2015 Sep/Oct - Diversity & The Bar Magazine

MCCA

THE BAR

S E P/ O C T. 2 0 1 5

DIVERSITY

&

Empowering People. Inspiring Leadership.

MCCA 2015 LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD TH E HONO R ABLE

Deval L. Patrick Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 2007–2015

POWER COUPLES MAKE IT WORK

SECURITY LAW FIELD EXPANDS

EXPANDING THE QUI TAM FIELD FOR MINORITY LAWYERS

IMPROVING RETREATS FOR DIVERSE LAWYERS

DIVERSITY THE FABRIC OF A GLOBAL LAW FIRM

Our lawyers—the fabric of Jones Day—come from diverse cultures and backgrounds and represent clients around the world. Jones Day lawyers, transcending geographic and cultural borders, thrive on teamwork, which depends upon and fosters a dedication to diversity and inclusion. Brought here by their accomplishments, our lawyers are encouraged to grow and develop both as people and as professionals, uniting to serve clients as One Firm Worldwide.

2400 Lawyers. 42 Locations. 5 Continents. www.jonesdaydiversity.com

Diverse PeoPle

Established in 1888, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP is an international law firm with more than 650 lawyers in offices in New York, Washington, Houston, Paris, London, Frankfurt, Brussels, Milan and Rome.

We are firmly committed to creating and maintaining

Diverse Practice

a diverse environment by recruiting and retaining people of all backgrounds and cultural experiences. By building and maintaining a truly diverse team of attorneys, we deliver the high-quality service our clients expect and deserve.

one Firm

Kim A. Walker Special Counsel and Director of Diversity and Inclusion diversity@willkie.com

New York washiNgtoN houstoN Paris LoNdoN FraNkFurt BrusseLs MiLaN roMe

www.willkie.com

CONTENTS

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

FEATURES

12 Can Power Couples Have It All?

By Melanie Padgett Powers With flexibility, support, communication and love, power couples are figuring out how to have a rewarding career and a happy family life.

18 Opportunities in National Security Law

By Dianne Hayes High-profile and high-impact data breaches across industries, including government, the financial industry, health care and retail, have highlighted national critical vulnerabilities. As legal departments beef up their hires in national security law and law schools expand their programs, countering security issues is balanced by requirements of Freedom of Information laws, privacy and civil liberties. Find out more about this growing field and meet some of the people who work in it.

22 Blowing the Whistle

By Apryl Motley Qui tam lawyers, who represent whistleblowers in bringing cases under the federal False Claims Act, recover billions of dollars for the U.S. government. Meet some of the minority lawyers who work in this expanding practice area .

26 Retreats for Diverse Lawyers

By Patrick Folliard Retreats for diverse attorneys aren’t new. But in recent years they have grown in scope, size and inclusion. Find out how law firms have insured that these retreats have grown into something that helps create an inclusive work environment.

30 MCCA’s 2015 Award Winners

By Dianne Hayes The MCCA Diversity Gala, held in late June, is the annual national awards program honoring lifetime achievement, corporate legal departments and individuals. Meet the Employer of Choice Award winners, along with the Paula L. Ettelbrick and George B. Vashon Award winners, to find out what made them stand out and what you can learn from their diversity and inclusion programs.

48 A Judge Gives Back Through Mentoring

By Jonathan Groner Rossie David Alston, Jr. is an advisor and mentor to dozens of lawyers. Find out how he helps guide them when he’s not on the bench.

4  D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R   SEP.OCT.2015  MCCA.COM

MCCA® BOARD OF DIRECTORS SEP.OCT.2015

Stuart Alderoty

Sandra Leung

Dawn Smith

Ricardo Anzaldua

Don H. Liu

Mary E. Snapp

Michelle Banks

Gwen Marcus

Senior Executive Vice President & General Counsel HSBC North America Holdings Inc. Executive Vice President & General Counsel MetLife, Inc.

COLUMNS 6 | NOTES FROM THE PRESIDENT

From Rooney to Wilson: Impacting Diverse Hiring Practices One Company at a Time By Joseph K. West

7 | BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS

Regulation A+: Fair and Balanced By Alonzo L. Llorens

9 | LITIGATION MATTERS

Dominate the Center: The Key to Victory, Part 2 By Craig A. Thompson, Esq.

Executive Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary Xerox Corporation

Corporate VP, Deputy General Counsel Microsoft Business Development and Evangelism

Lawrence P. Tu

Suzan Miller

Neil Wilcox

Owner & Founder Brown Law Group

Corporate Secretary, Vice President, Deputy General Counsel Intel Corporation

A.B. Cruz III

Robbie E.B. Narcisse

Michael Williams

Janice P. Brown

Executive Vice President & General Counsel Emergent Biosolutions Inc.

Clarissa Cerda

Chief Legal Strategist LifeLock Inc.

Anthony K. Greene

Executive Vice President Jamison Insurance Group

Vice President of Global Ethics and Business Practices Pitney Bowes Inc. Corporate Legal Department

Samuel M. Reeves

Senior Vice President, General Counsel Walmart International Legal

Robin Sangston

Senior EVP & Chief Legal Officer CBS Corporation Senior Vice President & Associate General Counsel First Data Corporation Executive Vice President & General Counsel Staples Inc.

Simone Wu

Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary & Chief Compliance Officer

Joseph K. West

VP/Chief Compliance Officer Cox Communications Inc.

President & CEO Minority Corporate Counsel Association

Kenneth S. Siegel

Board Members Emeritus

President & CEO

Design/Art Direction

MCCA® Staff

Editor-in-Chief

Advertising

Jean Lee

Vice President & Assistant General Counsel JP Morgan Chase Legal Department

PUBLICATIONS STAFF Joseph K. West

Kimberly A. Howard, CAE

Chief Administrative Officer & General Counsel Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc.

BonoTom Studio Inc.

M.J. Mrvica Associates Inc.

10 | GENERAL COUNSEL INSIGHT

Creating an Effective Law Department Culture By Miguel R. Rivera Sr.

Senior Vice President, Chief Compliance Officer & Secretary VMware

Executive Vice President, General Counsel Showtime Networks Inc.

Executive Vice President, Global General Counsel, Corporate Secretary & Chief Compliance Officer Gap Inc.

8 | CAREER EVOLUTION

What Smart Attorneys Do When Professional Development Is Stalled By DeAnna D. Allen

Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary Bristol-Myers Squibb Company

Thomas L. Sager, Ballard Spahr LLP Hinton J. Lucas Catherine A. Lamboley Lloyd M. Johnson, Chief Legal Executive LLC

Stacy Banks Shikha Bhatnagar Mahzarine Chinoy David Chu Donna Crook Charles H. Hollins Jr. Behnaz Mistry Aracely Muñoz Petrich Andrea Pimm

GENERAL INFORMATION Advertising For advertising inquiries, contact M.J. Mrvica Associates Inc. at mjmrvica@mrvica.com. MCCA® Membership Please visit www.mcca.com/ membership for membership information. 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® 2015 by the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, ­Diversity & the Bar is published six 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.

NOTES FROM THE PRESIDENT & CEO | BY JOSEPH K. WEST

From Rooney to Wilson: Impacting Diverse Hiring Practices One Company at a Time PRESIDENT OBAMA recently hosted the first ever White House Demo Day which focused on the need for greater inclusiveness in the venture capital and tech sectors and which highlighted the administration’s TechHire initiative. A White House press release revealed some startling statistics that these initiatives are designed to address. ■■Just three percent of Amer-

ica’s venture capital-backed startups are led by women. ■■Women makeup only about four percent of U.S.-based venture capital investors. ■■Only around one percent of African-Americans lead venture capital-backed startups. We are proud to point out that some MCCA Board Member Corporations are playing significant roles in helping to address these problems. The president lauded Xerox and Microsoft for their implementation of versions of the “Rooney Rule” (Xerox named it the “Wilson Rule”) in hiring for senior level positions. Some capital firms with over $100 billion under management, including Intel Capital, among others, made commitments to specific actions designed to advance opportunities for women and underrepresented minorities in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. MCCA is actively working with the ABA Commission on Women on an upcoming Bias Interrupters research project designed to provide tools to eliminate barriers to inclusion in the tech sector and beyond. Two of MCCA’s new

6  D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R   SEP.OCT.2015  MCCA.COM

board members, Dawn Smith, general counsel of VMware and Suzan Miller, deputy general counsel of Intel, are remarkable leaders and champions of inclusiveness. They also represent companies that are committed to making a difference in the tech arena. Our goal is to provide opportunities for our members to both contribute and benefit from this long-overdue commitment to inclusiveness in the tech and venture capital sectors. We welcome your input in this process. In addition to this exciting national news, this month’s issue profiles our Diversity Gala award winners. We hope that you find their stories compelling and their ideas inspiring. As Diversity Gala Keynote Speaker Brad Smith, general counsel and executive vice president of legal and corporate affairs of Microsoft Corporation, said, “We need to continue to advance the diversity cause and become as diverse as the nation we serve.” MCCA_law

www.facebook.com/mcca.law

BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS | BY ALONZO L. LLORENS

Regulation A+: Fair And Balanced AS AN ALUMNUS OF THE SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION, I sometimes find myself wearing two hats when I analyze SEC rules. I analyze the rules from a business perspective such that my thought process is aligned with the interests and needs of my clients. Then, I put my other hat on and analyze the rule from the SEC’s perspective. Unfortunately, these two viewpoints do not always align. So, when I see a new rule by the SEC that does a pretty good job of balancing its need to protect investors with its desire to create a functional environment whereby companies, of all sizes, can raise capital, I’m the first in line to say, “SEC, job well done.” This is my refrain with respect to a new rule adopted by the SEC that is commonly referred to as “Regulation A+.” On March 25, 2015, the SEC fulfilled one of the rulemaking requirements of Title IV of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (Jobs Act) by adopting amendments to Regulation A. The original Regulation A provided an exemption from the registration requirements of the Securities Act

So, when I see a new rule by the SEC that does a pretty good job of balancing its need to protect investors with its desire to create a functional environment whereby companies, of all sizes, can raise capital, I’m the first in line to say, “SEC, job well done.” of 1933 (the Securities Act) for certain smaller securities offerings by private issuers. However, for a host of reasons, the business community did not view Regulation A as a viable framework; therefore, it was rarely used.

Regulation A+, on the other hand, seems to strike a balance. Generally, Regulation A+ provides an exemption for U.S. and Canadian companies that have no current reporting obligations, under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Exchange Act), to raise up to $50 million in a 12-month period. Some of the highlights of the rule include the following: ■■There are two tiers: Tier 1 for smaller offerings of up to $20 million during a 12-month period and Tier 2 for offerings of up to $50 million. ■■Offerings are not limited to “accredited investors.” However, for Tier 2, individual non-accredited investors can invest a maximum of the greater of 10 percent of their net worth or 10 percent of their net income. There is no limit for accredited investors in Tier 1. ■■There are no general solicitation restrictions, and the issuer can “test the waters” to determine whether there is any interest in the offering. Plus, investors can

self-certify their income or net worth for purposes of the investment limits. ■■Issuers will have to file a disclosure document with audited financials with the SEC, and it must be approved by the SEC before there can be any sales. ■■For Tier 2, issuers will be required to file abbreviated current reports with the SEC. ■■Under Tier 2, there is a state pre-emption. This is huge as issuers are not required to register the securities being offered in every state. Tier 1 does not have state pre-emption, but issuers will be subject to a “coordinated review” among the states. I’m happy to see this rule for three reasons: 1. It provides an excellent framework for companies to raise capital. 2. The rule contains shareholder protection measures that are as balanced as can be reasonably expected. 3. Finally, while the SEC may miss the mark in some instances, despite its best efforts, I think it got this one right. ■ ALONZO L. LLORENS (allorens@gordonrees. com) is a partner with Gordon & Rees LLP and a member of the Business Transactions Practice Group.

MCCA.COM  SEP.OCT.2015  D I V E R S I T Y

& T H E B A R   7

CAREER EVOLUTION | BY DEANNA D. ALLEN

What Smart Attorneys Do When Professional Development Is Stalled OVER THE YEARS, I have had numerous conversations with attorneys lamenting the lack of access to professional opportunities in their respective workplaces. The less complex scenarios are manageable but often involve distracting levels of stress and frustration for the affected attorney. The more complex scenarios can be debilitating and over time can erode talented attorneys’ sense of control over, and confidence in, their day-to-day work and their long-term careers. The common question underlying these situations is what to do when professional development is sluggish or stalled. There are no easy answers, but here are a few things you can do to move toward answers that are right for you. Identify what you want. When stuck in a professional development rut, it helps to have a sense of what you want to achieve. If you do not already have short-term and longterm professional goals mapped out and stored in an accessible place, then get that done as soon as possible. It is helpful to be both thoughtful and true to oneself while being as concrete as possible. Identify your circle of influence. Every practicing attorney has his or her own circle of influence, whether larger or small. If some part of your career is stalling, then I recommend maximizing your circle of influence by identifying aspects of your day-to-day work and career development that you can control and then leveraging those things for positive outcomes for yourself, your colleagues and your employer. Maximizing your circle of influence is unlikely to fully resolve serious professional development dilemmas, but it is likely to increase your sense of direction and control, as well as your ability to chart out more comprehensive solutions to the challenges you are facing.

8  D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R   SEP.OCT.2015  MCCA.COM

Identify the nature and scope of your challenges. As I reflect on my conversations with others who have tackled professional development challenges and on my career and the careers of others around me, it occurs to me that although the underlying details vary widely, stalling careers generally stem from just a few of situations: ■■Lack of time and/or focus on career development and planning. ■■Lack of viable opportunity for advancement within the organization. ■■Lack of access to training and development needed to demonstrate readiness for additional work opportunities. ■■Lack of brand recognition (e.g., failure to be adequately recognized for one’s prior contributions and potential). ■■Lack of allies needed to navigate to the next opportunity (lack of supportive clients, supervisors, workflow managers, evaluators, sponsors, peers, etc.).

Some challenges may feel like speed bumps that you need to find a way to roll over, while others may feel like road blocks that you need to detour around. Whether large or small, a first step in managing these challenges is to identify them and assess their scope. Identify solutions and begin execution. Map out a plan that gets you from where you are to where you want to be while navigating your challenges. Give thought to how others can help along the way, and be willing to think outside the box about opportunities and solutions. For example, if you lack the proper allies, then put effort and energy into fixing this shortcoming. If you are not getting proper recognition, then find effective ways to promote your contributions by helping others understand what you bring to the table. If desirable opportunities are not readily available or apparent, then consider creating an opportunity wish list that maps it to your organization’s needs and making a value-based pitch about why you should be allowed to pursue the opportunity(ies). ■ DEANNA D. ALLEN (dallen@cooley.com) is a partner at Cooley LLP and a member of the Intellectual Property Litigation and Patent Counseling & Prosecution practice groups.

LITIGATION MATTERS | BY CRAIG A. THOMPSON, ESQ.

Dominate the Center: The Key to Victory, Part 2 Part 1 of this article appeared in the July/August issue.

DOMINATION OF THE CENTER IN TRIAL means taking control of one or more aspects of the trial while creating space to frame other areas of the litigation. Three important strategies can be employed to make it happen. The first item we discussed in our last issue was to “start with the end in mind.” Control the narrative

In 1992, Admiral James Stockdale was Ross Perot’s vice presidential candidate. During his first televised debate—in response to the moderator’s request for an opening statement—Admiral Stockdale famously began his statement by awkwardly asking, “Who am I?” “Why am I here?” Unfortunately for Admiral Stockdale, he was never afforded a real opportunity to answer those two questions,

Finding the black swan in every case will provide triers of fact with the tools they need to embrace your story and argue your case, if necessary. and he eventually became the source of a number of cruel jokes, including a “Saturday Night Live” sketch that portrayed him in an extremely unflattering light. The true tragedy of this story is that if Admiral Stockdale had been able to answer those questions, his narrative would have certainly been embraced warmly by the public: United States Navy vice admiral; one of the most highly decorated

officers in the history of the U.S. Navy; led aerial attacks from the carrier USS Ticonderoga during the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident; the highest-ranking naval officer held as a prisoner of war in Vietnam; awarded 26 personal combat decorations, including the Medal of Honor and four Silver Stars; and served as president of the Naval War College during the late 1970s. Because of the admiral’s inability to control his narrative, his own life story was changed and manipulated to serve the interests of others. His story provides a solid example of the importance of shaping the outcome by controlling the narrative. Our role in trial is to ensure that our client’s narrative is fully protected and presented in the right way.

Find the Black Swan

Essayist Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s award-winning book “The Black Swan” encourages us to challenge the logical fallacy that a thing does not exist because we have not yet observed it. Prior to 1790, there had never been a report of a black swan sighting. Consequently, people believed that all swans were white. In 1790, a black swan was observed in Australia and several have been seen since that time. As such, the notion that all swans were white

was immediately and forever refuted by one observation. In trial, there are always assumptions that jurors make or are forced to make that can and should be forever refuted with one or two pieces of evidence that will forever challenge those assumptions. For example, if an argument is made during a personal injury pharmaceutical case that the company places “profits over people,” the black swan might be a medical record or corporate document confirming the company’s participation in a patient assistance program that provides free medication to people who cannot afford to buy their medicine. Finding the black swan in every case will provide triers of fact with the tools they need to embrace your story and argue your case, if necessary. Applying the above strategies can sharpen our focus in trial. More importantly, it will assist our efforts to dominate the center in our litigation, and secure better results for our clients. ■ CRAIG THOMPSON (cathompson@venable. com) is a partner with Venable LLP and a successful trial lawyer with 20 years of experience trying civil cases in state and federal courts throughout the country. He is a member of the board of directors of the International Association of Defense Counsel and lectures across the country on topics related to civil litigation. Connect with him on Twitter www.twitter. com/getcraig and LinkedIn www.linkedin. com/in/craigathompson.

MCCA.COM  SEP.OCT.2015  D I V E R S I T Y

& T H E B A R   9

GENERAL COUNSEL INSIGHT | BY MIGUEL R. RIVERA SR.

Creating an Effective Law Department Culture ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT ACTIONS a general counsel can take when she first sits in the big chair is to think hard about the existing culture in her law department and how to create a more effective culture that works well with her style and personality. But as with a great many things, this is much easier said than done. Cultures do not develop overnight and, almost by definition, it takes more than one person to effectively create a culture—thus complicating exponentially the work the general counsel must do. First, determine what the culture is currently like. Talk to your human resource support team to get an idea of what team members think the general reputation and culture of the law department is. Go out and speak candidly with the law department’s major in-house clients to determine what they think about the law department. Call outside counsel who have worked for the company for several years and learn what insights they

like the adjectives that you write down and everything will be fine. But, if you are like most new general counsel, you will not like everything you see. Some things will be broken, and some of the things will get in the way of your effectiveness. You must know yourself well to do this job right; be prepared for some introspection. Identify the top three changes the department needs to make to more effectively meet the clients’ needs and expec-

It will take the entire department, working together, in a guided mission to make the change start and to make it stick. Be prepared for this to take months. Be prepared for setbacks. have. Talk to the support staff and attorneys within the law department. Draw your conclusions from these sources and from your own observations. Second, write down the top five adjectives that best describe how the lawyers in your department work together, how they work with staff, how they respond to clients, how they collaborate with outside counsel and how they react to the leadership of the general counsel. If you are really lucky, you will

10  D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R   SEP.OCT.2015  MCCA.COM

tations, to be more collaborative and to build a strong team, and to more effectively fit your style and personality. Third, look around you at your team and identify those natural leaders and formal leaders that can help you begin to move the culture in the direction that you want. Meet with them. Talk with them. Sell them on your observations and conclusions. Listen to their reactions. Take in their comments. Observe their body language. Final-

ly, gauge the team’s willingness to change. Identify those that will be difficult and those that will rise to the occasion and be change champions. Afterward, determine how difficult a task you have before you and how long you think it will take for the changes you want to take hold and begin to grow. Finally, take your plan and observations to your human resource partners and develop a multi-month plan for how you will prepare the group to start thinking about change, prepare them to get engaged in the process of change, engage them in the change itself, and celebrate their success when you see real, sustainable change. It will take the entire department working together in a guided mission to make the change start and to make it stick. Be prepared for this to take months. Be prepared for setbacks. Be prepared to let some people go because they simply will not fit in the new paradigm. In the end, be prepared for one of the most rewarding things that you can do as the general counsel— seeing people grow and become better at what they do and better at working with each other, clients, outside counsel and you. It’s worth the effort and worth the journey. ■ MIGUEL R. RIVERA SR. (rmiguel60@aol. com) is a former general counsel and commissioner of labor.

MCCA CLE EXPO October 5-6, 2015 Register Now

Manchester Grand Hyatt • San Diego, CA www.mcca.com/cleexpo

Join us in San Diego on October 5-6 and take advantage of the opportunity to: • Meet more than 300 attorneys from top law firms and corporate legal departments of Fortune® 100 companies; • Showcase your expertise on current substantive legal topics; and • Build recognition of your firm or company. For questions regarding sponsorship please contact: Shikha Bhatnagar, Director of Development Minority Corporate Counsel Association 202-739-5902 | sponsorship@mcca.com

With flexibility, support, communication and love, power couples are figuring out how to have a rewarding career and a happy family life.

12  D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R   SEP.OCT.2015  MCCA.COM

Can Power Couples Have it By Melanie Padgett Powers DARREN SKINNER LIVES BY HIS CALENDAR. “I am very calendar-driven. If it’s not on my calendar, it doesn’t exist,” he says. His wife, Raquel, on the other hand, is able to store all the family and work-related responsibilities in her head. But as their two kids, now ages 9 and 8, get older and their activities and interests diverge, she is considering succumbing to an online calendar.

Raquel and Darren Skinner and their children.

Darren is a corporate partner at Arnold & Porter LLP in Washington, D.C., and Raquel is an adjunct professor and staff attorney with the Harrison Institute’s Affordable Housing Transactions Clinic at Georgetown University Law Center. “Like most parents in the Washington area, we are overscheduled, and we try to make it work, and we do,” Raquel says. Figuring out how to manage career and family is a necessity among high-powered couples with children. In approximately 60 percent of two-parent households with children younger than 18, both parents work outside the home, according to the Pew Research Center. And many of these parents are feeling the stress: 56 percent of working moms and 50 percent of working dads say they find it very or somewhat difficult to

balance their responsibilities. And 34 percent of working dads and 40 percent of working moms say they “always feel rushed” in their day-to-day lives. Long work hours. Multiple kids’ activities. School pickups and dropoffs. After-hours professional obligations. Carving out quality time as a family and as a couple. While the responsibilities these power couples face are endless, many attorneys and their spouses are illustrating that you can have a rewarding career and a happy family life. But it takes communication, flexibility, support and a lot of love. Alita Wingfield, managing attorney of the Global Litigation Group and executive director at Morgan Stanley in New York City, says her success as a working mom depends on three things: a flexible work environment,

MCCA.COM SEP.OCT.2015

D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R 13

CAN POWER COUPLES HAVE IT ALL?

Alita Wingfield and husband Eddie with their four children.

great child care and a partner in parenting (a recipe she embraced after reading “Maxed Out: American Moms on the Brink” by Katrina Alcorn). “If any of those things are out of kilt, you certainly feel it,” she says. “I’m blessed to have all three.” Her husband, Eddie, an interventional cardiologist at Hamilton Cardiology Associates and chief of cardiology at Robert Wood Johnson Hamilton in New Jersey, works 12-hour days during the week and is on call every third week. But he only lives 20 minutes from work. On the other hand, Alita’s New York City office is two hours away by commuter bus. But she works from home Mondays and Fridays and has the option on Wednesdays. That flexibility helps make it a little easier to raise their four children, ages 17, 15, 6 and 4. “It’s a constant communication we have on a daily basis as to who’s going to be able to do what,” Alita says. “Although we both have intense professions, Alita

14  D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R   SEP.OCT.2015  MCCA.COM

has a lot more flexibility than I do,” Eddie says. “She has allowed me to accomplish a lot more. She’s really made it all possible.”

Employer Support

Alita asked for a flexible schedule at work when the family moved to New Jersey from New York to be closer to Eddie’s cardiology residency in Philadelphia at the time. Alita had only been at Morgan Stanley two years and was nervous about her request. “I agonized over it for quite some time. I wrote an elaborate proposal,” she says. She suggested the new schedule be a trial run that she and her then-boss (now CLO at Morgan Stanley) could reevaluate after six months. “Much to his credit, without hesitation, he said, ‘I don’t have a problem with that,’” she says. That was eight years ago, and that employer support has been invaluable to the family.

“ You have to remind your colleagues to go home sometimes, have dinner with their families or just take a break. We have a responsibility to one another to remember to work smarter and more efficiently. To properly serve our clients, we must be healthy, wellrounded people. But balance won’t happen unless we create it.” “You have to remind your colleagues to go home sometimes, have dinner with their families or just take a break,” she says. “We have a responsibility to one another to remember to work smarter and more efficiently. To properly serve our clients, we must be healthy, well-rounded people. But balance won’t happen unless we create it.” Some employers make it more difficult to create a work-life balance, which can lead to an increase in employee turnover. Lisa’s partner, Fiona Hodgson, owns her own grant writing and consulting business, which allowed her to stay home with their daughter, MacKenzie, now a rising second year at the University of Virginia. After staying home for about a year after her daughter was born, and then again when MacKenzie was seven, Fiona discovered, “I missed working, and I missed the adult companionship. But I didn’t want to go back to corporate America.” Previous employers had not been that supportive of working parents, so she decided to create her own flexibility with her new business.

Secrets of Success Our power couples shared their tips on how to have successful, rewarding careers along with a happy family life. 1. Support your spouse. Be understanding about the work pressures and time commitments your spouse faces. 2. Communicate and hold family meetings. Don’t let grievances fester. Talk about what is or isn’t working in your family life. 3. Take time as a couple. Nearly everything parents do is for their children, so don’t feel guilty about spending time as a couple. Schedule date nights and make them happen, no matter how tired you might be. 4. Learn to say no. Recognize that you might have to cut back on volunteer or professional opportunities to make time for your family. 5. Create special family moments and routines. Reserve Friday nights for board games or Sundays as family dinner night or schedule “no plan” weekends, where you unplug and spend all weekend together as a family. 6. Instill responsibility in your children. Assign them chores, and let them know they’re expected to help their siblings. Teach little kids how to clean their own rooms and get dressed by themselves each morning. 7. Take vacations with and without the kids. And unplug as much as possible.

MCCA.COM  SEP.OCT.2015  D I V E R S I T Y

SHUTTERSTOCK

Darren and Raquel worried less about their children when they were toddlers because Darren’s employer, Arnold & Porter, had an on-site childcare center. Knowing their children were in the same building as Darren put them at ease, and he was even able to take lunch breaks with their kids. Now that the children are in elementary school, Raquel’s schedule at Georgetown provides the flexibility for her to go on school field trips or pick up her child early if one of them becomes ill at school. Lisa A. Linsky, a partner in the Trial Group at McDermott Will & Emery LLP in New York City, says it’s also helpful for co-workers to support one another. She says her firm is quite progressive and supportive, yet it’s still full of driven, ambitious lawyers committed to their careers and their clients.

& T H E B A R   15

CAN POWER COUPLES HAVE IT ALL?

grandparents will even coordinate among themselves, driving halfway to hand over the kids to each other. “We’ve been really blessed that way,” Alita says. “If we didn’t have family all along the way, it would be much, much tougher.”

Being Flexible

Lisa Linsky, left, with her partner, Fiona, and their daughter, MacKenzie.

Grandmothers Make It Possible

For the families with both parents working outside the home, support from grandparents and other family members can help make it all possible. Both the Wingfields and the Skinners receive help from Mom. Since Raquel returned to work six years ago, her mom has been traveling from New York to D.C. as much as once a week and stays for several days. She regularly picks up the kids from school and chauffeurs them to their afterschool activities. “That’s been a godsend,” Darren says. “It takes a village to not only raise your children, but it takes a village to keep your career on the right track.” Alita’s mom arrives at their house from her home an hour away in Delaware on Tuesday morning and stays till Thursday night, dropping off and picking up the kids from school. And both sets of grandparents help in other ways. The two littlest kids stayed with Eddie’s parents over spring break this year and again when the two older kids went on a vacation with their parents. The

16  D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R   SEP.OCT.2015  MCCA.COM

Discussions about career and family have often centered on finding a “work-life balance,” but many business leaders are now saying work-life balance is a myth that insinuates that a person’s work and personal life are lacking if they are not in a 50-50 balance. A word that is getting more attention is “flexibility.” Eddie Wingfield believes that to create a happy family with well-adjusted children, one partner needs more flexibility than the other. Both can’t be running full steam ahead and be out of the home for 14 hours a day at the same time. Lisa and Fiona agree. The idea that you can’t have it all is still “in the closet,” Lisa says. “We live in a culture of overworked and stressed people who often feel like failures because they simply cannot make it all work smoothly all the time. If more parents talked about this and were authentic about these conversations, we could change the culture and retain top talent.” Fiona adds, “You have to prioritize your family life at the same level or higher than your corporate life. And no one wants to say that out loud.” Josh Wayser, managing partner at Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP in Los Angeles, and his husband, Richard Schulte, are raising six adopted children, ages 14 to 5. Richard had worked in DVD sales for about 15 years at Paramount Pictures, but when his department was outsourced, he decided to retire. “It was a blessing in that Richard could stay home,” Josh says. “We ended up a traditional-nontraditional couple.” Josh still drops off the kids at school a few days a week because that morning time is important to him. He also cooks on the weekends and makes sure the kids are doing their homework each night. “One of the nice things about same-sex couples is that we don’t have to wear specific roles based on gender,” Josh says. “We shift roles. I am the homework police and the food police. And Richard will take care of much of the other stuff. We play to each other’s strengths.”

For example, Josh cannot sit still waiting during kids’ doctor appointments, while Richard has more patience, simply working on his laptop while he waits. (Richard has a master’s in music composition and theory and piano performance and continues to compose music.) And like many stay-at-home parents, Richard is

barraged by the kids’ requests and emotional needs. Power couples say that valuing and supporting your partner, and building an extended network, ensures you can have a rewarding career while striving to develop well-adjusted, responsible and happy children. While raising six children can be hectic, Josh and Richard marvel at how it’s changed their life for the better. “I think we’re smart enough to know we’re lucky,” Josh says. Richard, who is 63, reflects back on his young adult years in the 1980s. A lot of his friends died of AIDS, and now he’s a baby boomer raising six children. “Pinch me. Is this really how my life turned out? It’s really quite miraculous.” ■ MELANIE PADGETT POWERS (i.am.meledits@gmail.com) is a freelance writer and editor in the Washington, D.C., area. Connect with her @MelEdits on Twitter.

Josh Wayser, above right, and his husband, Richard Schulte. At right are their six adopted children ranging in ages from 5 to 14.

MCCA.COM  SEP.OCT.2015  D I V E R S I T Y

& T H E B A R   17

THE CURRENT STATE of national security is putting government, corporations and even law schools on edge to keep pace with rapid changes, threats and new demands. Recent headlines of computer hacking at the Office of Personnel Management, White House and State Department and compromised customer and patient information with national retailers and health providers are all factors in creating an environment of overall insecurity and a pool litigation.

By Dianne Hayes

Opportunities in At one point, national security was primarily focused on the threat of terrorism. Since the 9-11 terrorist acts, those concerns are matched with threats to intelligence and infrastructure largely due to emerging technology. In late January of this year, a drone two feet in diameter and weighing about two pounds avoided detection and crashed into a tree on the South Lawn at the White House. Although this case was harmless, it highlights some of the nation’s clear vulnerabilities. Today’s threats include hackers—foreign and domestic—cybersecurity, biotechnology and robotics. Fortune® 100 companies have a renewed focus on all layers of security and litigation threats in hopes of avoiding firewall failures similar to those responsible for blasting embarrassing emails from executives at Sony Pictures in Los Angeles. National security law has become a priority in recent years as attorneys have played a critical internal role in helping to mold policies in the Bush and Obama administrations. One of the most significant cases that has sparked national and partisan debate is the Edward Snowden surveillance disclosures at the National Security Agency. An NSA contractor, 31-yearold Snowden has been called everything from a crim-

18  D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R   SEP.OCT.2015  MCCA.COM

inal, traitor and patriot for leaking government information detailing the country’s mass surveillance practices. He was initially granted asylum in Russia, and in 2014, he was given a three-year residency. High-profile and high-impact data breaches across industries, including government, financial, health care and retail, have highlighted national critical vulnerabilities. As legal departments beef up their hires in national security law and law schools expand their programs, countering security issues is balanced by requirements of Freedom of Information laws, privacy and civil liberties.

Rajesh De

new lawyers into the area of national security law at NSA. During his tenure, he created programs to make it easier to transition into the federal agency at any career stage. “It can be a daunting process,” De said. “I’m proud of the work that I did at NSA to make opportunities available for younger lawyers coming into the national security world, particularly minority lawyers like myself.” Those programs included setting up the Summer Honors Program to get law students in the door for the summer. The Legal Honors Program was established for highly motivated entry-level attorneys.

National Security Law Leaders in the Field

Recently stepping down from arguably one of the most important and demanding jobs in national security, Rajesh De’s pleasant demeanor has not been tainted by the extreme scrutiny of NSA with the Edward Snowden case occurring on his watch. De served as general counsel from 2012 to March 2015. He was chief legal officer and principal legal advisor to the NSA director. As a member of the NSA’s senior leadership team, he supervised an office of approximately 100 lawyers and staff, and represented the NSA regularly with senior executive branch officials at the White House, Department of Defense, Department of State, Department of Justice, Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation. In addition, he regularly represented the NSA across the intelligence community, as well as with relevant congressional committees and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Prior to his service at the NSA, De served in the White House as staff secretary and deputy assistant to the president. Though he is not able to discuss the specifics of the Snowden case, he is extremely proud of his track record and diversity goals for getting both seasoned and

“These are amazing tools,” he said. “We wanted to make sure people knew about the programs. We made the circuit among lawyers, law schools, and recruited at events intended to reach minority audiences. “There were under 10 spots with both programs and 1,000 applications,” De said. “People are interested. The goal is to help them get a sense of security law. Beyond students, we also made significant efforts to recruit laterals. I wanted to make sure people are not intimidated by credentials. I was looking for the demonstrated effort, accomplishments and distinguishing oneself in whatever environment one is in. These programs are now institutionalized.” At age 41, De recently rejoined Mayer Brown as a partner in Washington, D.C., where he will lead the firm’s global privacy and security practice. Mayer Brown is a global legal services organization advising clients across the Americas, Asia and Europe. “The firm made cybersecurity a strategic priority,” De said. “Every CEO needs to take it seriously. For Fortune® 100 companies, the retail sector, computer attacks on financial institutions and entertainment industry, privacy and security is critical in every area.” MCCA.COM  SEP.OCT.2015  D I V E R S I T Y

& T H E B A R   19

Many Firsts at NASA Beyond Space Travel

any legal job. These are all the things that are needed for a legal job at NASA, At NASA headquarters, Sumara M. where things change and where there Thompson-King holds the top post are a myriad of issues that NASA attoras general counsel with a schedule neys are asked to work on.” packed with meetings, document She encourages students to take adreview and providing legal guidance vantage of the summer law programs. to attorneys, travel and support for “I’m proud to say we don’t have to NASA field centers. The 28-year vetheavily recruit,” Thompson-King said. eran at the agency is the first African-­ “So many [law students] are aware of American and first woman to lead the NASA programs, and we are very foragency’s legal department, which has tunate to always have a diverse group approximately 140 attorneys. of applicants for the candidate pool, Sumara M. Thompson-Kingh While protecting some of the even though we do not have a formal most coveted scientific technolorecruitment program. gy, ­Thompson-King urges those already in the legal “What I enjoy most about NASA is the people that I profession, as well as students, to understand that a work with. I’m excited about coming to work with such science background is not required. a dedicated team. They are great thinkers. We [lawyers] “We buy rockets. No other agency does that,” never know what issues will come through the door. Thompson-King said. “It’s exciting. We are a civil agency There is a lot of collaboration between the attorneys that buys complex vehicles to transport astronauts. and stakeholders to get the appropriate resolution.” “There are attorneys with backgrounds in physics Preparing the Next Generation and other sciences, but there are also people like me According to the American Bar Association’s Standing with a liberal arts background. My law degree taught Committee on Law and National Security, the field me how to learn the issues. When I came to NASA I continues to grow. ABA reports the number of accredhad to learn the programs quickly. You have to know ited law schools offering courses on national security how to ask the right questions and be able to explain it law has increased from only one in 1974 to seven in in layman’s terms.” 1984 and to 83 in 1994. Today, there are more than 130 Thompson-King has served as deputy general counschools offering such courses. sel and as the associate general counsel for the ConHarvard is among the leaders in teaching nationtracts, Procurement and Acquisition Integrity Practice al security law. Gabriella Blum is the Rita E. Hauser Group in the Office of the General Counsel. She began Professor of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at her NASA career in 1986 when she joined the Office of Harvard Law School, specializing in public internaChief Counsel at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center tional law, international negotiations, the law of armed in Greenbelt, Md. She provided advice on federal acconflict and counterterrorism. She is also the faculty diquisitions, tort claims, personnel actions and Freedom rector of the Program on International Law and Armed of Information Act requests. Conflict and a member of the Program on Negotiation She was awarded NASA’s Exceptional Achievement Executive Board. Medal in recognition of her litigation work, several Blum said she encourages students to think globally NASA Group Achievement Awards for legal support of as they study national security law and prepare for an program and project activities and a Director’s Comincreasingly growing practice area. mendation for her service to the Marshall Space Flight “For many decades if you wanted to take classes in Center. laws of war, there were only two places you could go: “When I talk to young people coming into the legal the military academies or Catholic universities for Just profession, I tell them that they need to demonstrate War theories. The major law schools didn’t pay much their knowledge and capability,” she said. “Become attention to it. But it all changed after 9-11. There is no familiar with the issues. Know the law, and be prepared question far more students are interested in national to research. Be flexible, have a good mentor and be security law now. resourceful. These are all the things that are needed for

20  D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R   SEP.OCT.2015  MCCA.COM

“I teach basic tools of international ly involved in national security law law; these are generic enough to apply began their practice in the field. Many to subfields. I also teach special use began as trial attorneys, government of force under international law. It lawyers, military officers or congresattracts students who want to work in sional staffers who developed an security agencies, the federal governexpertise or worked their way into a ment, international business, domestic position in national security law. NGOs and human rights organizations.” Other points of entry include Blum has written a number of books government practice on the federal or and articles on national security law, local level, as well as private practice including the recently released book with law firms, defense contractors she co-authored with Benjamin Wittes, and consulting firms. Summer work “The Future of Violence: Robots and also provides valuable inroads to gainGerms, Hackers and Drones—Coning experience. Gabriella Blum fronting a New Age of Threat.” Typically, the career track is not In the book released in March, Blum linear and involves a combination of and Wittes show that the time has come for the U.S. to private legal practice, research positions in academia or bolster its security in a world where anyone can attack with a think tank, government, private and nongovernanyone. Blum notes in the book security is no longer ment experience. An increasing number of private seconly under government purview, as private companies tor law firms are developing a national security focus. and organizations control many of these technologies: While the national security law track is not yet clearly Internet service providers in the case of cyberterrorism defined, networking continues to be an important part and digital crime or academic institutions and individof the career development process. ual researchers and publishers in the case of potentially For those convinced that a career in national seharmful biotechnologies. curity law is the way to go, take advantage of national The authors note that new technologies are putsecurity affinity groups such as the National Security ting enormous power into the hands of individuals and Law Society or professional organizations such throughout the world—a shift that entails risks for as the ABA Standing Committee on Law and National everyone. Security. “Much of what we think we know about privacy, The security landscape has changed greatly with liberty, security and threat is no longer true,” Blum a paradigm shift in dealing with threats that are now explains. “Our debate about the fabric of security and more ambiguous. The new security demands are also its governance is based on dated assumptions about a requiring a multidisciplinary approach to finding technological world that no longer exists.” solutions. Prior to joining the Harvard faculty in the fall of For those who feel the call to make a difference in 2005, Blum served for seven years as a senior legal this area, the field is wide open. advisor in the international law department of the “I tell my students to follow the news,” Blum said. Military Advocate General’s Corps in the Israel “This is an area where world and national events Defense Forces and for another year as a strategy dictate the conversation and shape the next challenges. advisor to the Israeli National Security Council. Blum If you want to be effective on the legal side, you must is a graduate of Tel-Aviv University and Harvard Law be up on the facts. Follow the current events. Learn School. more about the historical, political, religious and ethnic While there are more opportunities to gain formal conflicts you see. You cannot think about law without training in national security law at universities, those the breadth of the context it operates in.” ■ already working in the field encourage law students DIANNE HAYES (hayesassociates@comcast.net) is a freelance to master the basics of research and writing because writer/editor based in Maryland who specializes in diversity issues, national security law is a very broad field. education and STEM. Because of new demands, seasoned lawyers are finding that many skills are transferrable. Few currentMCCA.COM  SEP.OCT.2015  D I V E R S I T Y

& T H E B A R   21

Blowing Qui tam lawyers, who represent whistleblowers in bringing cases under the federal False Claims Act, recover billions of dollars for the U.S. government. By Apryl Motley

EDWARD TOTTEN WALKED INTO THE OFFICE of H. Vincent McKnight Jr., then a senior partner at Ashcraft & Gerel LLP, almost 18 years ago seeking counsel to file a wrongful termination suit. At the time neither one of them could have known that they would make qui tam history. Totten contacted McKnight because he believed he was terminated as a result of his whistle-blowing activities at Amtrak. Upon hearing the details of Totten’s claim, McKnight recognized the potential for a fraud case, and the two were on their way to filing one of the most famous qui tam cases. On March 16, 1998, Totten filed a suit under the False Claims Act against contractors Bombardier Corporation and Envirovac Inc., which supplied Amtrak with new toilet systems and cars for its trains. Totten’s complaint asserted that these toilets were defective and endangered the health of Amtrak’s passengers and employees; yet the contractors delivered the cars anyway to obtain payment under their contracts. Totten’s case is representative of the kind of fraud McKnight, currently a partner at Sanford Heisler Kimpel LLP in Washington, D.C., has dedicated his legal career to exposing. “That was my first fraud case,” McKnight recalls. “We fought to the U.S. Court of Appeals and back again.” While he lost the case in court, Congress eventually sided with McKnight in 2009 when it passed legisla-

22  D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R   SEP.OCT.2015  MCCA.COM

tion specifically reversing the Totten decision. McKnight said, “Sometimes in the fraud world, it takes many years to right a wrong. “The federal government is the biggest customer on the planet,” he continues. “Anything that anyone buys, the federal government buys as well and more of it than anybody else, which means there’s tremendous opportunity for fraud.” That’s not to say that qui tam has a high profile. Many people, both in and out of the legal profession, are unfamiliar with this area of the law. Few attorneys, and even fewer African-Americans, specialize in this niche practice. Altomease R. Kennedy, also a partner at Sanford Heisler, is among those few. She and McKnight were colleagues at Ashcraft & Gerel before co-founding their own firm, McKnight and Kennedy, in 2009. “The more the public hears about successful cases, the more whistleblowers will step forward,” she says.

the Whistle cases was that a lot of courts had not seen a lot of FCA cases,” he says. “In addition to pursuing litigation in the traditional ways, you had to convince them that the FCA often fits the exception rather than the rule.” While this and other challenges remain, all three attorneys are committed to this practice area and hope others will embrace it as well..

A Well-Kept Secret

SHUT

T E RS

TO C K

“The greatest challenge is educating people about this practice area so that clients will come to you,” she continues. “When cases get publicity, more people take notice.” Earlier in his work on qui tam cases, Ross Brooks, who co-chairs the whistleblower practice at Sanford Heisler with McKnight, also found it necessary to familiarize courts with FCA. “One of the biggest challenges during the earlier part of my work on these

“This practice seems to be a well-kept secret,” Kennedy says. “Average American citizens are not aware of the statute and their right to participate and help end fraud. That’s my greatest frustration.” One of her goals it to let more people know how they can be of greater assistance to their government and themselves. “Qui tam cases recover money for all of us,” Kennedy notes. “It’s taxpayer money.” In particular, she would like to see more African-American whistleblowers come forward. When Kennedy and McKnight graduated from Georgetown University Law Center and University of Pennsylvania Law School, respectively, in the 1970s, qui tam wasn’t even an established area of the law. “Now at least everyone has heard about it,” McKnight says. “[Then] people looked at me like I was a Martian.” “It really wasn’t prevalent when I was studying in law school,” says Ross, who graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1997. “I was able to become involved and focus my practice at a time where there was a resurgence of interest in FCA,” he continues. “When I started working on these cases in 2006-2007, we had some successes. I was MCCA.COM  SEP.OCT.2015  D I V E R S I T Y

& T H E B A R   23

BLOWING THE WHISTLE

able to develop a name for myself by working in this area when it was less crowded.” David Williams, an attorney at Philadelphia-based Kline and Specter, had a similar experience. “It was a matter of being in the right place at the right time,” Williams says. “In 2010-2011, I was tasked to help a partner expand the firm’s whistleblower practice. I enjoy working in a niche area, and I am proud to seek redress for our clients, people who pointed out wrongdoing, often at great personal cost.” It’s those people, the whistleblowers, who will contribute most to the growth of this practice area. “Clients teach me a whole lot,” McKnight says. “Every week a potential whistleblower educates me about some arcane reg. “This area of the law is very young,” he continues. “It’s expanding and developing very quickly. That’s a great place to be.”

Few and Far Between

Even for the initiated, identifying appropriate qui tam cases is a detailed and complex process. The U.S. Department of Justice has reported a steady increase in qui tam suits, which rose from 30 in 1987, to 300 to 400 a year from 2000 to 2009, to more than 700 for each of the last two fiscal years. Still, qui tam attorneys meet with many more potential clients than they’ll actually represent. “We’re contacted by many people every day who have some information about some type of fraud on the government, but few of them have enough knowledge or evidence to file a potentially successful qui tam case,” Williams says. “Case selection is critical, and we’re highly selective. We pursue less than 1 percent of the cases brought to us. “We’re looking for the best cases to bring,” he continues. “Qui tam is a minefield for the unwary. Sometimes people come to you having participated in the fraud at some level, almost always at the direction of a superior and just to keep their jobs. Those individuals may have personal exposure and need to be guided carefully. ” “Each time someone calls you to report potential fraud, it involves analysis and a detailed investigation that could take you anywhere,” McKnight says. “We must vet cases properly. “At any given time, you’re interviewing multiple people,” he continues, “and turning down lots of them who don’t have evidence needed to support a qui tam case.” “We have to evaluate our cases very carefully to determine if we have a reasonable probability of success based on the evidence clients bring forward,” Kennedy offers. “These are very intricate frauds that companies are

24  D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R   SEP.OCT.2015  MCCA.COM

using to pull the wool over the government’s eyes,” Ross says. “We have to present cases that speak to the government’s interest enough for them to investigate.” According to the Department of Justice, in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2014, nearly $3 billion in settlements and judgments were related to lawsuits filed under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act. Further, during the same period, the government paid $435 million in settlements to individuals who exposed fraud and false claims by filing qui tam complaints. By the same token, as stated in a 2012 DOJ memorandum, “fewer than 25 percent of filed qui tam actions result in an intervention on any count by the Department of Justice.” However, increasingly cases are moving forward without DOJ intervention. “It doesn’t mean the case doesn’t have value if DOJ doesn’t intervene,” Kennedy says. “We can bring cases individually on behalf of the government. DOJ doesn’t have the manpower so they cherry-pick cases.” “You’re going to see more cases that the government declined move forward in litigation,” Williams agrees. “There have been a number of significant recent settlements where the cases were litigated by private qui tam attorneys after the DOJ declined to intervene.”

The Appeal of Qui Tam

So what drives this small group of attorneys to keep moving forward despite the risks of focusing their attention on cases that will likely be lengthy and labor intensive? For many, the appeal of qui tam comes down to public service. “This practice is rewarding because it’s doing the public good,” McKnight says. “When you uncover bribery, fraud or contract steering, you’ve performed a public service.” Kennedy became a lawyer because she was interested in social justice issues. “I came of age during a time of great social change,” she says. “I realized that there was another way of approaching social justice litigation. “It angers me that some purse snatcher goes to jail while doctors and corporations steal millions of dollars and nothing happens to them,” she continues. Similarly, Ross saw qui tam as means for pursuing his passion for government service. “I was a government major in college and had planned to work in public policy,” he says. “Then I decided to go to law school. Ultimately, I found my way to the plaintiff’s bar and was back where I originally wanted to be.” A graduate of West Point who served in Iraq, Bosnia and Germany, Williams was attracted to qui tam for

T

TAKING A STAND ON SECURITIES FRAUD

he overall number of AfricanAmerican attorneys who focus their practices on uncovering fraud committed against government entities is small, and within this group there is further specialization. Even so, this group is quite supportive of one another’s efforts. For example, Jordan A. Thomas, a partner at Labaton Sucharow in New York City, does not do traditional False Claims Act work. Yet, he wasn’t surprised that Vincent McKnight suggested contacting him for his perspective on the current legal environment for whistleblowers and the attorneys who represent them. “The whistleblower bar is very collegial,” Thomas says. “There’s no shortage of wrongdoing. The challenge is the selection of cases. We all have enough business.” Since leaving the Securities Exchange Commission, Thomas has focused his practice on investigating and prosecuting securities fraud on behalf of whistleblowers and institutional clients. In his role as chair of the firm’s whistleblower representation practice, he advocates for whistleblowers all over the world that have come forward with information about possible violations of the federal securities laws. Thomas views his current practice as an extension of the work he did at both the

SEC and the Department of Justice. “While at the SEC, I was tasked with assessing the viability of an SEC whistleblower program,” he says. The SEC whistleblower program went into effect in 2010 when President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act into law. “After the law was passed, I saw a rare opportunity to be a pioneer in a new area of law,” Thomas says. He describes himself as “a long-time public servant who only left the government when he saw an opportunity in private practice to do similar work and leverage his prior experience at both the SEC and DOJ.” According to Thomas, Labaton Sucharow was the first law firm to establish a national practice exclusively dedicated to representing SEC whistleblowers. “Never underestimate the power of being right,” Thomas says of his commitment to representing whistleblowers. “I’ve always related to the underdog, and corporate whistleblowers are classic underdogs. “They have limited power and resources, but they have the truth,” he continues. “I like that I can help to even the playing field and protect them in a fight against powerful adversaries.” At the same, Thomas acknowledges that

similar reasons. “With my military background, I liked the public service aspect of practicing in this area,” he says. “At least 70 percent of the funds recovered as a result of the actions we bring go back to the U.S. Treasury.” Given qui tam’s significant appeal to those attorneys interested in public service, why aren’t more African-­ Americans practicing in this area? Theories abound. To begin with, African-Americans make up only about 5 percent of the bar nationally, according to McKnight, who says “the fraud bar mirrors this national trend.” Williams concurs, but adds, “I don’t think enough African-American law students are being told about working for a plaintiff’s firm. We need to make them aware of other options. I would like to see more A ­ frican-Americans taking jobs outside of big law. Working at a U.S. attorney’s office or for the DOJ, for example, provides exposure to qui tam cases.”

it’s not always easy, glamorous or lucrative to be a corporate whistleblower. “I advise clients of the real risks and rewards of coming forward,” he says. “Once they make an informed decision about coming forward, our job is to develop a case that will be investigated and successfully prosecuted by the legal authorities.” Thomas believes the perception of whistleblowers continues to improve. “They used to be seen as ‘rats,’” he says, “but increasingly the public and law enforcement authorities have embraced whistleblowers.” Given the early success of the SEC whistleblower program and cases brought under the False Claims Act, momentum is generally increasing in this area of the law. However, few attorneys practice it as a specialization. Thomas attributes this to lack of awareness of the SEC program, and the length of the time devoted to these kinds of cases. “These types of cases require a longterm investment,” he says. “Many attorneys don’t have the luxury of working in such longterm windows.” As for Thomas, he’s right where he wants to be: “I love what I do. I can’t imagine doing anything else. It’s a very satisfying professional path.”

Ross tends to agree with this assessment. “It wouldn’t occur to many African-American lawyers interested in public justice that a qui tam case could further that cause or be consistent with their interest in public policy,” he says. As more people become aware of qui tam, and perhaps broaden their view of public service, there will be no shortage of potential cases to pursue. “Every year we’re more successful in exposing fraud,” McKnight says, “but we’ve got a long way to go to get it under control. “It’s growing and will continue to grow,” he continues. “It will be here for the rest of the time that I’m practicing law.” ■ APRYL MOTLEY (apryl.motley27@gmail.com) is communications consultant based in Columbia, Md.

MCCA.COM  SEP.OCT.2015  D I V E R S I T Y

& T H E B A R   25

RETREATS for DIVERSE LAWYERS

R

By Patrick Folliard

RETREATS FOR DIVERSE ATTORNEYS AREN’T NEW. But in recent years they have grown in scope, size and inclusion. Once an afternoon seminar strictly for minorities, the diversity retreat has matured into something longer, bigger and more all-encompassing. Following are thoughts on retreats from some of the people who make them happen. Jeremiah “Jerry” DeBerry is director of diversity and inclusion for Mayer Brown. A former private equity partner who now focuses solely on diversity, he sees the retreat as a key part of a broader mission to create and maintain a supportive and inclusive environment where all of the firm’s attorneys, regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender or gender identity, have equal access to opportunities needed to reach their full potential. In the spring, Mayer Brown’s diversity retreat took place over three days at the Four Seasons Hotel Chicago. “A retreat is designed to give attorneys the tools needed to succeed and more importantly to bring diverse attorneys together to be supportive of one another and their careers. But it’s also very important to include majority attorneys. If our diversity and inclusion initiatives are to be successful long term, it’s going to

26  D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R   SEP.OCT.2015  MCCA.COM

take all of us, not just diverse attorneys, but diverse attorneys working with those in power, who tend to be straight white males.” Throughout the retreat, speakers, panelists and award recipients included both minority and majority attorneys drawn from within and outside the firm. It was a time for diverse attorneys to learn more about the business of the profession and to become better acquainted with colleagues and firm leaders, including firm Chairman Paul Theiss, who attended parts of the program. But some of the retreat time is reserved exclusively for diverse attorneys. “While we don’t want the retreat to be a gripe session,” says DeBerry, “it’s important to give both diverse associates and diverse partners a place to talk freely about what they’re experiencing at the firm.”

ISTOCK

Quinncy McNeal

Jeremiah “Jerry” DeBerry

Nolan Atkinson

Erin Gladney

Brent Clinkscale

Catherine Mohan

Erin Gladney, a minority partner and co-chair of the Mayer Brown Black Lawyers Association, an affinity group in the firm’s New York office, says, “Jerry has taken the retreat to a new level. Everyone was encouraged to attend. A lot of times associates are concerned about being away from their groups and their work for retreats, but for our March retreat the partners really made an effort to encourage everyone to attend, and both associates and partners took advantage of this opportunity. “It’s exciting to meet other diversity attorneys from other offices,” she adds. “The March retreat was a great opportunity for internal networking. My practice area is tax controversy, and I met a lot of people who handle various employment issues for global relocation business, which is a growing area. Down the road if someone has a question about a tax issue I think they will be more likely to reach out to me because they know me in a personal way beyond my Internet bio.” Quinncy McNeal, a fifth-year associate in Mayer Brown’s Houston office, where he’s a member of the Associate Diversity Council, says, “My favorite part of the retreat was a session for associates that featured a panel of lawyers in general

counsel offices from large domestic and international corporations. “I’m a litigator. And GCs are the clients I work with, the clients whose burdens I proudly shoulder. In Chicago, these lawyers talked about what it takes to become a trusted advisor and adjunct arm of their businesses. They conveyed to us what they wanted from us and in turn what we needed to know to succeed in the profession.” Mayer Brown’s retreat included a wide swath of diverse attorneys who differ in race, ethnicity, gender and gender expression. “Initially, participants cliqued off with those they knew from their offices,” says McNeal, “but quickly as the retreat moved on, groups from one office would start talking to groups from other offices, and soon, everyone was engaged in a collective conversation. Fortunately, the participants were like-minded. We believe there should be a big tent in the law. We value viewpoints and expertise and were generally ready to embrace the differences within our group.” For Catherine Mohan, a majority partner at McCarter & English, the highlight of her firm’s annual diversity retreat is the open forum. It gives an opportunity for diverse attorneys to really express their needs and concerns. “During a MCCA.COM  SEP.OCT.2015  D I V E R S I T Y

& T H E B A R   27

RETREATS FOR DIVERSE LAWYERS

forum several years ago, one of our associates expressed that as a minority associate in a really large practice group, having a mentor wasn’t enough,” explains Mohan, who is based in the firm’s Hartford, Conn, office. “All young attorneys need someone looking out for them, someone who can show them the ropes. They need for the firm to like them and want them to be successful. With these things in mind, we developed our sponsorship program.” As sponsors, majority partners are assigned diverse associates with whom they will work directly with until they make partner. The sponsor’s responsibilities include making sure the associate receives opportunities and is assigned interesting work. Mohan is McCarter & English’s first female treasurer and a member of its management committee. She is also the liaison to the firm’s diversity committee, a responsibility she takes very seriously. “There is a great need out in the world for diverse lawyers, and there is a limited pool of talent. For eight years I worked directly with a minority associate who would have surely made partner at McCarter, but a huge multi-national corporation gave him an incredible opportunity, and off he went. Big companies take partners and make them general counsel, and government is also looking for diverse lawyers. Through retreats and the sponsorship program, we’re striving to keep minority attorneys at the firm.” Brent Clinkscale, a partner and diversity committee chairman in Womble Carlyle’s Greenville, S.C., office says the firm strives to make diversity a part of every retreat. “Whether it’s a retreat or workshop for partners, associates, the management committee, business litigation or the corporate group, we interweave diversity and inclusion into the program.” Earlier this year, the firm’s management committee retreat included a mini-diversity retreat led by diversity consultant Verna Myers. In March, a broader leadership meeting that included practice group leaders, office managing partners and chairs of various firm committees similarly included a mini-­diversity retreat led by Myers. And more recently at The Greenbrier in West Virginia, at a retreat for firm leaders and diversity committee members, the spotlight was shone on diversity initiatives and how best to spread them throughout the firm. Clinkscale says Womble Carlyle strives to retain more lawyers of color, make sure that women can become partners and move into leadership positions, and ensure the firm is a place where all lawyers can work comfortably and be successful. Womble Carlyle’s partnership is demonstrating that commitment by recently announcing leadership changes that include minority and female lawyer promotions: Kevin Lyn assumed the role of mechanical team leader of the Intellectual Property Practice Group; Deborah Israel was selected as the firm’s chief operating partner; and Elizabeth “Betty” Temple was elected as the firm’s first female chair-elect. Temple, a long-time Womble Carlyle Corporate and

28  D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R   SEP.OCT.2015  MCCA.COM

Securities partner, will assume the firm’s top leadership role on Jan. 1, 2016. In addition, the Human Rights Campaign has awarded Womble Carlyle a perfect score of 100 for the firm’s support of equal rights for LGBT Americans. “We work hard to engage our diverse attorneys in diversity and inclusion initiatives. We have leadership from the top that’s supportive,” he adds. “It’s important to get practice group leaders and supervising partners involved. Those are the lawyers making day-to-day transactions. They give work; they take away work. They hire; they fire.” Nolan Atkinson, a partner and chief diversity at Duane Morris, says, “Our diversity and inclusion retreats are primarily focused on diverse attorneys, but inclusion is the direction we’re going. To have true inclusion we need transparent programs that everyone can understand so we want to make sure what is done at a diversity retreat can be viewed by anyone in the firm or discussed during a panel presentation at a firm meeting.” This spring, Duane Morris’s annual two-day retreat was held in Philadelphia. It kicked off Friday afternoon with the George B. Vashon Lecture, named for an African-American who was denied entry to the Pennsylvania bar because of his color. Through Atkinson’s effort Vashon was posthumously admitted in 2010. The lecture features legal luminaries who talk about equal justice and civil rights. This year’s guest speaker was Wendell Pritchett, interim dean at University of Pennsylvania Law School. With many practice group leaders and office heads in attendance, Duane Morris’s annual retreat gives diverse attorneys the opportunity to have substantive and social conversations with firm leadership. “There is no distinction among the attendees during the meetings. You might sit next to the firm chairman or with another associate,” says Atkinson. “Participants can express themselves on various issues and get a sense of what is important in the firm. Similarly, the firm’s leadership sees what a fantastic group of diverse attorneys we have working here.” Back to Mayer Brown’s Jerry DeBerry: “Bringing attorneys from across the country to the Four Seasons in Chicago is not an inexpensive proposition. Our partners and the chairman had to be behind the retreat 100 percent, and they were. This is something we’ll do every other year.” Ultimately, says DeBerry, retreats are about arming diverse attorneys with what they need to succeed. The other part of the equation, he adds, is making sure white, straight males in the firm understand their role and responsibility in making these associates successful, too. “For the firm to succeed, we need to involve all our attorneys.” ■ PATRICK FOLLIARD (epf2810@gmail.com) is a freelance writer based in Silver Spring, Md.

NEWS YOU CAN USE

MCCA Survey News You Can Use www.mcca.com/research

Women GC Numbers Are Increasing For the fourth straight year, more than 100 women are steering the law departments of America’s highest-revenue corporations, a sign that gender diversity in such executive posts is likely sustainable. Source: MCCA’s 15th Annual General Counsel Survey

Gen Y Attorneys Plan on Shorter Stays The overwhelming majority of respondents were not planning to stay with their employer for more than five years, with higher percentages of minorities and women planning to stay less than five years. Source: Sustaining Pathways to Diversity: Workplace 2020: What Gen Y Attorneys Experience & Expect

Special Outreach for Women Attorneys Is Low Overall, only 13 percent of the responding legal departments stated they had special outreach efforts in place for attracting women attorneys, yet 54 percent of the largest departments of more than 75 attorneys have these efforts as part of their diversity plan. Source: Sustaining Pathways to Diversity: A Comprehensive Examination of Diversity Demographics, Initiatives and Policies in Corporate Legal Departments

MCCA.COM  SEP.OCT.2015  D I V E R S I T Y

& T H E B A R   29

M CC A 2 0 1 5 L I F E T I M E AC H I E V E M E N T A W A R D THE HONORABL E

Deval L. Patrick Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 2007–2015

The Lifetime Achievement Award is presented to an individual who has made significant advancements in engendering a society that fully appreciates, celebrates and recognizes the value of diversity. By Dianne Hayes

His life-changing break came “I had great teachers and other after an English teacher gave adults who paid attention,” Patrick him information about A Better said. “They helped to interpret Chance, which provides worldMilton Academy for me. They told class academic opportunities for me to decide who you are and be high-achieving students from that person all of the time. Your inner-city schools with the goal of friends will be your friends because assuming positions of leadership in they like who you are. That was a society. Through the program that’s pretty important life lesson to learn been around for more than 50 years, early on. It’s been helpful to me in students attend the nation’s leading different settings. boarding, day and public schools. “My sixth grade teacher in Gov. Deval L. Patrick Patrick was raised by a single with MCCA president and Chicago, who had a class of 30 to 40 CEO Joseph K. West. mother in his grandparents’ tenestudents, taught us greetings and ment, but what his family lacked in how to count in German and took education and financial stability, they made up us to our first Opera. It was the beginning of me for in a single-minded focus on education as the learning to imagine what it would be like to be a great equalizer. citizen of the world.” Patrick arrived at Milton Academy with a Summer breaks meant returning home and windbreaker jacket in a world of suit jackets readjusting to his environment and sometimes and neck ties. During his stay, he found mentors being teased about how much he had changed. who supported him and encouraged him to “In each case, I felt like I was straddling always be himself. different worlds and that the price of admission

30  D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R   SEP.OCT.2015  MCCA.COM

ERIC HAYNES PHOTOGRAPHY

Navigating his way from the South Side of Chicago to a new world at a prestigious boarding school in Massachusetts at the age of 14 laid the foundation for Gov. Deval L. Patrick to understand and appreciate people from all walks of life.

MCCA.COM  SEP.OCT.2015  D I V E R S I T Y

& T H E B A R   31

Gov. Patrick welcomes home the National Guard 747th MP and 211th MP Battalion on Christmas Eve.

Diane B. Patrick, former first lady of Massachusetts and co-manager of Ropes & Gray’s Boston Office.

“We were taught that you are not alone on the planet, you are a member of community, which means understanding your stake in your neighbor’s dreams, as well as your own. There are all kinds of ways to serve to make it better for those coming behind.” to one world was rejecting the other,” Patrick said. “The first time I went home from Milton Academy, my family was very excited. Then, my sister said, ‘He talks like a white boy.’ I was devastated. My grandmother saved the day by saying, ‘He speaks like an educated boy.’ There was a lot of learning how to navigate both worlds.” Those experiences strengthened his desire to make a difference, treat people fairly and find his authentic voice—even among people who didn’t look like him. He credits teachers who saw promise in him at his underfunded schools in Chicago and new ones at Milton Academy. “I had kind and loving teachers who took an interest in me. Every child needs adults like that at key times in their lives.” He is one of A Better Chance and Milton Academy’s most successful alumnus. Patrick quickly learned that success also comes with responsibility. “Between the South Side of Chicago and Milton, the common values were not just talked about but lived,” he said. “We were taught that you are not alone on the planet, you are a member of community, which means understanding your stake in your neighbor’s dreams, as well as your own. There are all kinds of ways to serve to make it better for those coming behind.”

32  D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R   SEP.OCT.2015  MCCA.COM

MCCA 2015 LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Gov. Patrick and his traveling assistant Haven Nichols ride the Green Line from Newton to Boston.

The Road to Becoming Governor

Continuing to break the mold for what might be expected for a kid from Chicago’s South Side, Patrick is the first in his family to attend college. He was admitted to Harvard College, where he received his undergraduate degree. Patrick spent a year in Africa after graduation on a Rockefeller Fellowship before studying for his law degree at Harvard Law School, where he was president of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. He graduated with a JD in 1982. He recently received an honorary LLD from Harvard. After law school, he served as a law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Los Angeles, as a staff attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund working on voting rights and death-penalty cases, and then as a partner at two Boston law firms. Patrick was also a senior executive at Texaco and Coca-Cola. He was the first chair of Texaco’s Equality and Fairness Task Force. In 1994, President Clinton appointed Patrick to the nation’s top civil rights post, assistant attorney general for civil rights. In that role, he led the Justice Department’s efforts in such areas as prosecuting hate crimes and enforcing laws on employment discrimination, fair lending and rights for the disabled. After launching a broad-based grassroots campaign in 2006, in his first bid for public office, he was elected as Massachusetts’s first African-American governor— and only the second who was elected nationwide. He took his oath of office on Jan. 4, 2007, with his hand on the Mende Bible, presented to John Quincy Adams by freed Africans from the slave ship Amistad. During his two terms as governor, Patrick, 58, oversaw the expansion of affordable health care to more than 98 percent of state residents, launched initiatives stimulating clean energy and biotechnology, won a national Race to the Top grant and steered the state out of recession to a 25-year high in employment. His first months in office were not without some challenges,

after his administration faced criticism over staffing and personal spending. However, his administration is credited as one of the most productive in decades. He is a Rockefeller Fellow, a Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute and the author of two books, “A Reason to Believe: Lessons from an Improbable Life” and “Faith in the Dream: A Call to the Nation to Reclaim American Values.” Consistent with his emphasis on generational responsibility, Patrick’s leadership as governor featured strong support for Massachusetts public education at all levels and the vigorous growth of the life sciences, clean technology, and digital technology industries, collaborating with government, universities and the private sector. “I am a great believer in the importance of education,” Patrick said. “I am proud of the fact that Massachusetts students consistently ranked at or near the top in the world in math and science. We moved funding for public higher education back up to the level necessary to avoid tuition hikes for students. We worked with the MCCA.COM  SEP.OCT.2015  D I V E R S I T Y

Gov. Patrick reads to the students at Match Community Day School in Jamaica Plain.

& T H E B A R   33

MCCA 2015 LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Gov. Patrick toured Island Creek Oysters in Duxbury and helped longtime employee Andy Puopolo.

community colleges to become an efficient resource for business training for people who were displaced by the recession. We saw progress in closing the achievement gap for poor children and children with special needs or those with English as their second language.” In addition to guiding Massachusetts through the global financial crisis of 2008–09 and its aftermath, Patrick pursued a wide range of priorities in such areas as economic opportunity, affordable health care, public infrastructure, government reform, veterans services and marriage equality. During his tenure, Massachusetts led the nation on these and other fronts. He also brought a steady hand to a range of crises, from natural disasters to the Boston Marathon bombings, which put him in the national spotlight. He is described as having razor-like focus and uncommon discipline. His impact will be long felt with more than 200 of the 411 judicial officers and clerk magistrates appointed by Patrick. He appointed the Supreme Judicial Court’s first African-American chief justice, its first African-American woman, first Asian-American and its first openly gay jurist.

Honoring the victims of the Boston Marathon Bombing in 2013 at a flag raising ceremony.

34  D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R   SEP.OCT.2015  MCCA.COM

Gov. Patrick with six month-old Archer Stuart Marsh of Scituate while in Dennis to announce $26.8 million federal Community Development Block Grants.

The Next Chapter

Only months out of the office, Gov. Patrick is wasting no time diving into his next venture. After a much­needed vacation, he joined Bain Capital in April, a global private investment firm. Patrick currently serves as a managing director of Bain Capital LLC, where he focuses on investments that deliver both a competitive financial return and significant positive social impact. The investments will be mainly focused in the U.S. and will leverage Bain Capital’s network of offices and relationships around the world. The business is expected to pursue investment opportunities in education, health, energy, environment and neighborhood development. “Gov. Patrick brings deep experience and superior judgment accumulated during a distinguished career in law, business and public service, and we are honored to welcome him to Bain Capital,” said Michael Ward, managing director and chief operating officer. “He has unique insights into what creates real impact and drives ultimate success with social projects in underserved communities.” A man who never tires, Patrick served as a visiting Innovation Fellow at MIT this spring, engaging with the MIT Innovation Institute community on issues at the intersection of policymaking, entrepreneurship and

innovation-based growth. He made regular appearances at campus events, including seminars with students and faculty. “Innovation is the fuel of our economy,” Patrick says. “Massachusetts’s inventors and innovators, many of whom have come out of MIT, have worked with business and government leaders to make the Commonwealth a leader in many industries. I am honored to contribute to this new initiative.” The MIT Innovation Initiative aims to enhance MIT’s “innovation infrastructure” by accelerating the process for moving basic research out of the lab and into the marketplace. He will also serve as the global ambassador for the 2024 Olympics in Boston. Gov. Patrick is also looking forward to spending more time with his wife, Diane B. Patrick, who is a co-managing partner of Ropes & Gray’s Boston office, and their children and grandchild. Patrick enjoys gardening and cooking and is a beekeeper in his spare time. “Every candidate drags his family along for the ride,” he says. “It’s time for us to get reacquainted with each other.” ■ DIANNE HAYES (hayesassociates@comcast.net) is a freelance writer/editor based in Maryland who specializes in diversity issues, education and STEM.

MCCA.COM  SEP.OCT.2015  D I V E R S I T Y

& T H E B A R   35

2015 MCCA AWARD WINNERS EMPLOYER OF CHOICE AWARD

GEORGE B. VASHON INNOVATOR AWARD

PAULA L. ETTELBRICK AWARD

36  D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R   SEP.OCT.2015  MCCA.COM

.

BY DIANNE HAYES THE MINORITY CORPORATE COUNSEL ASSOCIATION SEEKS OUT THE BEST AND MOST COMMITTED LAW FIRMS, ORGANIZATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS WHO ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN THE ADVANCEMENT

T

OF DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION IN THE LEGAL WORKFORCE.

hose selected from around the country are among the most successful at recruitment and retention, creating a bias-free environment, career development program and a path for a new generation to experience a

more equitable work environment. These honorees have put their resources behind what they believe to

help increase the number of diverse partners, to support women in their career-life balance and accelerate the learning curve through mentors and sponsors. MCCA proudly honors corporations, individuals and law firms that

have put their commitment into action. They have shown leadership and creativity in developing initiatives to address unconscious bias, mentoring, pipeline development, LGBT initiatives and supplier diversity. Our prestigious Employer of Choice Award spotlights industry leaders who are committed to and succeed at creating and maintaining inclusive corporate legal departments. They are selected from five regions of the United States. The George B. Vashon Innovator Award highlights the innovative best practices used by in-house legal departments, law firms and bar associations to assist diverse attorneys. The Paula L. Ettelbrick Award celebrates the achievements of an individual or organization in the LGBT community. MCCA honors all of its 2015 Gala winners for their diligence and passion in creating a more diverse and inclusive legal community.

MCCA.COM  SEP.OCT.2015  D I V E R S I T Y

& T H E B A R   37

2014 MCCA AWARDS EMPLOYER OF CHOICE AWARD

S

ELF-DESCRIBED as the “company of the community” reflecting the changing face of America, New York Life Insurance Company’s leadership promotes an inclusive environment that translates to a stronger business model and better positioning to meet customer needs. Its uncompromised directive of diversity and inclusion from the top permeates throughout the company and its legal department, which includes an Office of the General Counsel Diversity Action Plan. The OGC Plan outlines specific objectives, including supplier diversity, pipeline building, unconscious bias, development and community involvement. OGC has had a formal diversity program since 2007. “New York Life’s commitment to diversity and inclusion is a fundamental strategic strength, and I’m delighted that MCCA has recognized our legal team with this outstanding honor,” says New York Life’s Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel Sheila K. Davidson. “Our view is that having professionals with a broad range of backgrounds and experience on our in-house and outside legal teams brings new viewpoints to the table, helping us deliver innovative ideas, creative solutions and superior outcomes.” On a quarterly basis Davidson and the OGC senior management team meet with the department diversity officer, Sara Badler, to review diversity performance, discuss new proposals and address concerns. Davidson also meets regularly with the legal department and attends internal and external diversity-related events. Recruitment of minority attorneys is a priority at New York Life. The legal department only retains firms that provide a diverse slate of candidates. Openings are listed with networking organizations for women and diverse attorneys, such as the Corporate Counsel Women of Color. Of the 75 attorneys in New York Life’s legal department, 12 are minority and 31 are

NORTHEAST REGION

Sheila K. Davidson

Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer & General Counsel New York Life Insurance Company (NY) women; of the managing attorneys, four are minority and six are women; and of the associates, eight are minority and 25 are women. Last year, OGC participated in the New York City Bar Diversity Fellowship Program and the Bracewell Fellowship Program, hosting a fellow from historically underrepresented groups under each program. Formal mentoring takes place through the knowledge transfer program in which all OGC attorneys participate. OGC provides an informal mentoring program for summer interns. One of New York Life’s primary diversity efforts is to retain diverse suppliers of legal services that add value to the organization. Each attorney in OGC is encouraged to refer appropriate legal matters to well-qualified attorneys at women- and minority-owned law firms and majority firms whenever possible. OGC monitors the use and retention of women and minority-owned law firms. This includes ensuring that the individual minority-owned firms are certified and that majority firms have diversity action plans in place as it relates to women and minority attorneys.

38  D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R   SEP.OCT.2015  MCCA.COM

At least semi-annually, New York Life reviews the demographic composition of OGC and annually reviews the outside counsel spend to determine total expenditures with women and minority-owned law firms and majority firms with women and minority relationship partners. OGC encourages diversity in a variety of ways, including through Diversity Committee activities and a pro bono program, participating in network groups and organizations that promote diversity, facilitating diversity training, sponsoring an enterprise-wide discussion on unconscious bias, ensuring diverse attorney participation in succession planning and leadership training and sponsoring notfor-profit events. The Legal Department has sponsored various organizations committed to diversity, including the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, Corporate Counsel Women of Color, the National LGBT Bar Association, the Counsel of Urban Professionals, National Association of Women Lawyers, New York City Paralegal Association and the Cristo Rey Program. Founded in 1845 and headquartered in New York City, New York Life Insurance Company is the largest mutual life insurance company in the country and the largest life insurers in the world. It is a Fortune® 100 company. Garnering national attention for its diversity initiatives and work environment, in addition to MCCA’s Employer of Choice Award, New York Life ranked among DiversityInc’s “Top 50 Companies for Diversity” for 2015, “Best Place to Work for LGBT Equality” with a perfect score of 100 percent on the 2015 Corporate Equality Index and “Best Company for Multicultural Women” by Working Mother magazine. In addition, this year New York Life earned Profiles in Diversity Journal’s Diversity Leader Award, given to companies that are advancing the evolution of diversity and inclusion.

2014 MCCA AWARDS EMPLOYER OF CHOICE AWARD

R

EPRESENTING the legal affairs of the

nation’s largest financial institution, Fannie Mae’s legal department continually works to overcome numerous challenges with a diverse team of attorneys committed to making the American dream a reality for homeowners all over the country. Headquartered in Washington, DC, Fannie Mae is the leading source of residential mortgage credit in the U.S. secondary market, with $3 trillion in assets. Fannie Mae’s legal department has achieved remarkable feats in a political climate of uncertainty and under new regulatory restrictions. Fannie Mae came under conservatorship in 2008 during the financial crisis, further complicating the operations of the legal department. Brian P. Brooks, executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary, oversees the legal department and government and industry relations. Brooks serves as a senior advisor to the chief executive officer and the board of directors. Brooks is a driving force behind Fannie Mae’s diversity and inclusion plans. Diversity and inclusion are embedded within Fannie Mae’s vision and values statement: “We believe that our people are our greatest competitive advantage. We are inclusive and empower our people to make important contributions to our company and the diverse communities we serve.” Fannie Mae’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion has a mission of providing strategic guidance and innovative diversity and inclusion solutions. Formal diversity efforts at Fannie Mae include the Diversity Advisory Council, comprised of senior leaders from its business groups. The Advisory Council focuses on three strategic pillars as it relates to diversity and inclusion: its workforce, workplace and culture, and its marketplace engagements of outside organizations that share its diversity and inclusion goals. Internally, the Office of Diversity Inclusion supports voluntary Employee Resource

M I D - AT L A N T I C R E G I O N

Brian P. Brooks

Executive Vice President, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary Fannie Mae (Washington, DC) Groups, which develop future leaders and increase employee engagement, with titles such as African Ancestry, Asian, Christian Salt & Light, Hispanic, Live Openly, Muslim, Women’s, Young Professionals, and Gaining and Recognizing Advanced Degrees. Its Colleague Advisory Council organizes and supports legal department efforts relating to diversity and inclusion through a dedicated subcommittee that engages both CAC and other legal department members. CAC and Fannie Mae’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion entered into a partnership with the LGBT Bar Association, providing support and resources for its upcoming Lavender Law Conference. The Corporate Equality Index gave Fannie Mae a perfect score in 2015 for its commitment to LGBT workplace equality, moving up from a 90 percent score last year. The increase reflects improvements made to transgender benefit coverage, the Live Openly Employee Resource Group and a professional development forum featuring LGBT advocate Judy Shepard. The Legal Department’s Leadership Engagement and Development Series and

CAC hosted events for attorney development last year, including a conference featuring Stephen Young, presenting his flagship product, “Micro-inequities: The Power of Small,” to the entire legal department. The program focused on how messages are sent across businesses, borders and cultures and instructed participants on how to drive rapid behavior change, incorporate the skill in routine management and measurably raise business diversity performance. In addition, LEADS invited MCCA to facilitate its Academy for Leadership and Inclusion and the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association for a lunch session at Fannie Mae, offering an industry view of diversity and inclusion practices. Fannie Mae is strengthening its legal pipeline through its law clerk program, which provides a diverse group of students with meaningful exposure to in-house practice. In 2014, the program expanded from three to five students and developed an internal SharePoint site to track the progress of assignments and increased efficiencies and communication. Since 2008, Fannie Mae’s Multifamily Legal Practice Group has partnered with Don Bosco Cristo Rey High School of the Archdiocese of Washington, Inc., sponsoring up to five students who spend a full day once a week at Fannie Mae during the school year. Through the unique workstudy program, attorneys are able to mentor students of diverse backgrounds while they earn money toward their tuition. Last year, Fannie Mae’s legal department received the Outstanding Law Department Award from the Washington Metropolitan Area Corporate Counsel Association. In addition, Diversity MBA magazine named Fannie Mae one of “America’s Top 50 Organizations for Multicultural Business Opportunities for 2015” based on volume, consistency and quality of business initiatives with multicultural suppliers and entrepreneurs.

MCCA.COM  SEP.OCT.2015  D I V E R S I T Y

& T H E B A R   39

2014 MCCA AWARDS EMPLOYER OF CHOICE AWARD

T

HE COMMITMENT to diversity and inclusion at Darden Restaurants can be traced back to founder Bill Darden, who opened his first restaurant in 1938 in Waycross, Ga., where he welcomed everyone as guests at a time when racial segregation and discrimination was rampant throughout the South. Defying the challenges of the times, he also made sure his workforce reflected the makeup of the local community. Diversity remains a core value for Darden, from its employees, suppliers and the communities it serves. Headquartered in Orlando, Fla., Darden employs more than 150,000 people, making it a global leader in hospitality with annual sales of approximately $6.3 billion. Darden owns and operates more than 1,500 Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Bahama Breeze, Seasons 52, The Capital Grille, Eddie V’s and Yard House restaurants in North America, serving more than 320 million meals annually. Last year, Darden was named to the Fortune® “100 Best Companies to Work For” list for the fourth year in a row. Darden has spelled out its commitment through its diversity statement: “Darden Restaurants recognizes the value of a business environment that embraces individual differences, including those among our guests, employees, business partners and all others in the communities in which we operate, and we are committed to creating and maintaining such an environment. This commitment is based upon the recognition and belief that diversity is critical to our ability to excel in an increasingly diverse and dynamic marketplace.” Since its beginning, Darden has embraced the business imperative of diversity, including race, ethnicity, gender, age, disability, national origin, sexual orientation and religion. Today, 42 percent of its workforce are minorities, and about

SOUTHERN REGION

Tony Morrow

Senior Vice President, Div., General Counsel Darden Restaurants (Orlando, FL) 52 percent are women, ranking above the national average in the industry. All executive officers, including the general counsel, have performance objectives to improve diversity in leadership positions and the talent pipeline. This objective is carried through to the legal department leadership. As a performance objective, it affects the bonus of each individual required to meet the objective. Darden’s legal department has a total of 14 lawyers; of those six are minority, seven are women and one is LGBT. Among the 10 associates, four are minority and five are women; and among the three managing attorneys, one is minority, one is a woman and one is LGBT. The general counsel participates in diversity forums and panels externally and supports its six Employee Resource Groups as key enablers for its diversity goals, which provide opportunities to grow, network, enhance leadership skills and help employees to feel welcome. Each network is supported by an Executive Advisory Committee made up of

40  D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R   SEP.OCT.2015  MCCA.COM

two cross-cultural individuals at the vice president level or above. More than 40 percent of the Restaurant Support Center employees in Orlando currently participate in one or more networks. The networks include: African-American, Asian-American, The Family Network, The Hispanic Network, The Pride Alliance Network and The Women’s Network. The legal department actively hires minority interns for summer clerking opportunities and seeks diverse candidates for open positions. Darden is dedicated to providing opportunities for women and minority-owned firms and has standard requirements for diversity as it relates to dollars spent with outside counsel and vendors providing legal services, including tracking billable hours by ethnicity or gender in majority-owned law firms. It is also committed to supplier diversity, building a network of diverse suppliers who provide quality products on a timely basis at competitive prices. As a part of its commitment to diversity, Darden is engaged in activities and provides financial support to organizations, including Corporate Counsel Women of Color, Leadership Council on Legal Diversity and MCCA. Darden’s diversity efforts have not gone unnoticed. In addition to the MCCA Employer of Choice Award, it has received the Corporate Salute Award for Embracing Gender Diversity from the Women Executive Leadership; the SOAR Award for providing opportunity, advancement and recognition for female leaders, from the Women’s Foodservice Forum; the Justice for All Award, from the American Association for People with Disabilities; Top 25 Companies for Supplier Diversity, from Hispanic Business Magazine; and 40 Best Companies for Diversity, from Black Enterprise Magazine.

2014 MCCA AWARDS EMPLOYER OF CHOICE AWARD

B

MO FINANCIAL GROUP is raising the

bar for diversity and inclusion, especially as it relates to urging law firms in Canada to use hiring metrics. Leading the charge is BMO Executive Vice President and General Counsel Simon Fish, who has put firms on notice that metrics requests will influence who the legal group chooses to do business with. “The banking industry is a major employer of legal services in Canada and is in a position to move the needle in the corporate diversity space,” Fish said. “Law firms have never before been challenged in this way. This initiative will be an evolution for the industry with the goal of making a difference in the way we do business with suppliers.” Inside the BMO legal department, Fish has high standards as well. BMO Legal is focused on increasing the number of people of color in senior roles, setting a goal of 26 percent. As of last year, 56.5 percent of women in BMO Legal are in senior roles; 46.4 percent of BMO Legal senior leaders are women with direct report to the general counsel; 22.5 percent are people of color in senior roles. Established in 1817, BMO Financial Group is a diversified financial services provider based in North America. With total assets of $633 billion and more than 47,000 employees, BMO provides a broad range of retail banking, wealth management and investment banking products and services to more than 12 million customers and conducts business through three operating groups: Personal and Commercial Banking, Wealth Management and BMO Capital Markets. Canadian clients are served through BMO Bank of Montreal, BMO Nesbitt Burns and BMO Capital Markets, the North American investment and corporate banking division.

MIDWEST REGION

Simon Fish

Executive VP & General Counsel BMO Financial Group, Toronto, ON In the United States, clients are served through BMO Harris Bank, a major U.S. Midwest personal and commercial bank, and BMO Private Bank, with wealth management offices across the United States, as well as BMO Capital Markets, the North American investment and corporate banking division. When it comes to diversity efforts, Fish has been a champion of the cause, urging law firms to ensure that their teams include people from different ethnic groups, members of the LGBT community, those with different physical abilities and a balance of women and men. Fish meets with legal department leaders regularly on the diversity metrics to be achieved by 2016, and he is co-chair of BMO’s Diversity Renewal Council and chair of BMO Legal’s Diversity Council. BMO Legal’s Diversity Council is the first employee-led Diversity Council of a corporate area at BMO. The council focuses on employee engagement, talent development and community/stakeholder engagement. It engages in diversity initiatives ranging from panels, roundtables

and mentorship programs to developing programs for the retention and promotion of a diverse workforce within the group. The council also developed diversity principles and best practices, which are embedded in the Recruitment Guide and Interviewing Toolkit. They require that 25 percent of the candidates considered for a position are from a designated group, which includes ethnic minorities and people with disabilities. These requirements apply to all hiring managers, internal recruiters and talent resources, and external recruiters. To ensure the vision is clear and diversity goals are met, Fish holds quarterly town hall meetings, and diversity-­related progress is reported on twice a year. Monthly recognition is highlighted in the employee publication for involvement in diversity-related initiatives and events. Last year, BMO Legal piloted the Checks & Balances Mentorship Program, which creates a partnership between a junior to mid-level mentee and a senior level leader to aid in professional development and personal growth. The legal department participates in minority job fairs, recruits at law schools with a large percentage of minority students, sponsors events and selects minorities to play an active role in hiring of minorities and women. BMO Legal employees participate in and support a broad-base of organizations, including the Aboriginal Student Program, Asian-American Coalition, Black Law Students Association of Canada, Coalition of Women’s Initiatives in the Law, Legal Leaders for Diversity, Step Up Women’s Network, South Asian Women’s Network and Veterans Advisory Counsel.

MCCA.COM  SEP.OCT.2015  D I V E R S I T Y

& T H E B A R   41

2014 MCCA AWARDS EMPLOYER OF CHOICE AWARD

D

IVERSITY and inclusion represents

the foundation for creating a better workplace at Southern California Edison Company. The company prides itself on creating a workforce that reflects the rich diversity of central and southern California. Southern California Edison has been around for more than 125 years. As one of the nation’s largest electric utilities, it delivers electricity to 15 million people in 50,000 square miles across central, coastal and Southern California, excluding the City of Los Angeles. Senior Vice President and General Counsel Russell C. Swartz sets the tone for diversity and inclusion by reviewing goals, from hiring to supplier diversity. Swartz also supports a broad range of diversity initiatives internally and in the community. The legal department has 70 attorneys, of which 24 are minority and 42 are women. Of the seven managing attorneys who report directly to the general counsel, two are minority and four are women; it also has 71 associates, of whom 29 are minority and 42 are women. In 2013, the law department spent more than 23 percent of the total outside counsel expenditures on diverse law firms, which represents a 9 percent increase in its diverse law firm spending since 2012. Swartz reviews quarterly reports on the law firms retained by the law department indicating the percentage that are certified as a Diverse Business Enterprise by the California Public Utilities Commission. The dollars spent on DBE, as well as billable hours by women and diverse attorneys used at majority-owned law firms, is tracked on a monthly basis.

WESTERN REGION

Russell C. Swartz

Senior Vice President & General Counsel Southern California Edison Company (Rosemead, CA) Swartz believes that by increasing the use of DBE law firms, as well as retention of diverse attorneys in majority law firms, the company and the communities served all benefit from the diverse perspectives. The law department engages in community outreach by supporting numerous local bar associations, including the Korean American Bar Association of Southern California, the Puerto Rican Bar Association of California, the Mexican American Bar Foundation and the American Bar Association. Southern California Edison’s law department was involved in the creation of the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity, a national organization dedicated to increasing diversity in the legal profession. Edison attorneys continue to work with the organization by mentoring minority students through LCLD, and in 2014 and 2015, financially sponsoring 1L students through the LCLD by providing them with internship opportunities. The legal department has also sponsored four diverse in-house attorneys in LCLD’s Fellows Program. In addition, it has sponsored a minority 1L law student through the California Bar Foundation.

42  D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R   SEP.OCT.2015  MCCA.COM

For the past eight years, legal department attorneys have taught middle school students at Monterey Highlands School, which is 95 percent minority. They prepare them for mock trial competition hosted by the Constitutional Rights Foundation. The Law Department’s Diversity Committee administers one of the most ambitious Street Law programs in California. For the past several years, attorneys have visited three local, predominantly minority high schools, where attorneys teach tailored courses concerning law-based issues of interest to students. Courses have included under-age drinking, punishment of convicted criminals, the criminal justice system and equal access to education for people of color. In addition to teaching, they informally serve as role models and introduce students to career opportunities in law. The Street Law program includes an annual “Street Law Day,” where the legal department brings students from all three high schools to the company’s headquarters. Students experience a full day of substantive law classes, professional guidance and networking sessions with legal department leadership. Scholarships are also presented based on an essay competition. Last year, students received $3,000 in scholarships. Southern California Edison ranked No. 1 in Hispanic Business Magazine’s “Top 60 Best Companies for Diversity” last year based on recruitment and supplier diversity; ranked No. 2 on Diversity Inc.’s “Top 50 Companies for Diversity” based on diversity training, philanthropic endeavors toward multicultural groups; and ranked in Latina Style’s “50 Report” based on recruitment through Hispanic media and a companywide women’s task force.

2014 MCCA AWARDS GEORGE B. VASHON INNOVATOR AWARD

W

HILE THE PRACTICE OF LAW

in the energy sector is not as diverse as many other practice areas, Senior Vice President and General Counsel Darryl Bradford and his legal department are working to change that. “The energy bar has traditionally been a white male-dominated bar,” Bradford says. “There are substantial pipeline issues that need to be addressed.” Believing that the pipeline of diverse attorneys practicing in the energy sector will grow if and when more students are aware of the variety and depth of the law practice area, Exelon attorneys Divesh Gupta and Michelle Yun developed the plan to invite law students to casual presentations on energy law, Exelon’s legal work and the contributions that diversity and inclusion make to Exelon’s business strategies. The company is helping to expand the pool of future diverse lawyers, as well as including more diverse law students in programs that bring a law firm summer associate to Exelon for part of the summer. With the support of the Exelon Legal Diversity and Inclusion Committee, the existing pipeline program was tapped, currently serving summer law clerk partnerships with law firms. Each summer, Exelon Legal partners with several of its outside law firms to host law student interns for a portion of their respective summer clerkship terms. The goal of the program is to encourage diverse and diversity-focused students to think about in-house career paths and raise awareness of careers focused on the energy industry.

P I P E L I N E I N I T I AT I V E S

Darryl Bradford

Senior Vice President & General Counsel Exelon Corporation Several internships are a part of the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity’s 1L Scholars program. Last summer, Exelon Legal partnered with five law firms to host six minority law students. Law students participate in daily meetings with top executives, visit some of the company’s sites, research court dockets to keep track of federal proceedings and review regulatory issues. Exelon Legal has business hubs in Chicago, Philadelphia and Baltimore— three of the largest and most diverse U.S. cities. Gupta and Yun proposed holding presentations at law schools in each city to inform law students about the energy industry. The first program was held at Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago with a presentation titled “Diversity and the In-House Practice of Law at Exelon Corp.” Forty students attended the event and luncheon, which was sponsored by Skadden Arps.

Other presentation locations included the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law in Baltimore and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Based on the success of the three presentations, Exelon Legal is planning on engaging a larger number of law schools in the 2015 fall semester. “At Exelon, we respect and value different perspectives, backgrounds and traits because we know that diverse teams drive powerful outcomes,” Bradford says. “Accordingly, we believe that we must be diverse and inclusive in all of our relationships and partnerships with our employees, our internal clients and our outside legal service providers in order to achieve the best results for the customers and communities we serve.” Headquartered in Chicago, the Exelon family of companies participates in nearly every stage of the energy business, from generation to power sales and from transmission to delivery. Exelon has approximately $23.5 billion in annual revenues and operations, business activities in 47 states and about 30,000 employees. Exelon has made diversity and inclusion a priority. About 40 percent of the company’s lawyers are women, and a little more than 20 percent are of color. “Diversity and inclusion is important to the legal department,” Bradford says, “because it broadens our perspective, which increases the range of legal solutions we can provide to our clients; gives us credibility with our communities, stakeholders and decision-makers; and challenges us to learn, grow, adapt and advance.”

MCCA.COM  SEP.OCT.2015  D I V E R S I T Y

& T H E B A R   43

2014 MCCA AWARDS GEORGE B. VASHON INNOVATOR AWARD

I

T’S NOT EVERY DAY that one is afforded the opportunity to build a legal department with the values of a diverse and inclusive model from its origin. That’s what Corporate Vice President and Chief Legal Officer Bruce N. Hawthorne was tasked to do after Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc., spun off from Northrop Grumman Corporation and became an independent publicly traded company in 2011. Huntington Ingalls Industries is the country’s largest military shipbuilding company and a provider of manufacturing, engineering and management services to the nuclear energy, oil and gas markets. Headquartered in Newport News, Va., it designs, builds and manages the life cycle of the most complex nuclear- and conventionally powered ships for the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard. The company employs approximately 38,000 people operating domestically and internationally and has annual revenues of approximately $6.8 billion. It is the sole builder of the U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, the world’s largest warships, and one of two builders constructing nuclear-powered submarines. In conjunction with the spin-off, Hawthorne was also appointed as general counsel. He saw it as an opportunity to advance diversity and inclusion more effectively and take direct, systemic, measurable steps toward building a lasting culture of inclusion. “We believe that the hallmark of inclusion is a culture in which everyone is equally well-positioned to succeed because leadership has taken the steps required for individual initiative to flourish,” Hawthorne said. “This requires that leaders manage each of the three drivers of initiative: empowerment, transparency and knowledge.”

RECRUITMENT & RETENTION

Bruce N. Hawthorne

Corporate Vice President & Chief Legal Officer Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc. Hawthorne’s goal was to offer an innovative approach to recruitment and retention of diverse attorneys while limiting the effect of unconscious or implicit bias. With 35 years in private and in-house practice prior to joining Huntington Ingalls, Hawthorne brought with him several observations: high client satisfaction most often occurred when highly skilled lawyers address a legal problem by giving it their personal priority, energy and creativity, which requires initiative. He also observed that attorneys who are empowered to take initiative and are given the tools to provide solution-based advice as trusted advisors often feel and are more valued by their organizations, resulting in an increase in retention and opportunities for advancement. In forming the legal department, Hawthorne set out to build a culture of inclusion by fostering the initiative of each attorney to act in the best interest of the company.

44  D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R   SEP.OCT.2015  MCCA.COM

Instead of broad concepts and policies of inclusion, he instituted a trusted advisor model similar to the law firm partner model to promote attorney empowerment. He developed a peer culture to promote respect for points of view and information sharing and transparency policies to provide all attorneys with access to knowledge. Hawthorne points out three keys to help foster initiative among attorneys: Ensure each attorney is and feels empowered to take initiative on behalf of the company within their area of expertise; feels comfortable that their point of view will be valued and respected within the organization; and has the requisite knowledge to form a thoughtful point of view and provide practical solution-oriented advice to clients. To promote transparency and information sharing, Hawthorne established regular reporting from each expertise area and regular meetings of the legal team at large; encourages group discussions of current developments, overall budget visibility and outside counsel selection and management processes; and instituted performance plans for each attorney that align with the goals and values of the legal department and the entire organization. The legal department has partnered with regional law firm Kaufman & Canoles to establish a program that provides young diverse attorneys with the opportunity to work closely with Huntington Ingalls’s legal department to support their careers and bolster the pipeline of diverse attorneys. Huntington Ingalls has enjoyed a high level of retention among its attorney ranks and provides its attorneys with equal access to the empowerment, information and opportunities needed to grow and advance.

2014 MCCA AWARDS GEORGE B. VASHON INNOVATOR AWARD

W

E ALL NEED TO KNOW there is

someone in our corner rooting for us. John W. Kozyak established the Kozyak Minority Mentoring Foundation to make sure every law student has someone to cheer her on during the journey of becoming an attorney. Kozyak credits his success in the legal profession to the strong relationships he developed with his mentors. Throughout his career, the lack of diversity in the legal profession was evident. Kozyak believed that mentoring was an essential tool in addressing the need to improve diversity for all minority groups, particularly ­African-American lawyers. Growing up in a segregated community, Kozyak was in high school when the 1964 Civil Rights Legislation was implemented. He moved to Miami in 1974 for a summer clerkship without knowing anyone and was fortunate enough to be hired by two well-respected lawyers, who served as his mentors. Always a man of action, he set out to do his part in addressing the problem. He became an active mentor and in 2002, he created his own mentoring program to match minority law students with experienced lawyers and judges in the legal community. “Promoting diversity has been a passion of mine,” Kozyak says. “It’s my way of giving back.” Later, Kozyak, along with his law partner, Detra Shaw-Wilder, formed the Kozyak Minority Mentoring Foundation to strengthen and grow his efforts to use mentoring as a platform to increase diversity in the legal profession. Much of his early efforts were dedicated to providing mentors for ­African-American law students. The Foundation’s highly successful Annual Minority Mentoring Picnic provides opportunities for all minority law students.

M E N TO R I N G I N I T I AT I V E S

John W. Kozyak

The Kozyak Minority Mentoring Foundation Foundation Founder & Managing Director Founder of Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton, PA The mentoring picnic is the foundation’s premier annual event, offering a free outing for students to meet people in the legal profession that they may not ordinarily have an opportunity to network and socialize with. The picnic has grown exponentially each year and is well attended by many judges, established lawyers and law students from every school in Florida. Every student, lawyer and judge who attends the picnic has an opportunity to find a mentor or mentee. Participants receive “Need Mentor” and “Need Mentee” badges, and the Foundation team helps to make introductions. Mentees and mentors are allowed to bring their families to enjoy rock climbing walls, ring toss and other games, face painting, volleyball tournaments and a dedicated sports area. Students are entertained with a DJ, who introduces lawyers and judges.

The mentoring opportunities represent a low-cost, high-impact program with many success stories and are loosely modeled after the Big Brothers, Big Sisters program, which Kozyak was a mentor at while in college and as a young lawyer. Participants enjoy food representing different cultures, including Jamaican jerk chicken, Haitian curry goat, lamb with pita, Cuban paella and arroz con pollo, and roasted pigs cooked at the picnic by Ray Abadin, president of the Florida Bar and former Cuban American Bar Association president. The Foundation has close ties to the Cuban American Bar Association, the Florida Association of Women Lawyers, Haitian Lawyers, Caribbean Lawyers Association, the Gay & Lesbian Lawyers Association, Florida Muslim Lawyers, the National Hispanic Bar Association and many other voluntary bar associations. “This is much needed in Miami,” Kozyak said. “To get 4,000 people to show up who support diversity at one picnic is phenomenal. People come out to eat and drink and try to do the right thing for the right reason. It’s fun and doesn’t take a lot of time to do. Two hours a month to help a kid get through law school is not hard and is extremely rewarding.” Kozyak has also started a minority mentoring program for African-American law students at his alma mater, Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. Mentors are established lawyers or judges who wish to provide inspiration and direction to minority law students. Their guidance is aimed at helping students succeed in law school and gain a good start in the legal profession.

MCCA.COM  SEP.OCT.2015  D I V E R S I T Y

& T H E B A R   45

2014 MCCA AWARDS PAULA L. ETTELBRICK AWARD

F

OR TODD SEARS, sustainable equality for the LGBT community requires education and training, but most importantly, an impact on the corporate bottom line. He gained Merrill Lynch’s attention after generating more than $1.5 billion in LGBT assets while working as a first-quintile financial advisor. While there, he created the first private banking team to focus on the LGBT community. Sears later led the firm’s diversity strategy, before moving to Credit Suisse as head of Diversity & Inclusion Americas. He began his career as an investment banker at Schroders and DeSilva & Phillips. Sears is the founder and principal of Out Leadership, a consultancy, networking and leadership group designed to engage senior leaders through innovative initiatives to leverage LGBT opportunities across a broad range of industries. The organization’s initiatives include Out on the Street, Out in Law, and Quorum, an effort to increase the representation of LGBT people on corporate boards. Out on the Street is the inaugural initiative of Out Leadership. It was initially hosted in New York in 2011 by Deutsche Bank with six founding member firms. Today, Out Leadership counts 61 of the world’s leading companies as members. More than 70 percent of Out on the Street summit attendees are at the director level or higher in their organizations, and more than 80 CEOs have spoken at Out Leadership’s summits. The global initiatives were created to impact business results, increase visibility, develop talent and drive equality. In 2013, Out Leadership introduced Out in Law, the first LGBT leadership organization for and by the legal profession. It engages senior leaders, including LGBT people and their straight allies, across top national and international law firms, client companies and the nonprofit sector on important issues such as cul-

Todd Sears

Founder, Out Leadership The Paula L. Ettelbrick Award celebrates unparalleled achievement by an individual or an organization in advancing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender attorneys.

tural change, recruitment, client development and business relationships, as well as ways to maximize business impact through LGBT inclusion. Each initiative includes annual summits and cutting-edge programming, which offers unique opportunities for cross-industry collaboration. Out Leadership also operates OutNEXT, an initiative dedicated to cultivating the next generation of LGBT talent. It hosted its first global summit hosted by Barclays in New York this summer. Law firms, banking and financial services rank among the friendliest industries for LGBT employees, according to the Corporate Equality Index, an annual report by the advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign. Sears resists being called an activist; he considers himself to be more of a social entrepreneur.

46  D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R   SEP.OCT.2015  MCCA.COM

“My philosophy is that in order to get corporations engaged, it requires having a business proposition,” Sears says. “If you have a proposition that is sustainable, corporations will engage. They aren’t not-for-profit or charitable entities. If we can find a way to align their business interests with equality, we can move things forward. “People often make the mistake of placing all of their diversity issues in Human Resources,” he says. “Change occurs from the top.” Sears is a graduate of Duke University and an active philanthropist and community leader. He is the founding co-chair of Jeffrey Fashion Cares, a fundraiser supporting LGBT civil rights, youth and HIV/ AIDS treatment and prevention, which has applied an innovative cost-structure to raise millions of dollars. He is a senior advisor to Christopher Street Financial. Sears also serves on the nonprofit boards of The Williams Institute of UCLA, The Palette Fund and Lambda Legal. In 2014, he received Aid for AIDS International’s My Hero Award. “My ultimate goal is to get every corporation focused on how they can engage with the LGBT community and develop LGBT talent,” Sears says. “There are still 78 countries where it is illegal to be gay. We want to gain support from senior leaders to be a part of making change in other countries. “What I find is that in doing any of our work, when you take it out of the religious and cultural perspective and leave it squarely in the business context, equality is simply good business.” ■ DIANNE HAYES (hayesassociates@comcast.net) is a freelance editor/writer based in Maryland who specializes in diversity issues, education and STEM.

Get involved. Stay fluent in industry trends. Join MCCA Today. The Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA) is the premier source of learning, knowledge and future-oriented research on diversity and inclusion for the in-house legal profession. We provide resources, education, ideas and networking to enhance the power and performance of this community. Since 1997, MCCA in-house legal department members have been committed to diversity and inclusion. Not in-house counsel? MCCA has the Law Firm Affiliate Network (FAN) to support and acknowledge law firms that are committed to advancing diversity and inclusion in the legal profession. If you are interested in joining a dynamic group of legal professionals committed to diversity and inclusion, visit www.mcca.com/membership for details or call 202.739.5901.

1111 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20004

A Judge Gives Back through Mentoring By Jonathan Groner

AS A JUDGE of the Virginia Court of Appeals, the state’s intermediate appellate court, Rossie David Alston Jr. participates in rulings on a wide variety of criminal and civil cases. But ever since he was named to that court in 2009 and for many years before, Alston has also been known for another, much more informal role. He has been an adviser and mentor extraordinaire to dozens of Virginia lawyers, many of them members of minority groups. Alston eagerly embraces that characterization. “I apply the principle of giving back,” he says. “A lot of people have been very generous to me with their time and energy, and when you are blessed, the right thing to do is to give back and reach back.” Alston, 57, points out that when he graduated from the North Carolina Central University School of Law in 1982, there were few minority lawyers in Virginia. “When I started out, I received assistance,” he recalls. “So I pledged to pave the way for others who would follow me.” Alston says he helps younger lawyers both formally, by speaking at bar groups and conventions, and informally, by making it known that he is always available to

receive a phone call from a younger attorney who may have a question or two. “I encourage lawyers, both minority and nonminority, to pick up the phone and call me. I give them advice to enhance their careers. I tell them things they need to know in order to practice law,” Alston says. Alston says he probably receives three or four phone calls a week from young lawyers seeking advice or mentoring. “One of the things I always tell minority lawyers,” Alston says, “is that you can’t be successful as a minority lawyer unless you have good relations with the majority bar.” Alston says he frequently reaches out to lawyers

ISTOCK

Alston has served as a high school football official in his state for 25 years under the “Friday night lights,” and he sees his officiating as yet another opportunity to give back to his community. In 2010, Alston wrote in an article in a Virginia State Bar publication: “Sometimes we lawyers and judges tend to forget how important it is to be a part of the community in which we work and live. For me, being a part of my community is critical, in my humble opinion, to aid in enhancing the public perception of our profession. My involvement in football officiating, in my adult softball league and in my church gives me the opportunity to let the folks in my community know that the concept of ‘community’ is so very important to me and many others in the legal profession.” Pia Miller, now a senior associate at Livesay & Myers in Manassas, Va., was one of the many attorneys Alston mentored and assisted. and bar groups, primarily in Northern Virginia and in Richmond. His court sits in four cities—Richmond, Chesapeake, Alexandria and Salem—and Alston, who formerly sat on the Circuit Court of Prince William County in Northern Virginia, still lives in that part of the state. “When I see a young lawyer, I make sure to give him or her a call,” Alston says. “And I look for bar groups as well. There’s a group of black female lawyers who meet once a month in Manassas, and they’ve asked me to come and speak to them, for example.”

Judge Alston’s Five Tips for Lawyers 1. A reputation takes a lifetime to build and a fraction of a second to lose. 2. Remember that each case is the most important case to that one person who owns the case: your client. 3. Remember how hard you worked to have the privilege to be called a lawyer. 4. Being a lawyer places you in a special class of individuals who have the privilege of advancing the cause of justice. 5. Always do your best; someone’s life or circumstances will likely depend on it.

“One of the things I always tell minority lawyers,” Alston says, “is that you can’t be successful as a minority lawyer unless you have good relations with the majority bar.” “When I met him,” Miller recalls, “it was 2007 and I had just finished law school. I served as a law clerk on Judge Alston’s court for another judge. I was the only law clerk of color. Judge Alston took a professional interest in me and made sure I was doing well. He also made sure that I got involved in the Northern Virginia Black Attorneys Association. He added me to the list of attendees and told me, ‘You’re going.’ I’ve now been involved in that group for eight years. He’s brilliant, totally honest and very humble.” Another attorney who has a similar story to tell about Alston is Jane Reynolds of the Law Offices of J.M. Reynolds PLLC, in Woodbridge, Va. “I once told him I was interested in serving on the electoral board of Prince William County, and when any of us younger lawyers in the county want to do anything, we look to him for advice. I’m pretty sure that Judge Alston made some calls, and all of a sudden I get some phone calls, and I am now vice chair of the electoral board.” ■ JONATHAN GRONER (jonathangroner@gmail.com) is a freelance writer in Washington, D.C. and a former managing editor of Legal Times.

MCCA.COM  SEP.OCT.2015  D I V E R S I T Y

& T H E B A R   49

MOVERS & SHAKERS CATHERINE MUNSON

Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton has named Catherine Munson the new managing partner of the firm’s Washington, D.C., office. Munson is the first woman to lead the D.C. office. She is co-leader of Kilpatrick Townsend’s Native American Affairs practice. She has more than 15 years of litigation experience, representing tribal clients in high-profile and complex cases before the Court of Federal Claims, federal district courts, federal appellate courts, the United States Supreme Court and administrative agencies. Munson also advises tribal and business entities on a variety of matters, including water litigation, water leasing, code drafting, occupational health and safety, tax and sovereign immunity. Munson was awarded the Managing Partner Pro Bono award for her work on behalf of a tribe in southern New Mexico. She was recognized as a 2013 Washington, D.C., “Rising Star” in the area of general litigation by Super Lawyers magazine. Munson earned her JD from Emory University School of Law, with honors, and her BA from Vanderbilt University, cum laude.

50  D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R   SEP.OCT.2015  MCCA.COM

JOSEPH M. KUO Arnstein & Lehr LLP

Arnstein & Lehr LLP welcomes Joseph M. Kuo to its Chicago office as a partner in the Intellectual Property Group. Kuo has a wide range of experience in intellectual property law and has extensive litigation experience in the federal courts at both the trial and appellate levels. He counsels clients of all sizes with respect to patents, trademarks, unfair competition, copyrights, false advertising and trade secrets. He earned his JD from Tulane University of Louisiana and his BS from Northwestern University. Kuo is admitted to practice in Illinois and is registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

MOVERS & SHAKERS

ERNEST A. TUCKETT III AkzoNobel

AkzoNobel appointed Ernest A. Tuckett III as general counsel Americas earlier this year. As general counsel Americas, Tuckett is chief legal officer for AkzoNobel’s operations in North and South America; he leads the legal teams on both continents. He is a member of AkzoNobel’s Americas corporate management teams and serves as the corporate secretary in the Americas. Tuckett began his legal career with Arent Fox in Washington, D.C., where he spent 10 years as a litigator and employment lawyer. He then worked nine years with the DuPont Company, first as labor and employment counsel, then as commercial counsel to DuPont’s global crop protection business and then as general counsel of DuPont Canada from 2012 to 2014. Tuckett earned a BA in government from Georgetown University and a JD from Georgetown University Law Center. He is a native of the Bronx, NY. He serves on the board of directors of the Association of Corporate Counsel and on the board of directors of Street Law Inc.

ANTHONY M. SHARETT BakerHostetler

BakerHostetler announced that complex commercial litigator Anthony M. Sharett has joined the firm as a partner in the Litigation Group, resident in the Columbus, Ohio, office. Sharett is a former attorney-examiner with the Ohio Department of Commerce, Division of Financial Institutions, where he regulated the banking, mortgage, small loan and credit union industries. He comes to BakerHostetler from Bricker & Eckler LLP. Sharett serves as counsel to the Ohio Mortgage Bankers Association and is a frequent speaker and presenter nationally on emerging issues related to state and federal regulations that impact the consumer finance industry. He earned his JD from The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, where he was a legal extern for the Ohio Department of Commerce, Legislative Services, and a national finalist on the Intellectual Property Moot Court Team. Sharett received his BS in political science from Ball State University, and he studied at Westminster College, Oxford, England, through the Honors College. Sharett serves on the African-American Advisory Council for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Ohio and is a member of the Key Club Steering Committee and Advisory Counsel for United Way of Central Ohio.

MCCA.COM  SEP.OCT.2015  D I V E R S I T Y

& T H E B A R   51

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

Dignity Health

AARP

Dow Corning Corporation

Abercrombie & Fitch

Duke Energy Corporation

AbstoneLalley, Inc.

DuPont Company

Accenture LLP

Eaton Corporation

AECOM

Eli Lilly & Company

Allstate Insurance Company

Emergent BioSolutions

Altria Client Services

Entergy Corporation

American Airlines

Estée Lauder Companies Inc.

American Express Company

Exelon Business Services Company

Anthem, Inc.

Fannie Mae

AON Corporation

Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh

AT&T Corporation Avis Budget Group

Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco

Bechtel Corporation

Flagstar Bank

Becton, Dickinson and Company

Flextronics

BNY Mellon

Freddie Mac

Booz Allen Hamilton

Fujitec America, Inc.

BP America Inc.

Gap Inc.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company

Genentech, Inc

CALIBR, global leadership network

General Electric Company

Capital Legal Solutions, LLC

General Mills

Capital One Financial Corporation

GlaxoSmithKline

Cargill Inc.

Goldman Sachs & Co.

Carter’s, Inc.

Google Inc.

Catalent Pharma Solutions

Graduate Management Admission Council

CBS Corporation CH2M Hill Chevron Corporation Choice Hotels International, Inc. CIGNA Corporation CITGO Petroleum Corporation Colgate-Palmolive Company Compass Group, The Americas ConAgra Foods, Inc. ConocoPhillips Cox Communications Inc. Crawford & Company Darden Restaurants, Inc. DC Water and Sewer Authority Deere & Company

Halliburton Company Herbert L. Jamison & Co. LLC [Jamison Insurance Group] Hewlett-Packard Company H.J. Russell & Company Honda North America, Inc. Honeywell International HSBC Bank USA Huntington Ingalls Industries IBM Corporation Ingersoll-Rand PLC Intel Corporation International Paper Company J.P. Morgan Chase Bank NA

Dell Inc.

JC Penney Company, Inc.

Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation

JetBlue Airways Corporation JM Family Enterprises, Inc.

DHL America

Johnson & Johnson

Diageo North America, Inc.

Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc.

KeyCorp Law School Admission Council Leading Educators Leidos - [Formerly SAIC] Leo Burnett Company, Inc. Liberty Mutual Insurance Company Lifelock, Inc. LifeVantage Corporation Liquidity Services, Inc. Macy’s Inc. MAHLE Industries, Incorporated ManpowerGroup Marriott International, Inc. MassMutual Financial Group McDonald’s Corporation Medifast, Inc. Merck & Co., Inc. MetLife Inc. Microsoft Corporation MillerCoors Mondelez International Morehouse College Morgan Stanley Nabholz Construction Services National Grid Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company Navistar, Inc. Neighborhood Defender Service New York Life Insurance Company Newegg Inc. NFM, Inc. NORCAL Mutual Insurance Company Northrop Grumman Corporation Nuclear Electric Insurance Limited Office Depot, Inc. Pacific Gas and Electric Company Pearson, Inc. Pepco Holdings, Inc. PepsiCo Inc. Pfizer Inc. Pitney Bowes Inc. Porzio Life Sciences, LLC PPG Industries, Inc. PRAXAIR, Inc. Premier Media Inc. Prudential Financial

Quest Diagnostics Incorporated RBS Americas Reckitt Benckiser Inc. Rosetta Stone Inc. S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc. Sara Lee Corporation Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. Sempra Energy Shell Oil Company Siebert Brandford Shank & Co., LLC Sony Electronics Inc. Southeastern Freight Lines, Inc. Southern California Edison Company Staples, Inc. Starbucks Coffee Company Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Synopsys, Inc. Target Corporation Tessera North America, Inc. The Brookings Institution The Clorox Company The Conference Board, Inc. The Vanguard Group, Inc. The Walt Disney Company The Williams Companies, Inc. TIAA-CREF Tyson Foods, Inc. UBS Financial Services UnitedHealth Group United Parcel Service United Services Automobile Association “USAA” United Technologies Corporation U.S. Foodservice, Inc. Verizon Communications Visa Inc. VMware Inc. Walmart Stores, Inc. Waste Management Wells Fargo & Company Xcel Energy Xerox Corporation Xylem Inc. Yazaki North America Inc.

For membership information, contact David Chu, MCCA’s Vice President of Membership & Development, at 202-739-5906 or membership@mcca.com. 52  D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R   SEP.OCT.2015  MCCA.COM

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

Alchemy-Partners, PC Alexander & Associates Alvarez Arrieta & Diaz-Silveira LLP Anderson Kill PC Archer & Greiner, PC Arent Fox LLP Arnstein & Lehr LLP Arrastia & Capote LLP Axiom Baldassare & Mara, LLC Berger Singerman LLP Beveridge & Diamond PC Blank Rome LLP Bond, Schoeneck & King, PLLC Bressler Amery & Ross PC Bricker & Eckler LLP Brown Law Group Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC Butler Snow LLP Calfee, Halter & Griswold LLP Cavitch, Familo & Durkin Co., LPA Cohen & Gresser LLP Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete, LLP Cooley LLP Cottrell Solensky & Semple, P.A. Courington Kiefer & Sommers LLC Cowles & Thompson PC Cozen O’Connor Crumbie Law Group LLC Davis & Gilbert LLP DeMahy, Labrador, Drake, Victor & Cabeza (DLD Lawyers) Dickstein Shapiro LLP Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP Duane Morris LLP Dunlap Codding Elliott Greenleaf Epstein Becker & Green PC Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner LLP Fish & Richardson PC Fisher & Phillips LLP Fitzpatrick Cella Harper & Scinto Florio, Perrucci, Steinhardt & Fader, LLC Forman Watkins Krutz & Tardy, LLP Gaffney Lewis & Edwards, LLC GibbsWhitwell PLLC Goldberg Segalla LLP

Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan LLP Griffith, Sadler & Sharp, P.A. Hamilton Miller & Birthisel LLP Helms & Greene LLC Hughes Roch LLP Husch Blackwell LLP Ice Miller LLP Innis Law Group LLC Jackson Lewis PC Jeffrey Samel & Partners Jones Walker LLP Kaufman Dolowich & Voluck LLP Kenyon & Kenyon LLP Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP King Branson LLC Kirkland & Ellis LLP Kramer & Amado, PC Kumagai Law Group PC Kumar Prabhu Patel & Banerjee Kutak Rock LLP Lam Lyn & Philip PC Law Office of Ricardo E. Oquendo, Esq. Leader & Berkon LLP Lim Ruger & Kim LLP Littler Mendelson PC Littleton Joyce Ughetta Park & Kelly, LLP Loeb & Loeb LLP Lowe & Associates LLC - Counsellors & Advisors Marrero & Wydler Martin & Martin, LLP Maynard Cooper & Gale PC McGuireWoods LLP Messner & Reeves, LLC Miles & Stockbridge PC Miller Law Group Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP Montgomery Barnett Brown Read Hammond & Mintz LLP Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP Moritt Hock & Hamroff LLP Morris James LLP Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP Nemeth Burwell, PC Nicolson Law Group LLC NOSSAMAN LLP Ober Kaler Grimes & Shriver Ogletree Deakins Nash Smoak & Stewart PC

Patton Boggs LLP Pepper Hamilton LLP Peter Law Group Phelps Dunbar LLP Pinckney, Harris & Weidinger LLC Polsinelli PC Porzio Bromberg & Newman PC Quarles & Brady LLP Quintairos Prieto Wood & Boyer Rivero Mestre LLP Roig Lawyers Rooney Rippie & Ratnaswamy LLP Sanchez & Amador LLP Sanchez-Medina Gonzalez Quesada Lage Crespo Gomez & Machado LLP Sandberg Phoenix & von Gontard PC Saul Ewing LLP Schiff Hardin, LLP Seeley, Savidge, Ebert & Gourash Co., LPA Sher Garner Cahill Richter Klein & Hilbert LLC Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP Snell & Wilmer LLP Steptoe & Johnson LLP Steptoe & Johnson PLLC Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox, P.L.L.C. Stevens & Lee Stinson Leonard Street LLP Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth, PC Sughrue Mion PLLC Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP The Goldstein Environmental Law Firm P.A. The Willis Law Group Troutman Sanders LLP Vinson & Elkins LLP Waas Campbell Rivera Johnson & Velasquez LLP Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP Wheeler Trigg O’Donnell LLP Willenken Wilson Loh & Delgado LLP Winston & Strawn LLP Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, LLP Wong Fleming PC Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor, LLP Zuber Lawler & Del Duca LLP Zupkus & Angell, PC

Potential FANs should contact David Chu, MCCA’s Vice President of Membership & Development, at 202-739-5906 or membership@mcca.com. MCCA.COM  SEP.OCT.2015  D I V E R S I T Y

& T H E B A R   53

Multicultural. Multinational. Committed to challenging the status quo.

Dentons. The Global Elite Law Firm challenging the status quo.* *Acritas Global Elite Law Firm Brand Index 2013 and 2014.

Know the way

dentons.com Š 2015 Dentons. Dentons is a global legal practice providing client services worldwide through its member firms and affiliates. Please see dentons.com for Legal Notices.

Call for Authors ®

Everyone has a story. Everyone has expertise. Let’s put those together and help you get published. If you are interested in writing for Diversity & the Bar® or you have a story idea, please contact:

Kim Howard, CAE Editor-in-Chief kimhoward@mcca.com www. mcca.com/ dbmagazine

1111 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20004 202.739.5909 (P) 202.739.5999 (F)