2017 Fall - Diversity & The Bar Magazine

MCCA Advancing Diversity, Inclusion and Equity

THE BAR

Transitioning from Outside to In-house Counsel

INSPIRING THE NEXT GENERATION OF LAWYERS THROUGH MOOT COURT

BIG LAW’S STRUGGLE TO RECRUIT & RETAIN FEMALE ATTORNEYS

IMPROVING THE PROFESSION’S DIVERSITY NUMBERS

FALL 2017

DIVERSITY

&

CONTENTS

Visit www.mcca.com for the latest information on our events, awards and research.

FEATURES

22 Inspiring the Next Generation: Not a Moot Point

By Catherine McGregor Read more about a project where in-house and law firm lawyers support young people who would never have imagined a career in law to feel emboldened to aim high, learning at moot court.

14 Prior In-house Experience:

Corporate Legal Leaders Who Were Hired from Private Practice Share Their Transition Process

By Lydia Lum Can law firm lawyers make the jump to the top in-house counsel spot? Yes, says the general counsel who made the leap. Find out how they did it.

18 Where Do We

Go from Here?

Big Law’s Struggle with Recruiting and Retaining Female Talent

By Daniella Iccacson A new whitepaper suggests that at the rate the legal profession is going with hiring and promoting women, women equity partners will only reach 30 percent by 2081. Without extraordinary new efforts, parity remains a distant possibility.

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28 Diversity in the Legal Profession: Where We Are Today

By Thomas Suh This sluggish, uneven uptick in diverse legal representation is baffling to many. With all of the diversity and inclusion efforts from colleges, law schools and the profession, why have our numbers not improved?

FALL 2017

MCCA® BOARD OF DIRECTORS A.B. Cruz III

Duane Holloway

Robin H. Sangston

Jean Lee

Sandra Leung

Dawn Smith

MCCA Chair-Elect, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, CIT Group Inc.

Linda Lu

Richard J. Wallis

Ricardo A. Anzaldua

Gwen Marcus

Neil H. Wilcox

Suzan A. Miller

Michael T. Williams

MCCA Chair, Senior Vice President, Chief Legal Office, USAA Enterprise Shared Services President & CEO, MCCA

COLUMNS 4 | NOTES FROM THE CEO

Improving Diversity Starts with You

By Jean Lee

6 | BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS

SPACs: The Numbers Tell an Interesting Story

By Alonzo L. Lorens

7 | GENERAL COUNSEL INSIGHT

Celebrate Your/Our Victories!

By Fernando Garcia

8 | BRANDING CAPTAIN

Why There Is Never a Short Cut to Winning Business: Planning Is Essential

By Mamie Joeveer

1 0 | INSIDE OUT

GC Wanted: Learning Agility and Emotional Intelligence Required

By John Amer

1 2 | A COMPANY OF LEADERS Hiring Leaders

By Frank Ramos

32 | THE ADR MOSIAC

Tackling the Diversity Problem in ADR: A Conversation with Laura Kaster

By Theodore K. Cheng

3 4 | SPOTLIGHT

A Higher Calling: Passionate Litigator Channels Her Energy into Academia

By Lydia Lum

Stuart Alderoty

Former Executive Vice President and General Counsel

Damien Atkins

General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Panasonic Corp. of North America

Janice P. Brown Owner & Founder, Brown Law Group

PUBLICATIONS STAFF

Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Ascena Retail Group, Inc. Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company Senior Vice President, Property & Casualty Personal Lines Legal Team, Nationwide Insurance Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Showtime Networks Inc. Corporate Vice President, Deputy General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary, Intel Corporation

Samuel M. Reeves

Senior Vice President & General Counsel, Walmart International Legal

Editor-in-Chief

Design/Art Direction

Senior Counsel, Director of Education and Research

Advertising

Kimberly A. Howard, CAE Sophia M. Piliouras

BonoTom Studio Inc.

Kimberly A. Howard, CAE

Vice President and Chief Compliance Officer, Cox Communications, Inc. Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer, McAfee Vice President & Deputy General Counsel, Office Product Group, Microsoft Senior Vice President and Associate General Counsel, First Data Corporation Executive Vice President, General Counsel, & Secretary, Staples, Inc.

Simone Wu

Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary & External Affairs, Choice Hotels International, Inc.

MCCA® Staff

Sherla Allen Morgan Chandler Tieara Jones Julie Peng Sophia M. Piliouras James Taube Geoffrey Witherspoon, II Kevin Wong

GENERAL INFORMATION Advertising For advertising inquiries, contact Kimberly A. Howard, CAE at kimhoward@mcca.com.

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General Information and Address Changes Send your questions, complaints and compliments to MCCA®, Kim Howard, CAE, Editor in Chief, kimhoward@ mcca.com. Address changes should be sent to membership@mcca.com.

Permissions and Reprints Reproduction of Diversity & the Bar in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. To obtain permission, visit www.mcca.com/dbmagazine and click on reprint request.

Copyright Copyright® 2017 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 BY JEAN LEE

Improving Diversity Starts with You WHEN I BECAME CEO, MCCA’s focus on engaging with the next generation of lawyers became part of our strategic plan. We created the N-Gen (Next Generation) Advisory Board, which helps us drive the conversation to inspire the next generation. In addition to creating content at our events for all levels of the profession, we continue to make sure we listen to and learn from the lawyers who are the future of our profession. The perspectives of the 13 advisory board members help MCCA shape its approach and message to lawyers. This diverse team offers valuable insights, and we are thrilled to tap into their expertise.

The vision of the MCCA is to make the next generation of legal leaders as diverse as the world we live in. In this issue, we spotlight a project in which in-house and outside counsel support young people who are considering the legal profession. In order for our vision to become a reality we must strengthen the pipeline with help from both inhouse and outside counsel working in tandem to attract the brightest minds of the next generation to lead our industry and continue the cause of inclusion and diversity.

Although we have made progress, we continue to see data that tells us how much work is left to be done. A new whitepaper suggests that women will represent only 30 percent of equity partners by 2081 based on the current hiring and promotion rates. Read about Big Law’s struggle with recruiting and retaining female talent and find out what we can do about it in the article “Where Do We Go from Here?” The majority of law students are women and the success of the legal profession is dependent on their success.

We must encourage, recruit, and invest in women shattering glass ceilings throughout our industry

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if we want the next generation of legal leaders to represent who we truly are.

If we can come together, focus on the potential of the next generation and be realistic about the challenges ahead of us, our vision of a diverse leadership for a diverse world can and will triumph. If you want to become more involved with MCCA, please visit www.mcca.com/about/ ways-get-involved-mcca/ to find your area(s) of interest. Our team would love to hear from you in our efforts to work together to improve the legal profession’s diversity and inclusion numbers.

Sincerely yours,

Jean Lee President & CEO MCCA_law

www.facebook.com/mcca.law

BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS BY ALONZO L. LLORENS

SPACs: The Numbers Tell an Interesting Story WHILE INITIAL PUBLIC OFFERINGS (IPO) HAVE DECLINED, in general, over the last three years, the number of IPOs for special purpose acquisition companies (SPAC) have remained strong over the same period of time. SPAC IPOs, better known as “blank check offerings,” are surprisingly resilient and the reasons why may surprise you.

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SPACs are newly created holding companies that issue shares to the public, via an IPO, and are formed for the specific purpose of using the net proceeds of the offering to acquire target companies. These entities have no assets, liabilities or revenues. So, on its face, you might question the attractiveness of these blank check offerings to investors. However, the numbers below tell a completely different story.

Investors view this as an alternative low-risk way to deploy capital while, at the same time, seeking strong returns.

In 2014, there were 244 IPOs with a total value of $74.4 billion. Of those, 12 were SPACs with a total value of $1.750 billion or 5 percent of the total number of IPOs and 2.4 percent of their value.

In 2015, there were 152 IPOs with a total value of $25.2 billion. Of those, 20 were SPACs with a total value of $3.902 billion or 13 percent of the total number of IPOs and 15.5 percent of their value. In 2016, there were 98 IPOs with a total value $18.5 billion. Of those, 13 were SPACs with a total value of $3.499 billion or 13 percent of the total number of IPOs and 18.9 percent of their value. Finally, in the first quarter of 2017, there were 27 IPOs with a total value of $11.797 billion. Of those, 5 were SPACs with a total value $2.078 billion or 18.5 percent of the total number of IPOs and 17.6 percent of their value. These are pretty impressive numbers by any standard. So, what’s the appeal of these investment vehicles to investors? While there are several reasons investors might find SPACs attractive, I will highlight a couple.

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First, given the fact these entities have no operating history, investors focus instead on the credibility of their management teams. Often, these teams consist of industry veterans who have expertise in the area and the team will likely include individuals with private equity expertise as well. As such, investors are looking at the management team’s track record, along with the industry they will focus on, and deciding whether they believe that the team will earn them an adequate return on investment.

Finally, the money raised in the IPO by these SPACs goes into a separate trust that can only be released to the management team for an acquisition. If the SPAC is unable to consummate an acquisition within a specified time frame, typically 24 months, then the investors get their money back. Once an acquisition target is identified by management, investors vote on whether to approve the proposed acquisition.

Investors view this as an alternative low-risk way to deploy capital while, at the same time, seeking strong returns.

At the end of the day, while it’s hard to predict how the number of IPOs will trend over time. The one constant is that investors will always seek investment opportunities that can yield attractive returns. Given the perceived low risk associated with investments in SPACs and the potential returns that they can yield, I suspect that the trend we’ve seen over the last few years will continue. ■ ALONZO L. LLORENS (allorens@ gordonrees.com) is a partner with Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani, LLP and a member of the Business Transactions Practice Group.

GENERAL COUNSEL INSIGHT BY FERNANDO GARCIA

Celebrate Your/Our Victories!

IN AUGUST, I had the honor and privilege of being named one of Canada’s 25 Most Influential Lawyers. I am mentioning this not because I am gloating or grandstanding, but rather because I think that one of the greatest limitations that we, as diverse lawyers, create for ourselves is our modesty and our silent celebration of our successes as individuals, as professionals and as a community.

Social media, in particular sites like LinkedIn, have created a forum where we can all publish and make those in our networks, and various degrees of separation, aware of what we are working on, upcoming events and speeches, and our successes.

But in many ways, directly or indirectly, we are taught, especially as minorities to stay quiet, don’t try to stand out, to be modest. I say that this needs to change and this needs to change now.

Unfortunately, doing your job well and excelling at what you do is wasted effort, unless others around you take notice. So what should you do?

■■Develop a strong social media presence and brand: I cannot emphasize enough the importance of building a network and publishing regularly to keep that network engaged and following your publications. There is a multiplier-like effect that takes place when you publish in social media like LinkedIn, as not only are your posts visible to your connections, but also to your connection’s connections. So as your network grows, so does your influence and target audience.

■■Volunteer for and advertise your public and professional speaking engagements: Finding speakers for panels is not easy work. Reach out to organizers of upcoming conferences, let them know of your interest in participating and about special areas of expertise you can speak about. Many professional associations like MCCA, the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association and the Association of Corporate Counsel keep lists of professionals interested in speaking at events—make sure your name is on that list. Finally, if selected to speak in a panel, remember to advertise the conference, your panel and acknowledge your fellow panelists in social media. Everyone welcomes such free publicity.

■■Do not be afraid to ask colleagues and legal

professionals you work with and who know you well to nominate you for awards: I have had the pleasure of judging numerous legal and community awards and I can tell you that there are many people and organizations that make it a priority to putting their names or their organization’s name forward for events, to have their accomplishments acknowledged. Like a famous hockey player, Wayne Gretzky is purported to have said, “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.”

Take that shot and put your name forward or you will not be considered and you will not win. Don’t be shy; no one will see this as a negative thing!

Following these key points will help advance your career as a diverse counsel and it will help others in your community take note and want to emulate your success. This is a key victory for you and for your community.

Finally, while this may appear contradictory, I will caution that while you should publicize and advertise your successes and recognitions, always remain humble, treat others with respect and remember to help lift and promote others who are hoping to follow your path. Like one of my favorite sayings goes, “Treat the janitor with the same respect you treat your CEO” and then we as a community and you as a professional will get stronger. ■ FERNANDO GARCIA (Fernando.garcia@ nissancanada.com) is the general counsel, government affairs and corporate secretary of Nissan Canada, Inc.

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BRANDING CAPTAIN BY MAMIE JOEVEER

Why There Is Never a Short Cut to Winning Business: Planning Is Essential Everyone’s had a moment when the answer to a challenging problem seems to have magically appeared after days or weeks of trying to solve it. The answer normally falls on your lap after a brief moment of stepping back, concentrating on a new task or problem for a few minutes and then returning. The instant sigh of relief is actually a result of moving the focus away from “self” and turning outward. Yes, it’s probably not what a yoga teacher wants to hear but it’s essential for business development.

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There is nothing new about putting the client’s needs first. This notion is at the heart of practicing law. The client is always the bottom line. There seems to be a shift in thinking, however, when the goal changes from winning a client’s case to winning a client’s business. Many times, the thinking with business development and networking circles around “I” statements. (e.g. “How can I build a relationship with the client?” or “How can I show off all of my experience in the last ten years?”)

Planning is at the heart of business development and is a step that should not be overlooked. The time spent networking and building relationships will not have the impact needed without a well-thought out plan to add value to a potential or current client.

These questions are all crucial, but the first concerns should move away from the self and always be client centered. Questions such as “What does the client need now?” and “What areas has the client shown weakness?” should start any plan to win business. Client needs are always changing, and this means the answers are always changing as well. An attorney who takes the time to dig deep into the client’s business and think about the questions a potential client may have now and in the future, will always win business.

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Large firms have teams of business development staff that can assist with this process, but a plan created by a large team will never hit at the heart of the clients’ needs without personal understanding. An attorney on the team who has a close relationship with the client will ensure the plan is really on target. Proper planning is the only solution. A plan to win business can be simple, but it must be specific, forward thinking and most of all, current.

Be Specific

A plan must be specific and address the problem a client needs at the moment. Being specific means research and real understanding of the client. The client may have a pending case that you hope to win business, but with research it may turn out that the client really wants to expand the business and the current case is only the surface of the client needs.

Understanding the core needs of a client will give an attorney or firm an edge over others.

Look Ahead

Attorneys should always think about where a potential client will be in the next three to five years. This information can be found through conversations with the client, or by researching similar industries that may have similar concerns.

If the information being found seems vague or too general, there is always the option of creating forums to bring needs to the table. This can be done through private dinners or special events centered around a specific question. A great example is the use of drones, the First Amendment or preserving

business records. These topics are all relevant yet broad enough that a creative attorney could organize a dinner from many different industries to talk about the impact to their specific business in the years to come. Groupthink in this situation can be a powerful tool for attorneys hoping to glean more information from potential clients to better serve them.

Be Current

There is no running away from social media.

Technology and social platforms that engage with the world at large are no longer considered merely personal forms of recreation, but are professional tools used to solve many problems and advance the companies. It’s important to be current and realize that clients are likely moving forward with society and will be using platforms to connect faster and more efficiently with customers. This type of thinking must be a part of the business development plan. Firms that launch private websites for clients to access more information about the case, or that interact with clients in real-time to solve

legal needs will certainly be a firm of choice for clients. Attorneys who take the time to research the current state of the technology within a firm, along with potential litigation, will always be ready and chosen to serve clients.

So, while taking self-care is important for career development, business development is a different animal. Planning is at the heart of business development and is a step that should not be overlooked. The time spent networking and building relationships will not have the impact needed without a well-thought out plan to add value to a potential or current client. Attorneys who take the time to write and research a specific plan will always have success at winning business. ■ MAMIE JOEVEER began her career as a captain in the United States Marine Corps.

She transitioned from the Marines and became a journalist for national news outlets. She is now a litigation attorney and also supports practice group business development efforts. She also serves on the Miami City Ballet Board of Directors.

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INSIDE OUT BY JOHN AMER

GC Wanted: Learning Agility and Emotional Intelligence Required At MCCA’s 2017 Global TEC Forum (G-TEC) in San Francisco, my colleague Christine Fuchs, Psy.D., vice president global assessment services for Korn Ferry, and I had a chance to participate in several panel discussions on a topic we study quite closely: what differentiates the most sought after legal executives, and how can you develop these qualities to best position yourself for career advancement, whether that be the general counsel of a Fortune® 500 company or other senior legal or non-legal role?

Given that 40 percent of new executives who fail within the first 18 months do so due to poor fit, it is important to focus on the intangibles and soft skills required for success. As consultants, while we intuitively know the key leadership qualities that are good predictors and sought by our client companies, we are able to couple that with our data based on assessments of over six million executives worldwide to identify those characteristics that will be the most likely indicators of success.

To determine whether a candidate possesses the characteristics necessary for success, a thorough evaluation must go beyond the resume. In getting a view of the “whole person,” we as consultants need to understand candidates’ traits and drivers just as much, if not more, than their competencies and experiences.

As we discussed at G-TEC with an engaged and participative audience of GCs, DGCs, AGCs and other senior legal counsel, our substantial data indicates that the most desirable leadership characteristics are learning agility and emotional intelligence. Learning agility, a top predictor of high potential, is the ability to extract principles from previous experience and effectively apply those in new settings. Our studies indicate that companies with highly agile executives have 25 percent higher profit margins than their peer group. Executives with high levels of learning agility, ­tolerance for ambiguity, empathy and social fluidity are five times more likely to be highly engaged. Emo-

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“

Learning agility, a top predictor of high potential, is the ability to extract principles from previous experience and effectively apply those in new settings.

tional intelligence is the ability to understand and manage your own emotions and understand and influence those of others. A leader’s long-term success is highly dependent on the combination of both.

So, given the data, what do you need to do to develop these leadership qualities? In terms of learning agility, it is important to demonstrate curiosity combined with the ability to translate broad thinking into action, and be accepting of some risk and tolerant of ambiguity. (In order to get away from a counselor’s traditional reliance on outlining options instead of offering solutions.) Emotional intelligence can be honed by asking trusted colleagues, mentors and coaches to give feedback on perceived strengths and deficiencies in your approach to leadership and to be more fully aware

of the interpersonal and other dynamics around you. This allows executives to serve as exceptional business leaders and effectively collaborate with others in a proactive, results-oriented manner.

Competencies and experience tend to be fairly equivalent in many legal executives. Those who differentiate themselves and are most sought after by our clients are those who possess these less common characteristics. Even if you do not inherently possess them, they can certainly be developed with the right combination of focus, self-awareness and prudent risk-taking and tolerance for ambiguity, which strengthens the Learning Agility “muscle” and enables further development in one’s career into the coveted Fortune 500 GC position, or other key legal and even non-legal roles. ■

JOHN AMER (john.amer@kornferry.com) is a senior client partner in the Los Angeles headquarters office of Korn Ferry a global human capital advisory firm. Mr. Amer leads Korn Ferry’s Legal Search Practice in the Western United States. He has advised a wide array of clients across the U.S. in over 400 executive searches, succession plans and other consulting engagements with key strategic implications for these organizations. He is an attorney who has practiced in law firms, government agencies and as general counsel in the private sector, and is a member (inactive) of the State Bar of California.

Mr. Amer has presented at national legal conferences and been quoted in various legal and business publications. He earned a BA in economics from UCLA and a JD from Loyola Law School.

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A COMPANY OF LEADERS BY FRANK RAMOS Diversity & The Bar introduces you to a new column on leadership by Frank Ramos, attorney and author, teaching you how to identify, nurture, empower and leverage the leaders in your legal departments and outside law firms.

Hiring Leaders Whether you’re hiring for your legal department or searching for outside counsel, the primary quality you’re looking for is leadership. Every hire should be able to lead your organization, either in the organization or from outside. Leaders have a vision for your organization, can reduce that vision to goals, can create a plan to achieve those goals and will assume a primary responsibility to make their vision a reality. An organization cannot have too many leaders. In fact your motto should be “A Company of Leaders.”

So how do you identify them? Consider implementing the following during your hiring process.

Define a problem your legal department or company has. It could be improving consistency among defending depositions across the country, or improving education for HR personnel or contending with a new business trend which

you anticipate affecting your legal department (artificial intelligence for example). Once you’ve reduced your problem to writing, provide your applicants with the following and give them 48 hours to respond:

Dear Applicant, Our company is dedicated to hiring leaders, and the following questions are aimed at identifying them. Below is a problem with which our legal department is currently struggling. We ask that you provide us the following to address it: ■■What is your vision? What is your vision in keeping with the organization’s

mission statement and values to address the issue?

■■What are your goals? What are your goals for transforming your vision into a

reality?

■■What is your plan? What plan do you have to achieve your goals? What

concrete steps can be repeated over and over throughout the organization to achieve your goals?

■■What’s your role? What’s your role in implementing the plan? What is your

commitment and effort to turn your vision into a reality?

The problem we need your input for is (define problem here). Please e-mail us your response within 48 hours of this e-mail. We look forward to receiving it.

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This is how I approach tackling every largescale problem faced by our firm or the various voluntary associations I have served over the years.

You hire those who have a vision, a plan to make the vision a reality and the drive to do the hard work required of their plan. You avoid the dreamers who have great ideas but no follow through.

You avoid the planners whose vision is too limited.

And of course you avoid the followers to whom this whole process is totally alien.

As you cull through the responses, keep these in mind: ■■How vast is the vision?

■■How practical is the solution?

• Can it be implemented?

• How, by whom and over what period of time?

■■Did the applicant offer a viable approach to the problem?

■■What’s the likely cost for the solution?

■■What are the cost savings for the solution?

■■Would I have approached the problem in a similar manner?

When evaluating the responses, consider how much care the applicant took to learn about your

organization—what its overall vision is, what it does and how it does it, its history and its future.

These type of questions go much further than asking about an applicant’s resume, where they went to school, what jobs they have had and what their hobbies are. These questions cut to the heart of the process in identifying those with the imagination, intellect, work ethic and grit to prepare your organizations for the countless challenges it faces in this quickly evolving world economy.

And while you’re asking your applicants these questions, pose the same questions to your legal department. They work there every day and have more insight on how to help you develop solutions to your most pressing problems. Leaders always look for new solutions or old solutions in new ways. Search them out and your company will grow and prosper. ■ FRANK RAMOS (framos@cspalaw.com) is a partner at Clarke Silverglate in Miami. He has written four books (From Law School to Litigator, The Associate’s Handbook, Attorney Marketing 101 and Training Your Law Firm Associates) and has edited four books (The Defense Speaks, The Trial Tactics Defense Manual, The Deposition Manual and Leadership for Lawyers).

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No Prior In-house Experience Corporate Legal Leaders Who Were Hired from Private Practice Share Their Transition Process

By Lydia Lum

HUNTINGTON INGALLS INDUSTRIES INC.

KELLYE WALKER WAS EXCITED AT BEING HIRED as a general counsel in 2003. Her law firm had closed, sending her scrambling. She’d never worked in-house, so becoming a Fortune® 500 legal chief offered new challenges.

Kellye Walker

But Walker was soon crestfallen when she realized that a board member who had campaigned for another GC candidate was trying to undermine her.

“This person would ask questions aloud during board meetings like, ‘Did the GC draft this?’ ” Walker said.

“If I had sat down with this person when I first joined the company, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”

So whenever Walker has been hired as a corporate GC since then, she obtains permission from her CEO to contact board members. She meets with each one of them face-to-face or by phone and asks for “pluses and minuses that they have noticed in other GCs during their memberships on other governing boards that they believe can be helpful for me.”

“Even though I’m joining from outside the corporation, I don’t want to be viewed as an outsider for long,” said Walker, who’s now executive vice president and general counsel of military shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc. “This can be helpful when giving tough advice or bad news to board members. I can give

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much more rich advice if I have gotten to know them, and vice versa.”

She and others without previous in-house experience had a lot to learn upon taking the helm of corporate legal departments. That’s partly why law firm partners still trail in-house veterans among new GCs. Last year, for example, of the 51 GC placements throughout the country by the Major, Lindsey & Africa search firm, only 10 came directly from law firms. In 2015, only six of 53 GC placements came from law firms. Nonetheless, recruiters caution against dismissing the credentials and skills of law firm partners.

“Clients typically ask us for candidates who have already transitioned in-house, but we love recruiting from firms,” said Judy Allen, a partner at Major, Lind-

“Even though I’m joining from outside the corporation, I don’t want to be viewed as an outsider for long.”

—Kellye Walker

ALLIANCE DATA SYSTEM INC.

Joseph L. Motes III

“There’s no better training than being in Big Law because you’re everybody’s lawyer.”

—Joseph L. Motes III workplace cultural changes, in addition to getting accustomed to the direct-report relationship with a company CEO and the accountability to board members and shareholders. Incumbent GCs believe that new legal chiefs migrating from private practice should ready themselves for long hours of learning about their companies, cultivating relationships with new

colleagues including nonlawyers, adapting to environments that might contrast starkly from law firms and trying out communications strategies that they may not have encountered at firms. Put another way, there might be limited preparation that private practitioners can do prior to being tapped by corporations.

“Nothing can prepare you fully for the GC job until you actually do it,” said Javier D. Ferrer, executive vice president, chief legal officer and secretary of financial services provider Popular Inc. “I had a great corporate practice and knew how my career would continue to develop until retirement. It was a big step for me to leave my firm.”

Motes of Alliance Data shared similar sentiments.

As a partner at an Am Law 100 firm, he had been its Javier D. Ferrer relationship manager for Alliance Data and grew “Nothing can prepare you close to company executives while working on mergers, fully for the GC job until you acquisitions and Securities actually do it.” and Exchange Commission filings. He also maintained

—Javier D. Ferrer contact with lawyers who left the firm for Alliance Data.

But when he followed them in 2015 to become GC, his learning curve was surprisingly steep.

“I knew a lot about a few narrow silos, nothing more,” Motes said. “I had a false sense of what I knew and very little depth of knowledge. There are 300 or so poles holding up this tent, and I probably knew about only three or four poles.”

Week after week, Motes immersed himself at staff meetings across many departments—a tactic also employed by his GC counterparts at their companies to learn the business inside and out. Coinciding with the immersion, Motes and others made a habit of conversing with CEOs and other colleagues, rather than merely churning out legal briefs while holed up in their legal departments.

POPULAR INC.

sey & Africa. “Partners at firms have a proven track record of success. There’s no doubt in my mind about their capabilities. Often, the most qualified candidate to fill a GC vacancy is sitting in a law firm.”

Allen and others concede that not every partner in private practice is well-suited for the corporate world. Some lack experience in managing large groups of people. Others lack interaction with government and regulatory agencies. On the other hand, some practitioners who jumped from firms to become GCs have never regretted their lack of previous in-house experience.

“There’s no better training than being in Big Law because you’re everybody’s lawyer,” said Joseph L. Motes III, who’s senior vice president, general counsel and secretary of marketing and loyalty programs giant Alliance Data Systems Inc. “Partners from Big Law are well seasoned.

We’re used to dealing with client crises.”

Any partner who is willing to give up being his or her own boss should expect to accommodate many other

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MERITOR INC.

Productive work relationships also result from learning about your colleagues personally. April Miller Boise has relied on this strategy since first becoming a GC in 2011, even though she was already her law firm’s relationship manager for the company that hired her that year. At her current corporate employer, for instance, Boise discovered that one of its sales leaders used to live in Canada.

While chatting with him, she learned that a former colleague of hers, also from Canada and sharing similar professional interests as the sales leader, is an acquaintance of his.

“Any two people can find common ground with each other,” said Boise, who’s senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of commercial vehicle com-

April Miller Boise

“Finding common ground with others is especially important for women and people of color, because so much of corporate America is still overwhelmingly white male.”

—April Miller Boise ponents manufacturer Meritor Inc. “Maybe you live in the same neighborhood, or attend the same church, or have interest in the same sport.”

She added, “Finding common ground with others is especially important for women and people of color, because so much of corporate America is still overwhelmingly white male.”

Meanwhile, the hierarchy within a company legal department might seem initially impersonal or even uncomfortable to partners who enjoyed long careers in private practice.

Because a GC typically has direct reports who each lead a team, and some of those team members might

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oversee other individuals and so on, some staff lawyers rarely communicate one-on-one with the GC. Because most lawyers at firms are partners or associates, “it’s as if the associates in each annual class grow up together,” said Kathleen Waters, the chief legal officer of kidney dialysis provider

DAVITA INC.

NO PRIOR IN-HOUSE EXPERIENCE

Kathleen Waters

“When you’re in-house, there’s nothing similar to the classes of associates at firms, so you have to find ways and reasons to communicate aside from assignments.”

—Kathleen Waters DaVita Inc. “When you’re in-house, there’s nothing similar to the classes of associates at firms, so you have to find ways and reasons to communicate aside from assignments.”

As a litigation and health care partner in Big Law, Waters was used to managing trial teams of only four lawyers. When she left her firm in 2015 to become general counsel of a health insurance company, adjusting to the in-house paradigm of multiple, intradepartmental layers proved challenging. After helping the company merge with another health insurer, she became DaVita’s legal leader. There, Waters uses a lowkey approach to initiate casual conversation with each of the 200-plus people in her department, including support staff. On employee birthdays, for instance, she has been sending short emails.

“I wish each of them a great day, but I don’t mention anything related to work or to the company,” Waters said. “It’s my way of letting them know that they matter as people, that work-life balance is important and that I care about their personal lives and development.”

But GCs who haven’t walked in the shoes of a staff lawyer can easily have blind spots when it comes to internal communications. For potentially sensitive

subjects, Walker of Huntington Ingalls Industries consults in-house friends outside her company for “how they would react to certain comments coming from their GC. Sometimes they have told me, ‘No, don’t say that, it’s demeaning.’ This is really helpful for me.”

Other Distinctions Between Private Practice and In-house Life

But how and what a GC should communicate to others isn’t limited to just within the legal department.

How—and sometimes even whether—to convey ideas, especially dissenting opinions, to colleagues in the executive suite is equally important. This contrasts with superstar legal minds in private practice who might speak sharply with corporate clients and others in order to drive home a point.

“There’s no reason to be a ‘yes’ person at work,” said Ferrer of Popular. “Yet you have to pay attention to the human element when trying to impose your point of view or perspective onto others. It’s fine to have a strong point of view but if the management team grapples with an issue and decides on a solution that isn’t what you agree with, there are times when it might be best to accept it unless there’s a legal prohibition against the proposed course of action. Being a GC isn’t about hitting a home run.”

This is partly why some law firm partners are better off remaining in their practice areas as superstars rather than moving in-house. Just as it’s unrealistic to expect most corporations to top or even match the salaries reaped by partners in Big Law, it’s also unrealistic to hope that company CEOs will be satisfied with GCs who refuse to tackle issues in areas outside their practice specialty.

Lawyers who believe that CEOs and board members will grow so enamored with their expertise in one or two practice areas that they won’t bother the GC on other subjects are simply kidding themselves, according to legal chiefs who were senior leaders in private practice.

“You need to feel comfortable being a generalist, not a specialist,” said Meritor’s Boise, who was formerly on a law firm executive committee and who, like others interviewed by Diversity & the Bar, has worked with plenty of brilliant legal minds. “As a GC and a generalist, you opine on issues that you might

never have seen before. You’re being paid for your judgment, not for your niche of legal experience. You need to think on your feet. Be willing to act and react in real time.”

She and others believe the shift in mindset and priorities by law firm partners should occur as soon as they land their GC positions, rather than waiting until they physically re-locate. Walker of Huntington Ingalls Industries encourages new GCs to pay out of pocket if necessary to personally meet with board members or other key individuals at their new employers.

“Company spending limits for travel and CLE shouldn’t be a deterrent for you,” Walker said. “Make a plan, invest in your career. Partners at law firms earn enough to pay their own travel. At least once, I paid my own airfare out of pocket to meet someone for lunch and returned to the airport immediately.”

Although she and her counterparts agree that most of their learning has occurred after being hired as a GC, there have been plenty of times when their routine work in private practice came in handy even before receiving their job offers.

While still at her firm, DaVita’s Waters listened in on her corporate clients’ quarterly earnings calls whenever her schedule could accommodate them. She drew upon the knowledge accumulated from them when a CEO interviewed her for the job she now holds.

“Even though I had never met nor spoken to DaVita’s CEO previously, it was helpful to have already heard him talk during the earnings calls,” Waters said. “This familiarized me with him along with his business priorities.”

If, after contemplating all this, lawyers in private practice still want to leave their firms for corporate GC jobs, how can they find out who’s hiring? Motes believes that partners don’t need to look far.

“If you don’t have a direct relationship with companies with GC vacancies, your best source is your client list,” he said. “In-house legal departments tend to know which companies are looking for new GCs.” Motes added, “The lesson here for law firm partners is that because you’re in a service job, make sure all your clients are satisfied customers.” ■ LYDIA LUM (lydialum999@yahoo.com) was honored as national journalist of the year by the Organization of Chinese Americans.

Now a freelance writer and editor, Lum is a former reporter for the Houston Chronicle and Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

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Where Do We Go Big Law’s Struggle with Recruiting and Retaining

Female Talent

By Daniella Isaacson

At this rate, women equity partners will reach 30 percent—by 2081.1 Without extraordinary new efforts, parity remains a distant possibility.

ALM Intelligence’s recent white paper on the state of gender diversity in Big Law wants to achieve a lofty goal: push for firms to analyze not just aggregate statistics on gender diversity, but also deeper dive diversity metrics.

According to the report, many firms are not yet doing this, or not yet doing it very well.

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from Here?

As the report sets out, Big Law is at a crossroads when it comes to gender diversity. In fact, according to ALM Intelligence data, the number of female lawyers in the Am Law 200 has flat-lined for the past five years at slightly over 30 percent of the workforce. While female associates comprise approximately 45 percent of incoming Big Law classes, only a 2 percent difference from female graduating law school classes (47 percent), Big Law has seen a slow leakage of women retained year-over-year. From an incoming class of nearly half of all associates, women comprise only a small portion of the leadership tiers: 25 percent of the non-equity partnership tier and about 15 percent of equity partnerships over the past five years.

Most worryingly, there seems to be no ready solution to the stagnation in numbers and the result of this conundrum is that women face greater risk of disenfranchisement by implicit bias within predominantly male organizations and in a lack of women in top leadership roles.

There is no disputing that these are embarrassing statistics. As enforcers of equal opportunity, lawyers are at the forefront of the push for equality as a legal matter. At the same time, the law is consistently ranked as one of the worst industries for hiring and retaining a diverse workforce and has failed to improve the bottom line despite efforts to change.

This is an issue not just for social justice reasons, but for economic reasons. The number of diversity-driven GCs and corporate diversity initiatives in Fortune® 1000 companies has risen steadily; and so has their expectations for

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SOURCE: ALM INTELLIGENCE, WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?: BIG LAW’S STRUGGLE WITH RECRUITING AND RETAINING FEMALE TALENT

diversity within their outside counsel teams.2 GCs now demand diverse outside counsel teams, leading to an uncomfortable Request for Proposal process for many law firms. In addition, there is an expanding amount of research concluding that diversity makes good business sense.3 Some high-level findings include the fact that gender diverse companies outperform non-gender-diverse companies by 15 percent, an increase in women at the top is associated with a 30 percent rise in profitability, increased gender diversity is associated with higher levels of retention, and diverse teams achieve a greater degree of innovation than non-diverse teams. Firms that have not worked toward achieving parity may also be threatened by the upswing in class actions against law firms regarding equal pay and policy.

In sum, law firms that are not focused on moving the needle of gender parity are threatening their very existence. In much of the discourse surrounding gender diversity, the focus is on aggregate statistics. However, headline data cannot possibly capture the myriad

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of factors that underlie why firms have not achieved gender parity. A deeper-dive reveals metrics that firms should be scrutinizing in order to improve, such as analyzing practice area and locations by gender.4 One key takeaway from the report is that niche practice areas (including immigration, family law, health care, education and labor & employment), are the practice areas with the greatest proportion of women. However, top practice areas for Big Law (including litigation, corporate and banking) are not well-represented by female attorneys. This dichotomy is illustrated in the chart on page 20.

The bubble chart above illustrates a number of problems. Most niche practice areas are not areas of focus for Big Law, implicating a higher likelihood of implicit bias in most Big Law practice areas. In addition, the data implicates compensation. Practice areas to the right, including corporate, tax and litigation, see middling percentages of female headcount but have the highest compensation associated with them.

The second key takeaway from the report is that Big Law struggles with hiring and retention by location. Female talent is often underrepresented in states with large law school talent pools (like D.C.) and overrepresented in states with lower percentages of female law graduates (like West Virginia).

According to ABA data, the states with the highest average of full-time female students at ABA-approved law schools (including Hawaii, Puerto Rico, D.C., Massachusetts, and Maryland) have a student body that is approximately half female. States at the lower end of the spectrum have a female student body that is just over 1/3 female (including Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Utah, and West Virginia).

Logically, the states that have higher percentages of female graduates should be able to supply a larger pool of female talent. Law firms that operate in these states should, in theory, have an easier time hiring and retaining female talent.

However, according to ALM Intelligence data, states with a higher percentage of female graduates do not always correlate to the states that have higher percentages of female headcount in Big Law. Firms hiring and retaining a lower percentage of female talent in states with a strong class of graduating female attorneys should analyze their data and reconsider diverse hiring in these areas.

Understanding deeper dive metrics is a necessary exercise to start figuring out which solutions to implement. For example, tying bonuses or penalties to practice area diversity statistics or increasing mentorship and sponsorship opportunities in practice areas with low female headcount. On the location side, reviewing hiring and retention policies by location and increasing fellowship opportunities in areas with low percentages of female law graduates.

All of these things may make a difference but are

“

Understanding deeper dive metrics is a necessary exercise to start figuring out which solutions to implement.

only truly effective when firms know where they need the most help.

While the headline data indicates that law firms are a long way off from solving this issue, the underlying data shows that there are defined areas where creative analysis and problem solving are the key to crossing the gender divide. ■ DANIELLA ISAACSON is a senior legal analyst for ALM Intelligence. ALM Intelligence’s white paper, Where Do We Go from Here?: Big Law’s Struggle with Recruiting and Retaining Female Talent, on the state of gender diversity in Big Law, offers a new way to approach solving gender diversity in the legal industry and equips firms with a checklist of best practices to assist them in this endeavor.

Complimentary download of the report and best practices checklist can be found at Where Do We Go from Here?: Big Law’s Struggle with Recruiting and Retaining Female Talent.

Endnotes

1 The American Lawyer on the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL) Challenge.

2 In 2016, 24% of Fortune® 500 GCs were female and 19% of Fortune 501–1000. Both are up from 2014, when 21% of Fortune 500 GCs were female and 16.8% of Fortune 501–1000. A Current Glance at Women in the Law, ABA 2014 and 2016 3 “Why Diversity Matters,” McKinsey, 2015; “The Impact of Gender Diversity on the Performance of Business Teams: Evidence from a Field Experiment,” Harvard Kennedy School, 2013; “Is Gender Diversity Profitable? Evidence from a Global Survey,” The Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2016; “Why Diversity Matters,” Catalyst, 2013.

4 The report looked at the market view, and should only be used as a proxy for firms looking internally. It’s critical for firms to be collecting, analyzing and acting on their own data.

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Inspiring the Next Generation:

Not a Moot Point

By Catherine McGregor

Palo Alto may conjure up images of unbridled wealth, hip workplaces and Tesla dealerships, but there is another side to Silicon Valley and its environs—that of East Palo Alto with its underprivileged schools and one in four youths living in poverty. In the latest of our series of collaborations with Paul Hastings on diversity and inclusion in the US legal profession, we saw firsthand a project where in-house and outside counsel help young people—who may never have imagined a career in law—feel emboldened to aim high.

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SVUDL Board Member and HPE’s Willie Hernandez (middle right) has helped develop one of the strongest partnerships within the legal community and debate league circuit.

The story of the heroic lawyer is a familiar one: the impassioned argument in court, the win against all odds, the life-changing outcome for the defendant.

Thus goes the popular narrative of legal practitioners from Atticus Finch to Perry Mason or Ally McBeal.

Such depictions often attract young people to a career in law. But the sad truth for many is that the dream of becoming a lawyer will remain just that—a road fraught with so many perceived obstacles that it’s just not worth the struggle.

Today, this may be truer than ever, thanks to the rising cost of education and a widening wealth gap in the United States. But making a difference in this space are urban debate leagues—a national phenomenon of independent debating leagues, which introduce students from disadvantaged backgrounds to the practice of debating and develop their skills. So far, more than 40 law school deans and professors from top schools have joined in a statement of support endorsing the connection between urban debate and racial and economic diversity in the legal profession.

The Silicon Valley Urban Debate League (SVUDL) was founded in 2014, and executive director Monica

Spear explains that urban debate is quite a different proposition to school and also to traditional debating: “It focuses on students who are marginalized and helps them realize their full potential. It builds confidence, public speaking and literacy skills. It also connects youth to a positive community of their peers, and to adults who are truly invested in them as individuals.”

It also works. A 2015 study showed that urban debaters were 53% more likely to test as college ready in reading; 68% more likely to graduate high school; 84% more likely to enroll in college; and 103% more likely to graduate college than their non-debating peers.

Given the raft of college scholarships available to students who have participated in this traditionally elite pastime at high school, SVUDL can make a college education seem possible, as debater Nyisha Young said: “The first thing that attracted me was the scholarship opportunity, as I heard that if you start debating and apply to a school that offers debate you could get even a full scholarship. One of the debaters from SVUDL came to our school and gave a talk on how debate gave her another way out; she wasn’t a bad kid but had trouble with grades. That was kind of how I was.”

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L-R: Judge Ed Davila, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Judge John Owens and Judge Michelle Friedland from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

SVUDL has developed one of the strongest partnerships with the legal community in the debate league circuit, mainly due to SVUDL board member Willie Hernandez, deputy general counsel at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE).

For Hernandez, it’s definitely personal. An avid debater in high school, he feels the experience gave him more choices. “If I think back to my old neighborhood and some of the kids I knew who were really talented but didn’t get a way out, there’s a sadness at that unrealized potential.” As a Hispanic lawyer who was

“

SVUDL focuses its efforts on Title 1 schools in the area—those where at least 40% of its students are entitled to free or reduced-lunch prices. the first in his family to attend college, he is passionate about helping others to access the same opportunities.

Hernandez believes that the partnership between the legal community and SVUDL is a natural one.

“These students spend their high school years researching complex topics, writing briefs, and arguing their cases—all the work of lawyers. They have the ability and desire to excel, and through debate they develop the skills. By partnering with the legal community, the students get access to a professional world that is a mystery to them—and guidance on how to reach that world.”

SVUDL focuses its efforts on Title 1 schools in the area—those where at least 40% of its students are entitled to free or reduced-price lunches. “These schools are often under-resourced and the students are

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under-represented. We look at the diversity of the school population and we prioritize working with students of color, low-income students and first generation students [the first generation in their family to apply for college],” Spear said. “We went from two pilot schools to five, and we now partner with seven schools. In just under three years, we have tripled our partnerships and the student base.

The program serves 90% percent students of color, 70% percent low income and 67% first generation going to college.”

In May this year, SVUDL, in association with HPE, held its second ‘Moot Court’ event at the HPE campus in Palo Alto. A group of six students from Silicon Valley schools argued the facts from G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board in front of three judges—Judge John Owens and Judge Michelle Friedland from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and Judge Ed Davila from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

The case in question is currently one of the most fraught cases doing the rounds of the judicial circuit and concerns transgender high school student Gavin Grimm, who sued his school district for the right to use the boys’ bathroom. Having been elevated to the U.S. Supreme Court, it is now bumped back down to the district court, partly as a result of the changing political climate in the U.S. It’s also the first time the Moot Court has used a real life case, and it was chosen because of its compelling relevance to the high school students involved in the event, explained Spear.

The students debated in teams of three, one side for the plaintiff and one for the defense. A seventh student served as clerk of the court, but had also trained in both plaintiff and defense arguments.

While the experience of debating has many parallels with arguing in court, it also has substantial differenc-

es. As part of the Legal Career Pipeline Challenge, the students were assigned mentors to assist with developing their cases, strategy and arguments. The mentors also gave the students a sense of protocol and how to act in the court; something that they obviously took seriously. One of the most memorable moments of the evening was when Santiago Pachecho, arguing for the Gavin Grimm side, made parallels with the experience of African Americans during segregation. Judge Owens made a point of praising his compelling point and, after a beat, Pachecho addressed the court, saying, “May I continue, your honor?”

But despite the guidance and support of the mentors, Spear explains that the substance of the arguments were the voice of the students.

The Legal Career Pipeline Challenge was the brainchild of HPE’s Willie Hernandez, and to this date it’s the most developed application of urban debating within a legal pipeline initiative. However, as Spear points out, to make a program like this work, you need more than one person. “There are not many mentors for students in our demographic. But Willie was able to recruit lawyers from many law firms and in-house legal departments from across Silicon Valley.

Through this, we were able to develop a coalition of attorneys who could serve as mentors for our students.

Each legal professional paired with a student makes a long-term commitment of support—connecting with their mentees at least monthly, for six years—from the

last couple of years of high school through day one of law school. Thankfully, many are willing to make that commitment.”

The mentors also serve as the beginnings of the professional network that, for more privileged students, is already “baked in.” It’s important work, because, as Spear said, “The legal field continues to struggle with diversity; these are the young people who will change the face of the law in a few years time.”

The General Counsel: An Urgent Issue

It was only due to guidance from a family friend that Kim Rivera attended college at all, after being orphaned at 16 and needing to help care for her younger sister. Now chief legal officer and general counsel at HP Inc., she spoke of the importance of acting as a role model during her introductory keynote at the SVUDL Moot Court event, particularly “Looking back on your path and making sure that it’s wide and clear enough for others to pass.” The local neighborhood lawyer in Puerto Rico, where Rivera grew up, showed her the possibility of a legal career—albeit a very different style of one: “He told me ‘It’s great because it’s a cash business, but you have to carry a gun!’” She ultimately chose a more traditional path.

Rivera said that throughout her career, role models have been significant. “Role models that you can identify with, whether that’s because they look like you, you have something in common with them, or because they MCCA.COM FALL 2017 D I V E R S I T Y

High school students and legal professionals watch the Moot Court proceedings where high school students argued both sides of G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board in front of three judges.

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COMMENT FROM PAUL HASTINGS

Moot Court Makes the Difference I WANT TO BE “THE PERSON WHO SPEAKS UP FOR OTHER PEOPLE WHEN THEY CAN’T,” said Deloris Soto, a recent graduate of the John Jay School for Law, a public high school in Brooklyn, where she finished among the top five in her class. “Competing on the moot court team helped me realize the power of a voice—my voice,” she said.

Homeless for years, Soto has overcome many challenges on her journey, most recently living in a family shelter with her mother in East New York. Discovering moot court was a turning point for her. “Moot court helped give me the confidence to pursue my dreams—and to believe that I could achieve them,” she said. For all four years of high school, she participated in a moot court team coached by Phara Guberman, a senior associate at Paul Hastings, through the law firm’s partnership with PENCIL, a nonprofit organization that fosters collaboration between the business and education communities. The team consistently advanced in city-wide competition.

Building on that success, Soto won summer scholarships to compete in an international moot court competition organized by the Justice Resource Center and held at The Hague, which Guberman individually coached her for, and to study in Japan. She serves as one of two student board members of Global Kids, a nonprofit focused on global learning and youth development. In addition, she has completed internships at the Council on Foreign Relations and at Citigroup.

“Moot court helped me develop my strategic thinking, analytical, and writing skills,” said Soto. “Working with Phara and preparing for the moot court competition also inspired me to pursue my interest in the law.” Her journey continued with her recent move to Boston, where she is participating in a Summer Immersion Program at Northeastern University. Soto is now a freshman at Northeastern on a full scholarship.

have overcome challenges similar to yours, are a powerful part of figuring out what paths are available to you, and how to achieve things you aspire to achieve.”

And of all those, she has been particularly motivated by women and diverse people: “They are proof that you can achieve things and they alter the paradigm of what a lawyer, judge, general counsel or other professionals look and sound like,” she said.

Rivera came to the law through her work in advocacy and social services, which showed her what lawyers could do to help people. For her, programs such as SVUDL are fundamental, as they foster critical thinking, ultra-preparedness, respect for the process, and dialogue with stakeholders. Ultimately, she said, “Debate skills serve you well—no matter what you do later in life.”

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Cultivating diverse talent is a key aim of Rivera’s, and she has recently been in the legal headlines for literally putting her money where her mouth is. HP Inc. recently announced it will claw back a percentage of legal fees from law firms that are not demonstrating reasonable progress in hiring, retention and promotion of diverse talent. Rivera believes that creating economic and business incentives and pressure—along with other efforts— helps spur progress and challenges conventional notions of success. “To me it feels like a pretty urgent issue that we should spend our time and resources on, or we won’t have equal access to justice. It’s been nearly 15 years since Rick Palmore’s ‘Call to Action’but there is still no significant progress,” she adds. (Rick Palmore, the chief legal officer of Sara Lee posted the call to action as part of the Association of Corporate Counsel 2004 annual

meeting. It reaffirmed the commitment of many leading in-house lawyers to the promotion of diversity in the profession but also highlighted the fact that law firms had not made much progress in this area.)

The Students: Giving Voice

For three of the SVUDL Moot Court debaters, the Moot Court experience gave them a voice and a chance to use that voice for a greater purpose. For Nyisha Young, debating has opened up a whole new realm of possibilities, not least the confidence to express herself more effectively. “This has helped me go up and have conversations with people, give them a compliment or even just maintain eye contact with them. Speaking in front of the judges and competing has made me more open to human connections via being able to talk persuasively.”

Kimberely Lam, who formed part of the team representing the school board, agreed. “I am so much more comfortable taking to people I don’t know and people I might not have felt comfortable talking to normally. We had some law firm visits where we talked about the impact SVUDL has had on us, and my supervisor just told us last minute, ‘You’re going to do a speech in front of 30-40 lawyers.’ I felt like I was going to barf! But I delivered it and there were actual lawyers, people who I look up to, laughing at my jokes and listening to me.”

Being listened to and taken seriously is a powerful experience for the individual students taking part in SVUDL. But it’s also key in the big picture sense: in challenging seemingly inherent inequalities. Throughout history, certain groups have been disenfranchised by being made to feel as though they do not have a voice or a right to redress. But for the students, the opportunity to express themselves and think in a different way about the world, their place in it, and the possibilities these things might offer, was truly life-changing.

As Santiago Pachecho said, “I needed a way to be able to talk without repercussions or people telling me to ‘shut up.’ At first I was skeptical about debate, but the more I looked into it, it intrigued me and I saw there was so much more to it than just speaking.

You have to research a topic and you find yourself learning things. You get to include things that you are passionate about.”

“

Being listened to and taken seriously is a powerful experience for the individual students taking part in SVUDL.

The time given by the lawyers who acted as mentors was also a huge boon for the students.

“The practice that stands out for me was one that we did two weeks ago,” says Pachecho. “We were able to work one-on-one with the lawyers, and I was able to run through my argument so many times—it helped to prepare me for questions that might come from the judges on the moot court night.”

For Kimberley Lam, being able to apply the skills of debate via a legal format gave a new perspective to her idea of the realities of being a lawyer. “It’s interesting to see what we would be doing if we were attorneys—looking through the brief and preparing it for months. Before this I would have said that law was boring, and would not have thought about it as a career. But going through this experience has made me think about a career in law, so it’s changed my career choices.”

Pachecho already wanted to be a lawyer. But the experience has left him with invaluable and concrete tools: “I now have a legal mentor; a lawyer to whom I can talk to regularly and who will help guide me through the steps I need to become a lawyer.”

Perhaps most compellingly, it’s the SVUDL promotion of law as a transformative force in society that is also speaking to this next generation of diverse lawyers.

As Nyisha Young puts it: “Debate opened my eyes and made me see I really did want to make a difference to people’s lives through being a lawyer.”

If you would like to know more about urban debate and the Legal Career Pipeline Challenge, please contact Monica Spear at SVUDL: mspear@svudl.org. ■ CATHERINE MCGREGOR is the former editor of GC Magazine and publishing director at The Legal 500.

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Diversity in the Legal Profession:

Where We Are Today

By Thomas Suh

WE ARE AT AN INTERESTING CROSSROADS in promoting diversity and inclusion in the legal profession. Several studies in recent years from the National Association of Legal Professionals, the American Bar Association, and MCCA show that more people of color, LGBTQ-identifying, and female-identifying individuals are practicing law. Law school classrooms have also grown more diverse throughout the years.

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However, those who inspect these trends more closely are skeptical as to how “positive” they truly are. Several studies note that progress is slow and is not identical across all boards. For example, although the number of minority attorneys employed by law firm has consistently grown over the years, minorities still only make up 15 percent of attorneys, whereas 85 percent of attorneys are white. At the partnership level, the disparity is even more apparent: more than 90 percent of partners are white and only one out of every seven lawyers promoted to partner is a person of color. Lastly, although Asian-identifying attorneys represent the largest group of non-white attorneys, they are the least likely minority to be partners or to hold leadership positions at their firms.1 This sluggish, uneven uptick in diverse legal representation is baffling to many. Nearly all large law firms have specifically created diversity and inclusion groups whose

very roles are to curate diversity in their hiring practices. Bar associations, law firms, and individual attorneys alike strive to do their part in making the school-to-profession pipeline more accessible for diverse candidates. Yet the numbers are not where we hoped they would be by now. Which leads to the question–why?

Addressing Intersectional Identities

Those displeased with current diversity and inclusion initiatives in the legal profession hold the profession’s failure to address intersectionality as a main reason why numbers continue to stagnate even today. There are groups to empower women lawyers, LGBTQ lawyers and lawyers of color.

However, groups that cater to those who consider multiple minority groups as their “in groups”–for example, transgender women of color–are hard-pressed to find a bar association

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or legal community “for them” at all, much less in the work place.

Additionally, law firms are required to keep tabs of their diversity hiring, but some argue law firm hiring paints diversity with too broad a brush. For example, law firms may keep track of their LGBTQ-identifying associates and partners, but do not always commit to hiring LGBTQ-identifying lawyers of color. In fact, the more intersectional one’s identity becomes, the harder it is to find common community, especially at larger firms.

This is not to say, however, that those of intersectional identities are not welcome at firms. Most firms report being open and welcoming. The next section on implicit bias will address steps that firms can take to foster spaces of inclusion within the workplace.

Implicit Bias

Implicit bias refers to the attitudes, beliefs, and stereotypes that affect how we understand the world around us. More specifically, implicit bias shapes how we perceive people and their actions. The Kirwan Institute notes five key characteristics of implicit biases:2 ■■Implicit biases are pervasive. Everyone possesses them, even people with avowed commitments to impartiality such as judges.

■■Implicit and explicit biases are related but distinct mental constructs that are not mutually exclusive and can even reinforce each other.

■■Implicit biases do not necessarily align with our declared beliefs or even reflect stances we would explicitly endorse.

■■We generally tend to hold implicit biases that favor our own ingroups, though research has shown that we can still hold implicit biases against our ingroups.

■■Implicit biases are malleable because our brains are incredibly complex; the implicit associations that we form can be gradually unlearned—or we may pick new ones up.

Aside from better servicing clients, who come from a whole wealth of backgrounds and intersectional identities, acknowledging implicit biases can foster a better work environment for underrepresented individuals in the legal field.

For example, a 2017 study co-authored by Associate Justice Goodwin Liu of the Supreme Court of California and four Yale Law Students, surveyed traits Asian American attorneys believed the legal profession associated with Asian American lawyers.3 The most

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common reported traits are in perfect alignment with the Asian American “silent model minority” stereotype: Hard-working, responsible, logical, careful, quiet, introverted, passive and awkward. Very few Asian American respondents reported being known as “loud” and “aggressive.”

These traits, though abrasive-sounding, are lauded attributes for litigators. However, many Asian American attorneys are often passed up for opportunities to first chair a case because of implicit biases that make Asian Americans appear quieter, more passive, and less aggressive than their non-Asian counterparts. This bias is also felt by women, regardless of ethnicity, which poses a difficult obstacle for women litigators.

Being aware of implicit biases is one step: the next is applying newfound awareness to changing the legal workplace, whether that workplace is a firm, the courtroom, or elsewhere.

Support and Representation in the Workplace Commitment to diversity and inclusion does not create diversity and inclusion without policies that help foster new generations of lawyers and policies that advance practicing lawyers into higher areas of leadership.

For students and junior lawyers: mentorship is key.

It is critical that these populations have the proper support to help blossom their careers. Good practices get junior associates noticed quickly—and ideally, on the right track to partnership or a desirable exit option such as in-house counsel or a prestigious government position. Additionally, when junior associates mature into mid-level and senior associates, learning how to build a book of business makes them desirable future partners, rather than victims of lay-offs and firm down-sizing. ■ THOMAS SUH (thomas.suh@ltlattorneys.com) is the co-managing partner of LTL Attorneys LLP. He handles matters and advises clients in key areas of litigation including shareholder and partnership disputes, employment matters, commercial disputes and intellectual property. LTL Attorneys is a minority-owned litigation boutique and active member of the National Association of Minority and Women Owned Law Firms (NAMWOLF), the California Minority Counsel Program (CMCP), the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA), MCCA, and other diversity-focused organizations.

Endnotes

1 http://archive.mcca.com/_data/global/downloads/research/reports/ VaultMCCA_Survey-2016-v01.pdf 2 http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/research/understanding-implicit-bias/ 3 https://www.apaportraitproject.org/s/170716_PortraitProject_ SinglePages.pdf

SAVE THE DATE 2018 Diversity Gala

W E D N E S D AY O C T O B E R 3 , 2 0 1 8 H O S T E D AT

AM E RI C A N MU S EUM O F NATURAL HISTORY CENTR A L PA R K WES T AT 79TH STREET NEW YORK C ITY

AT T I R E

BLAC K TI E / FORM AL

THE ADR MOSAIC BY THEODORE K. CHENG

Tackling the Diversity Problem in ADR: A Conversation with Laura Kaster This edition, I have the pleasure of introducing my good friend, mentor, and colleague, Laura Kaster. Laura has over 30 years of experience resolving complex commercial disputes through arbitration, mediation, and other settlement negotiation techniques.1 Before becoming a full-time neutral in the greater New York metropolitan area, she was AT&T Corporation’s Chief Litigation Counsel and was also a partner at Jenner & Block LLP. Laura has become a thought leader and champion for addressing the lack of diversity in the ADR field.

Theo: Laura, in a prior column, I told my readers that the state of diversity in the ADR field is dismal, and that that should be a concern because a lot rests on the selection of the neutral.2 What do you think are the underlying reasons for this lack of diversity?

Laura: There are many elements. The privacy of arbitral proceedings and awards, and even the way in which arbitrations are administered, has meant that it has not been subject to the same scrutiny as, for example, the judiciary where there has been public and political demand for diversity.

While the judiciary still has a way to go, it is vastly superior numbers-wise to the private judging found in arbitration.3 As a form of privatized justice, the same rules should apply.4 In addition, companies often turn to outside lawyers to recommend neutrals. This means that the greater the neutral’s standing in the profession or name recognition, the more likely that individual will be selected. Looking outside the “usual suspects” requires more work and possibly more risk to the recommending lawyer. And because lawyers do the recommending, corporate diversity policies—like supplier diversity polices—have often been inadvertently evaded in the case of selecting neutrals.5 Finally, all of us have unconscious biases that impair our ability to select people that are not the standard in the field, and, thus, we perpetuate the existing system.

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Theo: I agree that those who select neutrals are frequently inclined to go with individuals they know or can easily research.

There also isn’t as much information in the marketplace about many of the available diverse neutrals. What can be done to fill this information gap?

Laura: It begins, Theo, with thinking about ways to expand how information about neutrals is disseminated and obtained. For example, certification by the International Mediation Institute requires evaluations by at least 10 participants and excerpts are available online. Those evaluations can reveal the style of the particular mediator and user satisfaction. Professor Catherine Rogers at Penn State Law also founded Arbitrator Intelligence,6 a non-profit organization that is helping to develop resources to promote transparency, accountability, and diversity in the arbitrator selection process.

Theo: Is there something that my readers can do on their own without having to rely on other organizations?

Laura: One approach is to develop a checklist specific to the dispute and pinpoint the kind of neutral they want before getting the provider’s short list. That would help identify specific

“

neutrals who are better suited to the dispute. By focusing on the needed qualities rather than status, we may better evade unconscious stereotypes.

In addition, focusing on specific knowledge and style criteria may help expand beyond the “usual suspects” and, thereby, include more women and people of color.

Theo: ADR providers have also been outspoken about providing more opportunities to diverse neutrals. The AAA launched an initiative requiring that 20 percent of its neutrals on any list be women or people of color. The AAA, the CPR Institute, and FINRA have all sponsored fellowship programs as a way to provide training, mentorship, and networking opportunities to up and coming women and minority ADR professionals.

Laura: It’s wonderful that they are making opportunities available and continuing to raise awareness. But ultimately, ADR is a consensual process, and end-users need to weigh in—because they make the selections. Neutrals also need to recommend other qualified, diverse neutrals when selecting chairs for panels and also sponsor and mentor up-and-coming diverse neutrals. I’ve

“I’ve also found that it’s hard to build a reputation and a practice, so I would like to see better training on how to build an ADR practice.”

—Laura Kaster also found that it’s hard to build a reputation and a practice, so I would like to see better training on how to build an ADR practice. Neutrals also need to cultivate their prior relationships in the organizations they were active in before becoming a neutral. It’s still largely a “word-of-mouth” selection process, and because individual reputation plays a large role in that process, neutrals need to focus on how to develop that reputation.

Theo: There’s been plenty of talk about remedying the problem of diversity in ADR, and nearly everyone agrees that something should be done.

I would like to shift the discussion away from “talking” to coming up with practical ways to make a tangible impact.

Laura: I couldn’t agree with you more. In the context of orchestra hires, when conductors use “blind” auditions, the use of a screen that hides the auditionee significantly increased the probability that a woman would advance from certain preliminary rounds and increased by several-fold the likelihood that a woman would be selected in the final round.7 Maybe your readers can suggest some other potential solutions to explore in your future columns? ■ THEO CHENG (tcheng@foxlex.com) is an arbitrator and mediator with the American Arbitration Association, the CPR Institute, Resolute Systems, and several federal and state courts, principally focusing on intellectual property, entertainment, technology, and labor/employment disputes. He has also handled intellectual property and commercial litigation matters for the past 20 years and is currently a partner at the international law firm of Fox Horan & Camerini LLP in New York City. Connect with him at www.linkedin.com/in/theocheng.

Endnotes

1 More information about Laura’s practice can be found at http:// appropriatedisputesolutions.com/site/.

2 S ee Theodore K. Cheng, “A Celebration of Diversity in Alternative Dispute Resolution,” Diversity & the Bar (Spring 2017), at 14.

3 See Laura A. Kaster and Theodore K. Cheng, “The Lack of Diversity in ADR – and the Current Beneath,” The Bencher (March/April 2017), at 13, available at home.innsofcourt.org/AIC/AIC_For_Members/AIC_ Bencher/AIC_Bencher_Recent_Articles/2017_MarApr_Kaster_Cheng. aspx.

4 S ee Laura A. Kaster, “Why and How Corporations Must Act Now to Improve ADR Diversity,” Corporate Disputes (Jan.-Mar. 2015) at 36, 37, available at www.corporatedisputesmagazine.com/why-and-howcorporations-must-act-now-to-improve-adr-diversity/; David H. Burt and Laura A. Kaster, “Why Bringing Diversity to ADR is a Necessity,” ACC Docket (Oct. 2013), at 41.

5 S ee Theodore K. Cheng, “The Case for Bringing Diversity to the Selection of ADR Neutrals,” NYSBA New York Dispute Resolution Journal, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Summer 2016), at 18-19.

6 S ee www.arbitratorintelligence.org.

7 Historical audition and orchestra roster data showed that the switch to blind auditions can explain about one-third of the increase in the proportion of females among new hires, and estimates based upon the roster data may account for 25% of the increase in the percentage of females in 11 sampled orchestras from 1970 to 1996. See Claudia Goldin and Celia Rouse, “Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of ‘Blind’ Auditions on Female Musicians,” 90 The American Economic Review 715 (September 2000), available at scholar.harvard.edu/files/ goldin/files/orchestrating_impartiality_the_effect_of_blind_auditions_ on_female_musicians.pdf.

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SPOTLIGHT BY LYDIA LUM

A Higher Calling

Passionate Litigator Channels Her Energy into Academia When Priya J. Harjani was first approached about moving in-house to her alma mater, Northwestern University, she could hardly imagine leaving private practice.

“

The second time, Harjani was curious enough to apply for a position that focused on litigation, labor law and employment—areas where she already felt comfortable, unlike the real estate emphasis of the first opportunity.

But after interviews and an offer from Northwestern, she still wasn’t sure about a career move.

Only four years out of law school, she was already an enthusiastic, commercial litigator presenting in court and taking depositions. Harjani worried that in-house work would prove less fulfilling because in-house lawyers rarely represented the university in court.

What surprises her is that lawyers and other well-educated professionals outside of academia are often surprised that any university could generate enough work to sustain multiple in-house counsel.

On the other hand, she was confident she could return to private practice if she missed the courtroom.

That was in 2004.

Not only has Harjani flourished for 13 years at the institution from where she earned a JD, she has been promoted several times and continues to hone her skills in labor and employment counseling. Along the way, she has gained experience in intercollegiate athletics, government investigations, research compliance and community relations at the Illinois university of 21,000 students and 3,300 full-time faculty not including non-instructional staff.

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Now the deputy general counsel, she also urges outside counsel to give early-career associates opportunities to shine—much like what law firm partners did for her in private practice.

Why has she remained at Northwestern? Or even in higher education?

“The industry is fascinating,” Harjani said of academia. “The mission is something I can easily stand behind and believe in—educating students and supporting groundbreaking research. Unlike for-profit corporations, not every decision is based on increasing profits. While the bottom line is important, it’s usually not the driving factor.”

Meanwhile, every promotion within the university’s Office of General Counsel—Harjani became deputy GC in March 2016—has brought with it expanded management and operational responsibilities, keeping her engaged and addressing new challenges.

What surprises her is that lawyers and other well-educated professionals outside of academia are often surprised that any university could generate enough work to sustain multiple in-house counsel.

“We’re everything from soup to nuts,” she said of her employer. “We handle the same legal issues that a Fortune® 500 company does.”

On top of that, Harjani and her colleagues handle legal matters involving federal regulations that all U.S. universities must comply with in order to remain eligible for government funds to finance research and for Pell Grants for low-income students. Examples of such regulations include Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin, and Title IX, which bans gender-based discrimination in education and is commonly associated with women’s sports and athletic scholarships.

COURTESY OF PRIYA J. HARJANI

Priya J. Harjani However, a high-profile matter involving male athletes was one in which Harjani played a key role in tackling.

In 2014, several Northwestern football players on athletic scholarships signed and submitted union cards and a petition to the National Labor Relations Board’s regional office in Chicago, where its director deemed the players statutory employees under the National Labor Relations Act. This added fuel to the long-running debate around the country over whether college athletes deserved salaries and rights to collective bargaining. The lucrative business of college football has enriched countless institutions. Northwestern’s program alone generated $235 million in revenue from broadcast rights and sales of tickets and merchandise during the 10-year period ending in the spring of the 2012—2013 academic year.

Lawyers for Northwestern asked the NLRB to review the regional director’s decision. In 2015, the full board unanimously declined to assert jurisdiction in the matter, essentially punting and making it a major victory for the university and its legal team. The football players’ effort to unionize was quashed.

Without determining whether the players were employees, the board decided that asserting jurisdiction “would not promote stability in labor relations.” The National Collegiate Athletic Association already dictated many practice and playing

terms and conditions to Northwestern and 100plus other large, academically selective universities with varsity football programs, which meant that any NLRB involvement could unfairly disrupt the status quo. Even though the board could legitimately assert jurisdiction over Northwestern, which is private, it could still cause ramifications for the other 100-plus universities, most of which are public and not within the board’s reach.

Harjani’s work on the historic case for Northwestern was part of a portfolio touted by the South Asian Bar Association of North America when it honored her as its annual corporate counsel achievement award winner last year.

But longtime colleagues are accustomed to Harjani’s professional excellence. Just ask Stephanie Graham, who was already in-house when Harjani joined in 2004.

“Priya is phenomenal,” said Graham, an associate vice president and deputy general counsel at Northwestern. “Many of our clients are not necessarily managers so some of the legal issues they’re dealing with stem from areas that were never part of their formal training. Priya is empathetic, level-headed and very good with working collaboratively. She is respected a lot within and outside the legal department. It’s important to stay calm, to give clients a feeling of confidence. Priya doesn’t elbow people out of the way, nor is she dictatorial.”

The Road Leading to the Present Path

This doesn’t mean Harjani is immune to occasional butterflies though—especially when she was a young staff lawyer at Northwestern.

She recalls a legal matter soon after Northwestern hired her that involved a law professor from whom she’d taken a course. “So there I was, giving him legal advice,” she said. “I was nervous. Making it more challenging was that he was already emotional about his situation when I met with him. But our talk went smoothly, and my anxiety disappeared.”

Lawyers often seek jobs at firms, companies and other organizations where they have been interns or summer associates, so how can they quickly demonstrate that they aren’t wide-eyed students anymore?

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“Be confident, not fearful,” Harjani said. “It’s one thing if you don’t know what you’re talking about. But as long as you are confident about the legal advice that you’re providing, show that you’re up to the task.”

Even at age five, Harjani wanted to become a lawyer. She was a member of mock trial teams in high school and as an undergraduate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she was a psychology and speech communications double major.

“

While Northwestern’s legal department doesn’t issue diversity mandates to outside counsel, Harjani and her colleagues encourage them to give young associates—especially minorities and women— substantive work so that they can improve and grow.

After law studies at Northwestern, Harjani joined what was then Gardner, Carton & Douglas LLP in Chicago, where a partner asked her to work on a case filed by Northwestern that raised constitutional law questions against the city of Evanston.

In the 2000 case, Northwestern claimed the city’s inclusion of dozens of university properties within a historic district’s boundaries put unfair restrictions on those buildings and parking lots.

Northwestern alleged that the city’s decision violated its constitutional right to equal protection because other similarly situated property owners were treated differently. The university also alleged a violation of the unconstitutional conditions doctrine—that the city was offering to exclude Northwestern properties from the historic district if the university would agree to waive its property tax exemption that was granted in its charter.

Harjani began working with the firm’s team immediately, and despite being a first-year asso-

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ciate, was soon allowed to lead some of the client meetings. Northwestern officials grew acquainted with her as the case progressed. At her request, her supervising partner allowed her to take some of the depositions, too.

“The case was full of great opportunities,” she said. “I was very fortunate, compared to some of the other young associates who were relegated to just doing document review. The partner was putting me in front of clients, which allowed me to move up the totem pole.”

Ryan Whitacre, who was in the same associate class as Harjani at the law firm, watched this case unfold until a 2004 settlement was reached.

“Among the first-year associates, it was quite a big deal when Priya got this assignment,” said Whitacre, who’s now a managing director at the Major, Lindsey & Africa search firm in Chicago.

“It wasn’t surprising that Priya advanced faster than many in our class. But beyond great opportunities, there’s the fact that this case is an example of how to try advancing one’s career. A young lawyer may not know exactly what he or she wants to do long-term but it helps to consider what opportunities could prove useful down the line. It’s something that I tell my clients even now, and Priya’s work on this case is something that I often remember when I think about examples of this.”

While Northwestern’s legal department doesn’t issue diversity mandates to outside counsel, Harjani and her colleagues encourage them to give young associates—especially minorities and women—substantive work so that they can improve and grow. Harjani recalls how some of her peers in private practice left their jobs amid dissatisfaction by a lack of meaty assignments.

So she advises young lawyers to control their career trajectories as much as feasible. “Ask for more work and responsibility,” she says. “It can have a snowball effect.” ■ LYDIA LUM (lydialum999@yahoo.com) was honored as national journalist of the year by the Organization of Chinese Americans. Now a freelance writer and editor, she is a former reporter for the Houston Chronicle and Fort Worth StarTelegram.

MCCA® LAW DEPARTMENT MEMBERS The Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA) acknowledges the support of the following law departments whose financial contributions have helped to advance the goal of furthering diversity in the legal profession.

3M Company

Discover Financial Services

JM Family Enterprises, Inc.

Salesforce.com, Inc.*

AARP

DTE Energy Company

Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc.

Sempra Energy

Abercrombie & Fitch

Duke Energy Corporation

JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Shell Oil Company

Accenture LLP

Eaton Corporation

Kaiser Permanente

SourceAmerica

Allstate Insurance Company

Entergy Corporation

KeyCorp

Staples, Inc.

Altria Client Services, Inc.

Exelon Corporation

Amazon.com, Inc.

Exxon Mobil Corporation

Liberty Mutual Insurance Company*

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company

American Express Company

Fannie Mae

LifeVantage Corporation

Summit Materials

Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield

Federal Home Loan Bank

LPL Financial LLC *

Symplicity Corporation

Ascena Retail Group, Inc.

Marriott International, Inc.

The Conference Board, Inc.

A. Schulman, Inc.

Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco

MassMutual Financial Group

The Vanguard Group, Inc.

Avis Budget Group, Inc.

First Data Corporation

McDonald’s Corporation

TRM LLC

Becton, Dickinson & Co.

Freddie Mac

Merck & Co., Inc.*

Twitter, Inc.

BIC International

Fujitec America, Inc.

MetLife, Inc.

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Bloomberg L.P.

Gap Inc.

Microsoft Corporation*

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Bristol-Myers Squibb Company

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GlaxoSmithKline

National Grid USA Service Company, Inc.

United Services Automobile Association “USAA”, Inc.

CBS Corporation

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Google Inc.*

Chevron Corporation

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HP, Inc.

CIGNA Corporation Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

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* Sustaining Level Member

Become a MCCA member today. Take advantage of member benefits from professional development and education to networking to research and thought leadership resources. Learn more at www.mcca.com/membership.

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MCCA® LAW FIRM AFFILIATES MCCA® acknowledges the following law firms who have joined MCCA to further advance diversity in the legal profession.

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP *

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Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP Singh Law, PLLC Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox, PLLC Stevens & Lee, PC Stinson Leonard Street LLP Sullivan & Cromwell LLP* Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP Thompson Coburn LLP

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* Sustaining Level Member ** Minority or Women Owned Law Firm

Become a MCCA member today. Take advantage of member benefits from professional development and education to networking to research and thought leadership resources. Learn more at www.mcca.com/membership.

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