JBARTLE@MCCA.COM Jodi Bartle is a New Zealander who has been working in legal publishing since completing her Law and English degrees and arriving in the UK over 15 years ago.

Previously she has worked for the Chambers and Partners directories, The Lawyer, GC Magazine and has written for Vice, i-D, Sunseeker, Gaggenau and Quintessentially, Chanel, Selfridges, the Luxury Law Alliance and legal recruitment company Taylor Root.

You Can’t Change Wha t You Can’t See Part Two

In Conversation With Michele Coleman Mayes

By Catherine McGregor

Michele Coleman Mayes’ in-house career spans over thirty years and during that time she has been a tireless champion for inclusion throughout the profession. Currently, Michele serves as general counsel for the New York Public Library.

In Michele’s capacity as the then-chair of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession (2014-2017), she commissioned the research that formed the basis of the groundbreaking report “You Can’t What You Can’t See”. The report is a collaboration between the ABA Commission on Women in Profession, MCCA and the Center for Work Life Law at UC Hastings. I caught up with Michele to discuss the genesis of the report and how lawyers can start to make use of its findings.

Diversity & the Bar: Why did the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession and MCCA come together to commission this report? Why was it important and needed now?

Michele Coleman Mayes: The report was born from a high level of frustration that there has been unrelenting focus on what each individual can do and while this is important, this focus has not resulted in anything more than incremental progress (meaning very slow). This research is different because it sets forth what organizations can do to address bias in the workplace. Joan Williams, who oversaw the research, has observed we are too often stuck “admiring the problem.” After speaking with Joan, we both agreed that there was a compelling need to undertake research to determine how systemic barriers prevent women and minority attorneys from reaching what most would label positions of power within the legal profession. I approached Joe West (formerly MCCA’s CEO) about partnering with the Commission on this research. Joe readily agreed to join with the Commission and that began the journey.

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Michele Coleman Mayes

We hope that the end product will break through the white noise to attract the attention of decision-makers who have likely become both saturated and weary when it comes to the topic of diversity and inclusion. We want this research to resonate with decision-makers who rethink norms and set policy.

D&tB: Bias is very hard to measure and very few surveys seem to go into this detail, particularly around some of the more subtle forms such as matter assignments and credit in law firms. In many ways this report is really opening up the shiny façade and looking beyond the numbers of diverse personnel and the various initiatives. How can clients use their purchasing power with law firms to really get into the weeds with this?

MCM: Stephanie Scharf, current Chair of the Commission, spoke at the Shearman & Sterling Women General Counsel roundtable in June 2018 about how female general counsel can use their spending power when it comes to leveling the playing field for women attorneys. Of course, this isn’t new news.

The Commission, on occasion in collaboration with what was then the ABA Presidential Task Force on Gender Equity, has generated considerable

research on this subject over several years. In fact, there is a 2012 publication titled “Power of the Purse – How General Counsel Can Impact Pay Equity for Women Lawyers” that delves into this very issue.

The then-president of the ABA, Laurel Bellows, states in the note that the publication “explains why corporate clients should care about the gender gap at law firms and sets forth specific steps they can take to ensure that their corporations are served by firms that are providing, promoting and achieving a diverse and inclusive workplace.” This did prompt some change, but not enough even though there was a very thorough checklist of action items that accompanied the recommendations.

You might conclude here we go again, but I think one of the significant aspects of this research is that the questions asked and responses provided start to paint a disturbing and vivid picture from which it is difficult to avert your eyes. For example, women lawyers of color reported that they had been mistaken for administrative staff, court personnel or janitorial staff at a level 50 percentage points higher than white men. This is not meant to belittle folks who perform these very necessary functions, but let’s acknowledge that these women lawyers attended school for seven years and probably incurred significant debt with the expectation that they would be able to make the rule of law work for society-at-large. Another finding – two-thirds of women of color reported being held to higher standards than their white male colleagues. As I said, these data paint a picture that isn’t pretty.

So, the research, coupled with the tailored toolkits, gives clients a concrete way to conduct a constructive, worthwhile conversation with law firms about an intractable topic. Speaking of the toolkits, I should point out that they were developed using the practical insights from managing partners of law firms and general counsel. We are very grateful for the time and guidance this talented group of lawyers gave to this research. Their names are listed in the report.

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of experimental social psychology studies (prove it again, maternal wall, tug of war and tight rope).

Since every institution is slightly different, how bias manifests itself will not be the same for every single organization. Once you have figured out what your issues are, you can then address them in an informed way. (You must decide the best way to acquire information, i.e., by surveys, focus groups, interviews, statistical analyses, etc.) For example, you may be an organization that has lost very few women but still they are not progressing into management roles.

In such a situation, this research could serve as the springboard for getting management engaged and focused on the problems that need to be tackled and solved. Will they simply ignore the data with impunity? This should not be the outcome if leaders are willing to hold individuals accountable.

D&tB: An interesting finding was the fact that many women in-house feel that they are being denied promotion or are unfairly compensated. Was this a surprise to you?

MCM: No, it wasn’t. I think what many in-house departments suffer from is a perception that there is inadequate transparency regarding career progression. The more curtains you can pull back to achieve more transparency, the better. (Even though I am well aware that transparency has its own set of challenges.) Again, we hope that the research will be used to start that conversation. Also, to state what I think should be obvious, involving Human Resources is a logical starting point since in most companies this function oversees the talent management systems.

D&tB: Obviously with law firms clients can apply pressure, but what are your thoughts on how in-house leaders can be persuaded to take these issues seriously?

MCM: In-house leaders need to be more self-di-

rected/motivated, but then again, you do have shareholders, consumers and activists who have been known to turn the spotlight on companies’ diversity and inclusion records. Further, there is the specter of being labeled hypocritical if you are insisting that your law firm providers be diverse when your own house is not in order. Actually, it

...organizations want to be innovative; to be innovative you need new ideas; to come up with new ideas you need different perspectives; to have different perspectives, you need different experiences; and to have all of this you need diversity.

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should come as no surprise that leaders should expect to feel a degree of pressure from those attorneys on their staff. In the age of social media, people share a lot and can easily connect with like-minded individuals. If attorneys sense their workplace is only paying lip service to diversity and inclusion, you may quickly find it difficult to retain or recruit the talent you want.

I once heard an executive speak and she provided one of the most succinct explanations for why we should all care about D&I in this age of constant and rapid disruption. Organizations want to be innovative; to be innovative you need new ideas; to come up with new ideas you need different perspectives; to have different perspectives, you need different experiences; and to have all of this you need diversity.

D&tB: In a number of categories, women lawyers of color, particularly in law firms, fare worst of all.

The research points very strongly to the fact that it’s existing cultures and business processes that need to be changed rather than a focus or initiative on a particular group. Any thoughts from experience and best practice how this can be encouraged?

MCM: The name of this report could not be truer -“You can’t change what you can’t see.” Thus, it’s rare

to accuse someone of plotting evil deeds, but, on the other hand, choosing to remain uninformed is unacceptable. But to have those worthwhile conversations that will enlighten people, you must convey that you are not going to judge someone who thinks differently than you do or sees the world through a different lens. In other words, you must create a safe space with the goal that the conversation will lead to positive change.

What can managers do on a day to day basis?

Don’t rely on training to eliminate biases. Training cannot overcome those ingrained biases – period.

Instead, stay vigilant so that you identify systems that need to be changed, with the objective that the change brought about will ultimately lead to a more inclusive, empathetic culture. Encourage those around you to join you in this effort. It’s worth repeating that you must do the work to ferret out what is really transpiring in the organization. Don’t go with your gut. And once you settle on a solution be sure to test it to validate that it’s working and if it is not, go back to the drawing board.

D&tB: Are there particular challenges you think folks need to be mindful of in trying to get buy-in for these?

MCM: The brilliance of what Joan did is that you can incorporate the recommendations contained in the toolkits into your existing talent management systems. We are not expecting you to start from scratch. This message needs to be communicated up front. By making minor adjustments, it is possible to bring about real, enduring change.

I’ll say it again - first, do your homework to understand how biases are surfacing in your organization.

If you ask the right questions, rather than quickly offering advice or solutions, the responses will unearth the areas that need to be addressed. Then in this new world order, women and minorities will no longer be expected to do all of the seeing and changing by themselves for themselves because organizations will choose to change what they can now see.

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The Long Way Back Take a line-up of essential military personnel skills - the role-call reads self-discipline, adherence to structure and hierarchy, obedience to superiors as well as to the larger organization, and an overarching sense of duty and self-sacrifice. Military culture is specific and all-consuming, consisting of time-proven best practices that aim to guard, keep, serve and protect the people of America.

Transitioning from military life into the irregular rhythms of everyday civilian behaviors can be a difficult adjustment process at best.

From help with housing to family law and estate disputes, access to health benefits and assistance with reemployment, veterans’ needs can be both critical and basic.

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For those ex-military personnel who not only reemerge into civilian life but find themselves facing a corporate working environment, there’s yet another layer of recalibration to manage and overcome. Many military skillsets are transferable but the thrust of corporate cultural life is undeniably different: founded on individual achievements, consensus-oriented decision making, collaborative efforts and a focus on the importance of diverse thought and a creative approach.

Increasingly, some law firms and in-house legal departments now include veterans in diversity programs to assist ex-service personnel to better make the transition from military life into civilian life, spanning the gamut from

The Veteran Transition From Military To Corporate Life

By Jodi Bartle

practical pro bono legal support, to training, mentorship and employment programs aimed at garnering the best talent to deployment into the corporate fold.

As Pedro Pavón, Senior Managing Counsel at cloud-computing company Oracle (and veteran himself) asserts, working with veterans is important not just because it is a right and proper thing to do, but because they are an asset to the business.

“The bottom line is that veterans make great employees - they work hard and are mission-oriented. It is good for our company to hire and retain them - a lot of our customers are government agencies and defenserelated organizations, and so we not only

get great employees when we hire veterans, but we are also able to demonstrate we are committed to the types of employees that come from - and understand - many of our customers.

Oracle is in it for the full piece - the altruism for sure, which I can feel and hear in people’s voices when they talk about veterans programs around the company, but hiring veterans is also smart business.”

Pedro cites leadership and problem-solving skills as particularly important crossover characteristics of veterans. “The reasons you might hire a vet lays heavily in their ‘can-do’ attitude, because that is a powerful force in any organization. As an innovative tech company, Oracle is faced with difficult questions and complicated D & B M A G A Z I N E FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 8 | W W W. M C C A . C O M

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tech and business challenges and veterans are used to dealing with ‘hard stuff’. Getting difficult things done is what being in the service is about - every day you are challenged with a new task or a mission or a request, something you mightn’t have been trained to do, but you still have to make it happen.” He credits veterans with the ability to think very much outside of the normal boundaries of traditional employees. “They are both creative and have game-changing ideas”, he says.

Oracle runs a slew of veteran initiatives, supported historically “very much from the top of the company, run full-time by three people in the HR team who are dedicated to supporting and hiring veterans; something I don’t think you’ll find in many other companies”. Its foremost program sees Oracle bringing in a number of veterans transitioning out of the military for a paid internship, helping them to get hands-on job skills and training in the fields of technology, data operations, logistics, HR and sales.

“We don’t necessarily see this as a pipeline for hiring, although we do want to hire successful people, but the program is about doing something good for veterans, bringing them into a safe, paid environment, easing their transition out of service and into the corporate world - and if it works for us later and we hire a super employee, then that’s great, and if it works out for another company then that’s great too — the veteran wins either way.”

Another program called Oracle Veteran Guidon assists those employees who do get hired by the company, orienting veterans into corporate culture and matching them with a mentor. Vets can enter the program through veteran internship or through other tracks; at any time during the first year of employment, a veteran can sign up for the program, get assigned a mentor and take advantage of all the 60

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benefits of the program, such as presentations, speakers, panels, and mentorships - “all the sorts of resources that get sent your way if you become a part of the Oracle veteran program”.

Thirdly, Oracle has a Military and Veteran Employment Network (MAVEN), “a huge community of Oracle professionals who have military and non-military backgrounds focused on helping recruit, mentor, train and engage veterans”, and a badge program available throughout the company’s internal connection system, Aria. “We have in excess of 130,000 employees…by request, they can ask for a badge to be added to their profile if they have been in the services to display their veteran status and the branch of service they were in.”

Oracle also has a military-allied veteran badge for those who did not serve but want to show their support for veterans - creating a company-wide common ground. “You need to have more than just veterans in the veteran group to bring people in of all interests, people who are curious, because when you get buy-in from the larger population, you are setting yourself up for high visibility and success.”

Jon Harmon, chairman of the law firm McGuireWoods, served in Operation Desert Storm as a first lieutenant in the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division before earning his J.D. As a law firm, McGuireWoods has long been committed to serving military veterans both as an employer of men and women who have served their nation in the military, as well as providing pro bono services to veterans in a range of matters. Additionally the firm offers a volunteer service and support for nonprofit organizations that support veterans, and has sponsored the Virginia War Memorial 5K Run Walk for years.

More recently, Jon notes the firm has launched its own Veteran Lawyers Network, comprised of firm lawyers who have served in military and

who are “dedicated to identifying new ways to enhance or expand support for veterans both inside and outside the firm, while ensuring that McGuireWoods continues to leverage the expertise of our veteran lawyers in service of our clients.”

In its pro bono work, the firm has advised former military personnel in legal matters, often in partnership with clients who are also committed to those who’ve served in the military. “Our lawyers partnered with Panasonic for a pro bono clinic in April at the Veterans Administration Hospital in East Orange, New Jersey, while our Charlotte office has partnered with the Bank of America Legal Department for the past two years to co-host an annual legal services clinic for veterans and other Supportive Housing Communities residents. Nearly 80 volunteers served more than 80 client needs, making this the largest single-day pro bono partnership for each of the organizations involved.”

The firm places such an emphasis on helping veterans because, as Jon says, “I can’t think of a group more deserving than those who’ve put their lives on the line in armed service, preserving, protecting and defending our Constitution and the liberties all Americans are guaranteed.”

He says his own military experience led him “to really appreciate how much these incredibly brave and committed men and women sacrifice – you know this when you’ve been part of it.

We owe these veterans – and the families who sacrifice with them – so much. Now, as a leader

in the legal profession, I am very proud of what our lawyers do to help veterans.”

Success stories are numerous. Jon recounts a situation involving Rebecca Gantt, a Navy veteran and lawyer in the firm’s Norfolk, Virginia, office. “Rebecca has provided hundreds of hours of pro bono service for active duty service members over the past few years through the ABA’s Military Pro Bono Project. One recent case she handled was for a Navy petty officer in a landlord-tenant dispute. While the petty

I can’t think of a group more deserving than those who’ve put their lives on the line in armed service, preserving, protecting and defending our Constitution and the liberties all Americans are guaranteed. officer was stationed aboard a ship (and even while on deployment), the landlord went to court, obtained default judgments, seized money from the petty officer’s bank accounts and tried to garnish her Navy wages.” Rebecca filed motions to set aside the default judgments, which were denied by the court that had entered them originally. After appealing the denials, Rebecca negotiated a settlement agreement that saw the default judgments being vacated, leaving the petty officer eligible for the security clearance she needed to maintain to her career in the Navy. “In recognition of Rebecca’s service on the petty officer’s behalf, the ABA’s Standing Committee on Legal Assistance for Military Personnel presented her with the ABA Military Pro Bono Project Outstanding Services Award.

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USAA’S A.B. CRUZ ON BEST PRACTICE GUIDELINES FOR VETERANS INITIATIVES LEARN THE MILITARY COMMUNITY

• Understand the value veterans bring to an organization

• Develop a basic understanding of the military and its culture

• Get to know actual veterans and their spouses/families

• Access available online resources/guidance (there’s plenty out there; don’t reinvent the wheel)

IDENTIFY & HIRE

• Commit to hiring veterans/their spouses: set goals and publicly announce same

• Designate a veteran leader to help drive the program

• Create a military-friendly website and proactively use

social media to create buzz around your military hiring effort/program

• Participate in veteran job fairs

And our firm, in recognition for her incredible work, honored Rebecca with McGuireWoods’ annual Pro Bono Award for 2018.”

United Services Automobile Association (USAA) is another company that emphasizes helping military veterans and their families through support programs and initiatives that go beyond the financial services and products the company offers to its members as a business.

USAA Senior Vice President and retired Navy admiral A.B. Cruz III notes that USAA, whose mission is to facilitate the financial security of its members (most of whom are military members, veterans or their family members) has its head-quarters in San Antonio, Texas - often referred to as ‘Military City USA’.

“It makes all the sense in the world for our company to reach out and touch the military community in meaningful ways through our many employee and corporate responsibility efforts, which are specifically intended to 62

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• Your recruiting material should “speak military”; i.e. translate civilian/corporate terminology into military equivalent terms

ONBOARD & DEVELOP

• Specifically tailor orientation/indoctrination training for veterans to fa-cilitate their transition into corporate/ business environment

• Establish a “buddy system” (i.e. pair a new vet with a more experienced vet co-worker “running mate”)

• Assign multiple mentors—both formal and informal—and other helpful touchpoints

• Create a clear development plan

• Celebrate military events (e.g., Memorial Day, Veterans Day, etc.)

assist and support military members and their families,” said A.B. “These include USAA’s initiatives aimed at enhancing the resiliency and financial readiness of military families, that support military caregivers, and that have the company partnering with other organizations that assist with military-to-civilian career transitions and military spouse employment opportunities.”

As a 33-year military veteran himself, A.B. knows first-hand the sacrifices military members and their families make. “From something as ‘simple’ as having to relocate a household full of kids in the middle of the school year to far more extreme and unfortunate situations involving a service member’s death or significant injury, society owes a debt of honor and gratitude to these families. As a company, we strive to do our part to help alleviate at least some of these hardships, like helping military members and their families navigate a challenging career transition.”

In the area of veteran hiring, A.B. points out that the value of a veteran as an employee is undisputed. “Most military members are very organized, extremely disciplined, routinely goal- and team-orientated, and are typically of the highest character and integrity,” he says. “If they are trained properly and given the right tools, they are tenacious achievers who simply won’t quit on you. That said, the military work environment and civilian work environment are quite different and nuanced in terms of such things as skill requirements, team dynamics, chain-of-command protocol and leadership.”

Because of these differences, A.B. adds that a critical first step to positioning a new veteran hire for success is taking the veteran’s military skills and properly translating or tailoring them for his or her new civilian role within the corporate workforce. “The important thing is that you take the skills and experiences veterans bring to an organization, provide the right training so they can hone and optimize their skills, and then put them into roles requiring precisely those skillsets,” he explains.

larger workforce and retaining them. “At USAA, veterans and their families are our customers

and our members; our mission focuses on them exclusively, so in my mind, it’s absolutely

in our best interest as a company to assist and support their transition in any practical way we can. Towards this end, USAA is committed to

hiring veterans and spouses/domestic partners of veterans. Together, they comprise approximately 22% (~7,500) of the USAA workforce”

says Cruz, “who best to epitomize our active military membership, provide invaluable insight

into their needs, and be the standard bearers of USAA’s cultural affinity with the military community we serve.”

The lawyers agreed that getting to know your

veterans well is a key to successful transitioning. The military mindset is a tricky one to leave

behind; necessitating a period of pure adjustment where the common norms of corporate

decision-making, consensus and agreement have to be learned anew through mentorship

and relationship-building. In cases where the

The important thing is that you take the skills and experiences veterans bring to an organization, provide the right training so they can hone and optimize their skills, and then put them into roles requiring precisely those skillsets...

The key for companies interested in hiring veterans, says A.B., is to develop well-supported programs that facilitate not only the onboarding of veterans, but also integrating them into the

veteran

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seek out help in

this, it is vital an

organization has

a leader in place to

account

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some of the issues veterans

might

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be having. Traninto the cadence of

civilian

and

corporate life will be different for every individual; be aware of and sensitive to this to help

set veterans up for success getting adjusted to ex-military life.

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BY JODI BARTLE

BIG BUSINESS TAKES A STAND

ONCE UPON

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A TIME,

the mechanics of business were quite simple.

The yin and yang of economic transaction hasn’t traditionally been mired in ethical consideration, and many businesses have preferred to stay neutral regarding the cultural and political status quo. But we live in peculiar times; big business has had to evolve, increasingly accountable not only to its stakeholders and the bottom line, but to its employees and society as a whole.

Political uncertainty, escalating environmental concerns, regressive policies, an unpredictable gig economy, the implosion of housing markets, rapid and on-going tech disruption and the global financial crisis, which exposed the damage that the capitalist greed of a few could inflict on so many; all this has meant that companies have had to readjust, to dig a little deeper, to assess values and ethics and to effectively rebrand in order to keep relevant and answerable to their ‘woke’ customers. Customers are increasingly demanding something more aligned with their own personal values when they consider who or what to give their money to, and a new kind of leadership is being called for.

Corporate advocacy is one of the ways in which companies have sought to demonstrate their willingness to take a stand on controversial

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issues. When the personal becomes the political, it’s no longer enough to drop a new collection or offer a faster connection; and smart companies are weighing into issues that matter. As the line between business and activism becomes increasingly pixelated and indistinct, the question is both ‘why’ and ‘how’ companies make the decision to step up and make a stand. What factors need to be considered, how are the risks calculated and what are the outcomes most desired?

The mood of the moment has been spearheaded by sports giant Nike; no real stranger to pushing boundaries having taken up the early corporate activism mantle in the 90’s with a pre-hashtag print ad “If You Let Me Play” which offered sports as a route to female empowerment. Nike’s 30th anniversary “Just Do It” ad campaign features NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, off the field since kneeling during the national anthem to highlight racial injustice.

Backing Kaepernick was a bold move for the company, which risked alienating conservative Nike customers in favor of the company’s youthful and racially diverse core market. After an initial dive, Nike’s sales, social media attention, opinion pieces and an audible buzz around the brand have all been on the up.

Tech company Microsoft, founded in 1975, has long been engaged in immigration issues spanning over the last 20 years. Recently the company has spoken out against the proposed termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy as well as Trump’s high-profile administration policy which separated immigrant children from their families at U.S borders. In reference to Microsoft’s opposition to the termination of DACA, Fred Humphries, Corporate Vice President, U.S. Governmental Affairs, commented that the company is very passionate about the wellbeing of its employees - and this is something the policy 66

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directly threatens. “Employee wellbeing is our North Star, a high priority for the company. Our employees have come from over 120 countries and we need them to meet our workforce requirements.” Taking a larger view, he says that immigrants make contributions to our society as a whole and that this has an important economic impact on the country. While the actual number of Microsoft employees who might be potentially affected by the DACA and DREAMer policies over the entire Microsoft workforce isn’t numerous, Fred insists that “the loss of even one employee because of a bad policy is one too many.”

He is quick to point out that Microsoft’s U.S. Governmental Affairs group has been zealous advocates on immigration issues, not just in regards to the current administration, but to many different administrations over the years.

“Microsoft doesn’t look to make immigration a partisan issue - we are talking to all, to Democrats and Republicans, to the education of all on the importance of immigration.” The current administration, Fred notes, “has a perspective on aspects of immigration and some of those issues we disagree on, and that’s on public record.

With DACA and the DREAMers, we have heard what the President says. If we as a company see something where we have agreement, we will get behind that. We will continue to advocate as before and to educate the administration, Congress, whoever it may be, so we can try to get things right and to keep providing valuable perspectives.”

He acknowledges that speaking out against the termination of DACA comes from thinking it is the right thing to do, both ethically as well as for the bottom line of the business. “If you look at the many contributors to the success of this country, of major scientific achievements, Nobel prizes, etc…many of these have been made by

ON THE ONE HAND, ADHERING TO OUR VALUES WILL ALWAYS BE A PART OF HOW WE GET TO THE BOTTOM LINE AND IT IS PART OF WHY WE HAVE SUCCEEDED; THOSE THINGS ARE NOT IN OPPOSITION BUT ACTUALLY TIE TOGETHER BECAUSE WE ARE THE COMPANY WE ARE. immigrants, those who fill the highly-skilled front in particular; and at Microsoft, unfortunately we still have shortages of highly-skilled employees.”

Microsoft has also been critical of the greencard backlog (“it needs to be addressed”) which will affect the workforce at Microsoft. “We are monitoring this carefully because clearly it could be disruptive, particularly to families.”

Advocating on behalf of others is clearly part of Microsoft’s DNA. Fred cites Brad Smith, Microsoft’s President and Chief Legal Officer , for having spoken out on his support of the immigrant cause, and the company’s founder Bill Gates, who has made philanthropy - following Microsoft’s conquering of the market - his life’s work. What about the business case for taking such a strong stand on immigration issues?

“We talk about immigration from a 360 degree perspective, encompassing a humanitarian, historical, workforce and business perspective. Not one of these things are more important than another, but these are people and you can’t forget that. The larger story at play here, business case or not, is about what kind of place do you want to work at, and what kind of country do you want to live in?”.

New tech companies have evolved in an entirely distinct culture and many have corporate social responsibility woven into their core. Lyft, the San Francisco based on-demand ride-sharing company (and now rival to Uber), was launched initially in 2012 as a way to pair long-distance

rides for students between US college campuses.

The company’s political advocacy has manifested in a variety of headline-grabbing ways, perhaps most noticeably for its action in the aftermath of Trumps’ 2017 ‘Muslim Ban’. Publicly opposed to the ban, Lyft announced it would donate $1 million over four years to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Loni Mahanta, Lyft’s Vice President and Associate General Counsel, says that Lyft’s activism comes from the DNA of the brand. “It’s part of how our founders John Zimmer and Logan Green envisioned the company from the outset and part of what we’ve built and focused on in the six years we have been moving forward.” She says that’s why Lyft has such a strong record on a lot of different issues that are important to it, such as The Ride To Vote initiative which gives discounts or free rides to voters to ensure they get to the polls and offsetting the company’s carbon footprint. “If there is something that as a company we can do to further those important issues or to challenge things that go against our values then we are going to take the opportunity to do that. We are a mission-driven company; it’s why we all come in to work every day. There are a lot of other values that are important to the company too, things we need to stand up for: this is an important part of what our company ethos is and why we do what we do.”

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have a deep mission-drive, Lyft has to function as a business. On the one hand, adhering to our values will always be a part of how we get to the bottom line and it is part of why we have succeeded; those things are not in opposition but actually tie together because we are the company we are. There are a lot of issues out there in the world that people in the company might care about and they might weigh in and talk about them because people are very vocal here - which is probably true of a lot of tech companies. We have to decide which issues we can positively affect - what the right areas are for us to focus on.”

Lyft has a formal social impact team which is responsible for thinking holistically about social issues like the executive order on immigration which led to Lyft’s involvement with ACLU. Loni says the ban was “something that we really felt was antithetical to our values. It was obvious to us, our co-founders, and all the people involved in addressing it in that moment over that weekend that we wanted to take action. Words were not enough and so we made the decision to donate very quickly; it was not a full-on discussion of the pros and cons where everything was thought out - we just wanted to do something that was right.”

Not every single issue is approached in that way, according to Loni. “It’s a little bit of “you know it when you know it”, while other issues are more about “OK, let’s take a bit of time with this - is this something where we can help drive the conversation or come up with something meaningful because of who we are and the services we provide?”. Obviously, issues linked to transport are a natural fit for Lyft, “such as the situation which happened at the border around detention of immigrant children, where Lyft provided relief rides to 50 local immigration organizations across the US working to provide high-quality, hyper-local support to immigrants and refugees.”

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She also lists the Round Up and Donate program (where Lyft customers can round up their fare to the nearest dollar which go to charitable causes) as an example. “We are trying to do the things we are best at and deploying this in line with our values and our core competencies.”

As to factors behind Lyft’s advocacy in relation to the Muslim ban, she says simply that banning people “because they belong to a particular creed, race or religion is antithetical to both Lyft’s values and our nation’s values. We had a strong reaction to it and wanted to do what we could to fight the ban.”

Was there anyone in the room saying no?

“We do have individuals raising different points of views. On the legal team, we flag issues of legal risk, while also asking what is right for

the company, and what is the right thing to do.

These conversations do happen but we don’t get so mired in the risk that we are prevented from decisive action - it is just one component of the decision-making process. We’ve always had our values interwoven with what we do and that has been a part of why we have been successful.

We find consumers want to support the issues that are in line with our values too, which is also about the political and cultural moment that we are currently in. There is risk and not everyone is going to be happy, but speaking out against things that threaten our communities is the right thing for us to do.”

PayPal, the online payment service which

launched in California in 1998, spoke out against North Carolina’s ‘Bathroom Bill’ by pulling a proposed global operations centre and investment worth $3.6 million from the state after it passed a controversial law targeting the LGBTQ+ community. Franz Paasche, PayPal’s SVP Corporate Affairs and Communications, says the move “was based on our value of inclusion and our belief that discrimination has no place in our workplaces and communities. It was a decision based on the values that define us.”

He agrees that our current climate has changed the way society evaluates and perceives businesses and the roles that many people expect corporations to play. “We’ve entered an era in which businesses are finding ways to create a clear connection between their company’s

values and the value they generate - value to their shareholders and customers, and to the communities they touch through their employees. At PayPal, our values are at the center of everything we do, from how we think about our mission, our strategy and our products, to how we build our relationships with our customers and other stakeholders. We believe that our mission and values are more than just words; they represent who we are.”

Franz says that the factors behind making such an impactful stand on the Bathroom Bill comes from a belief that “we cannot rely solely on others to address the social needs around us.

Given our company’s mission and our values, we

believe we need to do our part.” Increasingly, he

suggests, the company’s stakeholders, especially employees and customers, expect them to do this, although he admits it has not always been

easy. “We’ve certainly faced some controversy, but our choices have been driven by our values

- not by politics or publicity - when we address societal challenges.”

As to the bottom line of the business, Franz

points out that companies are seeing that

profit and purpose can coexist, and in fact can grow together. “At PayPal, our mission, vision

and values are the foundation on which everything else is built, a driver of performance and a measure by which we evaluate success.” Ultimately, he says the company works to ensure that all decisions align with PayPal values. “North

Carolina was no different – it was important to

us that our employees had a safe, inclusive and non-discriminatory work environment.”

Microsoft’s Fred Humphries sums up the impor-

tance of the personal and political intersection.

“You know what I enjoy the most about being at

Microsoft? It’s great to work somewhere where

the corporate mission and values align with my

own. In this case it’s not just about doing a job, but it’s where I can also be an advocate, reflect-

ing the company values which aligns with mine.

I want to be the best advocate I can be; where I

have influence with our company and where our voices are heard - and that is an honor.”

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