MCCA
THE BAR
Empowering People. Inspiring Leadership.
Battling Mental Illness in the Legal Profession
PROMOTING DIVERSITY THROUGH INCLUSIVE LEADERSHIP
NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR DIVERSITY IN THE COMPLIANCE PROFESSION
RISING STARS SHARE THEIR SECRETS
HOW TECH GCs ARE TRYING TO IMPROVE DIVERSITY
MAR.APR.2015
DIVERSITY
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Diverse Teams are
Effective Teams
DAVID PI
These are just a few of our diverse attorneys who deliver efficient advice and winning strategies.
FELICE ROSE
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#1 Diversity for Women #2 Diversity for Minorities - Vault 2015 U.S. law firm rankings PATRICIA BROWN HOLMES
Leading Attorneys and Practice Groups Nationwide - Chambers USA CLAY TILLACK
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JOEL DEJESUS
Leading Law Firm for LGBT Inclusiveness and Equality - Equality Illinois LEAH WARD SEARS
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Talk To Us About Diversity
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CONTENTS
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FEATURES
18 Battling Mental Illness in the Legal Profession
By Lekan Oguntoyinbo Studies show that lawyers suffer from high rates of depression and mental illness. A new study by a law professor who battled clinical depression says law schools can do a better job of talking to future lawyers about the issue of mental illness within the legal profession. In an essay in the Journal of Legal Education, Charlotte School of Law Assistant Professor Brian Clarke argues that law schools too often avoid dealing with the “the dark side” of being a lawyer. Having a more candid conversation with students about the challenges of the job can help them meet and overcome them after they graduate, he says.
22 Promoting Diversity Through Inclusive Leadership
By Bruce N. Hawthorne and Edward S. Harrison While most general counsel and chief legal officers have acknowledged the importance of diversity, many have relied on the promotion of overly general concepts of inclusion and cyclical initiatives to overcome implicit bias within their departments—with limited success on the whole. To more effectively advance diversity and inclusion, legal department leaders should now go further and take direct, systematic, measurable steps toward building a lasting culture of inclusion.
28 New Opportunities for Diversity in the Compliance Profession
By Dianne Hayes Morgan Stanley has made a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion and seeks to expand its ranks in its legal and compliance division, a sometimes overlooked career option with significant growth trajectory due in part to increased regulations. Find out what tips you can take away and implement in your legal department.
31 2015 MCCA Rising Stars
By Dianne Hayes MCCA’s Annual List of Rising Stars proves that the profession has upcoming talent that may or may not be of a certain age group. From second careers in the legal profession to the amazing work both inside the office and in pro bono efforts, the 2015 stars shine brightly.
44 Gateways to Diversity
By Lydia Lum How general counsel are trying to diversify the tech industry.
4 D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R MAR.APR.2015 MCCA.COM
MAR.APR.2015
MCCA® BOARD OF DIRECTORS Stuart Alderoty
Don H. Liu
Vernon G. Baker II
Hinton J. Lucas
Michelle Banks
Robbie E.B. Narcisse
A.B. Cruz III
Samuel M. Reeves
Senior Executive Vice President & General Counsel HSBC North America Holdings Inc.
COLUMNS 6 | NOTES FROM THE PRESIDENT & CEO 8 | LAWYER’S LANTERN
The Honorable Judge Jenny Rivera By Laurie Adamson
1 0 | DIVERSE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Mentoring: A Powerful Tool for Inclusion By Gina Rogakos
11 | BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS
Mergers and Acquisitions: Positive Trends for Fortune® 1000 Companies and MBEs By Alonzo L. Llorens
1 2 | CAREER EVOLUTION
When It Comes to Self-Awareness, Information—Not Ignorance—Is Bliss By DeAnna D. Allen
1 3 | LITIGATION MATTERS
What’s Your Story? Tips to Make Your Audience Care By Craig A. Thompson, Esq.
1 4 | PERSEVERANCE IN PROFILE
Janni Lehrer-Stein: Guardian for the Rights of the Disabled By Tom Calarco
1 7 | GENERAL COUNSEL INSIGHT
The General Counsel: Advisor, Confidant, Partner and Advocate By Miguel Rivera Sr.
DEPARTMENTS 4 8 | MOVERS & SHAKERS 50 | SURVEY NEWS YOU CAN USE
Former Senior Vice President & General Counsel Meritor Inc. Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary & Chief Compliance Officer Gap Inc. Executive Vice President & General Counsel Emergent Biosolutions Inc.
Executive Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary Xerox Corporation (Ret.) Vice President & Assistant General Counsel DuPont Company Vice President of Global Ethics and Business Practices Pitney Bowes Inc. Corporate Legal Department Senior Vice President & General Counsel Walmart U.S. Legal
Clarissa Cerda
Carlos Rincon
Anthony K. Greene
Thomas L. Sager
Chief Legal Strategist LifeLock Inc. Executive Vice President Jamison Insurance Group
Jean Lee
Vice President & Assistant General Counsel JP Morgan Chase Legal Department
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Joseph K. West
Kimberly A. Howard, CAE
BonoTom Studio Inc.
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Kenneth S. Siegel
Chief Administrative Officer & General Counsel Starwood Hotels & Resorts
Mary E. Snapp
Corporate VP, Deputy General Counsel Microsoft Business Development and Evangelism
Lawrence P. Tu
Senior EVP & Chief Legal Officer CBS Corporation
Neil Wilcox
General Counsel—Chase Card Services JP Morgan Chase & Co.
Simone Wu
Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary & Chief Compliance Officer Choice Hotels International Inc.
Joseph K. West
President & CEO Minority Corporate Counsel Association
MCCA® Staff
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
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NOTES FROM THE PRESIDENT & CEO |
BY JOSEPH K. WEST
Finding Our Future in Our Rising Stars THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE ISSUES because we are showcasing rising stars. We profile some of the best and brightest in-house and outside counsel that our profession has to offer. This is what the future of a diverse legal profession looks like. And I could not be more proud to introduce you to 15 brilliant lawyers who also give back. This list includes not only our younger industry professionals, but second-career lawyers who bring a different perspective and expertise to the law. Annually, when we open up nominations for this list, you never disappoint us with the caliber of candidates. This year, we had the most nominations ever and picking the final 15 Rising Stars who made this list was no easy feat. I hope that you enjoy reading about them as much as we enjoyed learning about them. This issue also contains stories about how general counsel are trying to change the tech industry; new opportunities for diversity in the compliance profession; promoting diversity through inclusive leadership and battling mental illness in the legal profession. These articles and interviews offer insight and perspective about subjects that impact our profession. We hope that you find this issue’s content interesting and useful to you and your team as you continue to make the business case for diversity and inclusion in your organizations. And, if you do like our content, don’t forget that you can now easily share it on your social media accounts. Many of you know about our LMJ Scholarship, which seeks to nurture the academic and professional careers of outstanding law students
6 D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R MAR.APR.2015 MCCA.COM
while advancing the diversity pipeline to the legal profession. Since 2004, the LMJ Scholarship Program has awarded more than $2.7 million in scholarships. What many of you may not realize is that our General Counsel Summit on May 6-9 is the sole source of fundraising for our scholarship program. The GCS provides opportunities for thought leaders to benchmark their legal departments and for in-house and law firm attendees to build their network in intimate settings, and create an atmosphere that fosters professional development. Registration for the GCS is now open and I encourage you to register and consider bringing your team. I look forward to seeing you there. MCCA_law
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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
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LAWYER’S LANTERN |
BY LAURIE ADAMSON
Judge Jenny Rivera A JUDGE’S CHAMBERS CAN BE A SOLITARY PLACE, far removed from the bustle of a courtroom. It’s where a judge writes opinions, decides motions and occasionally holds conferences with lawyers. Judge Jenny Rivera, a member of the New York State Court of Appeals, relishes both her behind-the-scenes work in chambers and her more public role in the courtroom. While the public is familiar with a judge’s role during oral arguments, Judge Rivera says few appreciate the importance of the work judges carry out in the sanctuary of their chambers. Judge Rivera describes both roles as “very rewarding” and says that each day she is “reminded that we are impacting people’s lives and we have a responsibility to apply the law fairly and justly.” Before her appointment to the appellate court, Judge Rivera taught at the City University of New York School of Law (CUNY). Judge Rivera credits her training and work as an academic in helping prepare her for the intellectual rigor of being a judge on New York’s highest court. The life of an academic, particularly the hours spent researching and writing, mirrors her daily life in chambers where she spends the majority of her time writing opinions, interpreting case law and applying precedent to the unique facts of individual cases. In the more public aspect of her role, Judge Rivera also uses communication skills she developed as a law professor. “In academia you have to be a good listener,” she says. “You have to be able to listen to students in order to answer their questions. You have to be able to
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understand the challenges they’re facing in terms of understanding the complex issues the students are learning about in the subject area.” Similarly, during oral arguments, a judge must listen carefully to better understand each party’s view of a particular issue. In addition to her years as an academic, Judge Rivera also
personally rewarding,” she says. “In each of these jobs I had the opportunity to help people, applying my legal skills to resolve the problems that they were facing.” Judge Rivera pursued this interest in social justice advocacy at CUNY, where she founded the Center on Latino and Latina Rights and Equality (CLORE). Tapping into the law school’s resources, CLORE established a library collection on Latinos and the law and organized educational events that brought advocates, lawyers and researchers together to discuss issues affecting the Latino community. At the intersection of law and
In academia you have to be a good listener. You have to be able to listen to students in order to answer their questions. You have to be able to understand the challenges they’re facing in terms of understanding the complex issues the students are learning about in the subject area. draws on a wide array of public interest experience to the bench. She was a former staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society’s Homeless Rights Project, an associate counsel for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and an administrative law judge for the New York State Division of Human Rights. Social justice advocacy has been the common thread throughout Judge Rivera’s impressive career. “I find [advocacy] intellectually stimulating and professionally and
community activism, CLORE also worked to increase the involvement of the private bar in matters that have a unique impact on the Latino community. Describing her work with CLORE, Judge Rivera says, “My interest was borne out of my prior work at the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and my own sensibility about civil rights and current issues impacting Latinos and the broader community. I thought it important to have a public conversation about those issues.”
Judge Jenny Rivera
From 2007 to 2008, after 10 years as a full professor at CUNY, Judge Rivera took a leave of absence to serve as special deputy attorney general for civil rights in the Office of the New York State Attorney General. Working for then-Attorney General Andrew Cuomo afforded Judge Rivera the opportunity to implement a broad civil rights agenda for New York state. Judge Rivera drew on this experience to enrich her teaching when she returned to CUNY. “Students are really most interested in ‘live controversies’—things that seem very real to them. The work of the attorney general results in measurable positive change in the lives of real people. It was a wonderful experience to intro-
duce that work to students and the next generation of public interest lawyers.” The same qualities that made Judge Rivera a well-respected teacher and scholar, including her long-standing dedication to social justice, enable her to bring a unique perspective to the bench. The Court of Appeals consists of seven judges: the chief judge and six associate judges who are appointed by the governor to 14-year terms. Judge Rivera is the second Latina to serve on New York’s highest court. As Judge Rivera so aptly puts it: “A breadth of experience is tremendously beneficial for a judge because of the wide range of issues addressed by the Court of Appeals.” Judge Rivera’s accom-
plishments prove the value of this perspective and its importance to the development of statewide jurisprudence. Her accomplishments have not gone unrecognized: Rivera won the 2013 Spirit of Excellence Award from the ABA Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession and the New York State Bar Association 2012 Diversity Trailblazer Lifetime Achievement Award. She graduated from Princeton University, and received her JD from New York University School of Law and her LLM from Columbia University School of Law. ■ LAURIE ADAMSON (laurie.ed.adamson@ gmail.com) is a freelance writer based in Maryland.
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DIVERSE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT | BY GINA ROGAKOS
Mentoring: A Powerful Tool for Inclusion WHENEVER I ASK SUCCESSFUL LAWYERS to describe the factors they attribute to their success, one of the common themes is a strong and dedicated mentor. Done well, mentoring can also be a powerful tool for inclusion. Let’s envision that you are new to a city and have been invited to a party by a recent acquaintance. All you know about the party is the date, time and venue. You have a number of questions about the party, such as details regarding dress code, whether food will be served, the anticipated guest list and so on, but you do not feel comfortable enough to ask them. When you arrive, you realize you missed the mark on the dress code and did not bring a gift for the host, which it appears most people have done. Your acquaintance is busily overseeing the details of the party and does not notice you have arrived. There are a number of guests in groups boisterously socializing. You try to integrate but have trouble engaging in the banter, as you do not know anyone. You awkwardly roam the room, feeling anxious. Contrast this situation with one in which a friend provides you with all the details about the party in advance, greets you at the door, introduces you to other guests, involves you in group discussions and circles back to you throughout the night. In each instance, consider what you would have been able to contribute, the benefits you would receive from having attended the party and your feelings on attending a similar event in the future. Similar to the example above, a proactive mentor can make the
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difference between a lawyer feeling included in a law firm or feeling like the forgotten guest at a party. Accordingly, a successful mentor/ mentee relationship should include guidance and support in the following categories: 1. Social—Making introductions internally and externally and assisting with social integration of the mentee into the organization. 2. Career—Facilitating work opportunities, monitoring progress against expectations, providing guidance on future development. 3. Organizational—Advising on how to navigate the organization, including the written and unwritten codes of conduct; understanding organizational governance; and defining a career path that fits within the organization. Having a formal mentor and mentee relationship that addresses these needs is critical to fostering inclusion. However, the secret ingredient for success, the factor that can turn a regular mentor-mentee relationship into an extraordinary one, is a personal rapport between the mentor-mentee, built on trust and open communication. This secret ingredient can feel elusive to a person from a diverse group, and this could lead to the individual feeling disadvantaged. She/ he may not be part of the “in” group or share a common background or experiences with her/his mentor or others within the organization,
D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R MAR.APR.2015 MCCA.COM
which may make building the personal relationship more challenging. There are a few strategies an organization can implement to overcome this potential barrier: ■■Have a formal, written mentor policy that outlines the roles, responsibilities and objectives of the mentoring relationship, with checks in place to monitor progress and the ability to make changes if it is not working. ■■Provide training to mentors-mentees that encompasses: — Methods on how to achieve the outlined objectives and maximize the mentoring relationship. — Tips for mentees on how to be “mentor worthy” and use mentor relationships efficiently and effectively. — Knowledge on how to mentor across diverse groups (versus mentoring the classic “mini-me”). ■■Incorporate mechanisms to measure and recognize success. Mentoring is a powerful tool for inclusion, development and integration. It is one strategy to ensure that every guest invited to your party is welcomed and given the support and knowledge needed to succeed in your organization. ■ GINA ROGAKOS (gina. rogakos@mcmillan.ca) manages associate programs at McMillan LLP, including recruitment, integration, development, mentoring, advancement and performance management of associates. She sits on McMillan’s Inclusion and Diversity Committee and on the firm’s Women’s Initiative. Prior to her current role, she practiced civil litigation.
BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS | BY ALONZO L. LLORENS
Mergers and Acquisitions
Positive Trend for Fortune® 1000 Companies and MBEs OVER THE LAST SEVERAL YEARS, I’ve seen an interesting and positive trend in the merger and acquisition space involving Fortune® 1000 companies, minority business enterprises (MBE), and, in some instances, private equity funds. The standard transaction is one in which the F1000 acquires the MBE. However, the transactions I’m most intrigued by are those in which the MBE is on the buy-side. While these transactions can be structured in a variety of ways, they typically fall into one of four categories: 1. The F1000 sells a subsidiary or a division to the MBE as either an asset or a stock transaction. 2. The F1000 sells a subsidiary or a division to a minority-controlled PE. 3. The PE brings in a minority operator to run the newly acquired asset. 4. The spin-off.
As to the F1000s, along with the economic benefits, these transactions provide them with another mechanism to do business with an MBE, which is beneficial for a number of reasons. The first approach is the more common approach: the F1000 sells a subsidiary or a division to an MBE. The deal is typically structured as either an asset or a stock transaction, and the determination as to which structure to use is based on a number of economic and legal factors. The MBE benefits because it has an operating entity that presumably
has value and presumably has the potential to increase the MBE’s enterprise value. From the F1000’s perspective, in addition to the economic benefits, it may also have the specific intent of selling the asset to an MBE and do business with the MBE post-transaction. The second approach can be a bit more complicated. This approach is one in which the F1000 sells to a minority-controlled PE but desires to do business with the sold entity post-transaction, with the expectation that it will be certified as an MBE. The challenge in this situation is ensuring that the PE meets the “minority controlled” test required such that the acquired entity can also meet the MBE certification requirements. The third approach is one in which you have a majority-controlled PE that hires a minority to operate the newly acquired entity. Oftentimes, the operator will be issued a percentage interest in the newly acquired entity. You typically see this structure when the minority operator has an opportunity to acquire the asset but must go to the PE for funding. The compromise is that even though the operator owns less than 51 percent of the newly acquired entity, the potential
economic benefit to the operator can still be significant. Finally, there is a fourth approach: the spin-off. I’m not aware of any transactions structured in this manner (i.e., specifically to take advantage of the MBE benefits), but it warrants consideration. Essentially, this involves the F1000 spinning off at least 51 percent of the stock in its subsidiary to an MBE, then distributing the remaining shares to its shareholders. Concurrent with the spin-off, the spun-off entity files a Form 10 registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission such that it becomes a publicly traded company post-transaction. This structure can be a major win for all parties involved. Irrespective of the approach, this is a positive trend that benefits F1000s, MBEs, PEs and stockholders. On the one hand, it will typically result in the MBE owning an asset that is scalable and can yield significant economic benefits. As to the F1000s, along with the economic benefits, these transactions provide them with another mechanism to do business with an MBE, which is beneficial for a number of reasons. Finally, these transactions can be beneficial to shareholders, as studies have shown that they have the potential to yield a higher than average return on investment. Let’s hope the trend continues. ■ ALONZO L. LLORENS (allorens@gordonrees. com) is a partner with Gordon & Rees LLP and a member of the Business Transactions Practice Group.
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CAREER EVOLUTION | BY DEANNA D. ALLEN
When It Comes to Self-Awareness, Information—Not Ignorance—Is Bliss IN THE FIRST SEGMENT OF THIS COLUMN, I urged readers to be deliberate about professional development and to make sure they are not suffering from “Cinderella Syndrome.” I recommended that lawyers accept help and guidance throughout their career progression but that they take ultimate ownership of their professional development. Throughout the remaining segments of this column, I will share examples of ways in which diverse lawyers can do just that. I’ll start with self-awareness. Ongoing self-awareness is important for all lawyers, particularly for diverse lawyers. You should regularly assess yourself, your work environment, how well the foregoing are aligned and what adjustments need to be made. To be effective, this process requires that you take an honest look
Ignorance may be bliss for Calvin and Hobbs (or for Thomas Gray, if you are into poetry), but it is a stumbling block for practicing lawyers. at yourself and your environment so that you can improve your contributions to both. I have observed, however, that human nature leads us to focus on aspects of the self-assessment process that feel most comfortable while neglecting others that feel less so. Ignorance may be bliss for Calvin and Hobbs (or for Thomas Gray, if you are into poetry), but it is a stumbling block for practicing lawyers. So, be as objective and as
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informed as you can about your strengths, challenge areas and the behaviors that are effective (and ineffective) in your workplace. If you suspect that you are not self-aware, then enlist the aid of someone you trust to give you honest and constructive feedback about your strengths and weaknesses. Use this information to prioritize your professional development efforts. If you have not fully grasped the unwritten rules of your workplace, then do some due diligence. There are many readily available resources that can get you started, such as “The Modern Rules of Business Etiquette” (Gerson & Gerson) and “The Little Black Book of Success— Laws of Leadership for Black Women” (Brown, Haygood & McLean). And, let’s not forget the traditional method of asking other folks who are in-the-know. If the thought of asking for such advice seems daunting, keep in mind that lawyers typically are long on opinions but short on time. So, just find an appropriate time to make your approach with specificity and brevity, and then go for it. Also, keep in mind that people outside of your workplace can serve as useful resources.
Spend time thinking about the attributes of successful lawyers in your line of work. Identify professionals who are really good at what they do (and be willing to look outside your normal circle for useful examples). Then, watch and learn by drawing from a range of practitioners who exemplify a variety of skills and levels of experience. Ask yourself: What are their strengths, and in what ways do they leverage those strengths for the benefit of their clients, colleagues and themselves? Do you have similar strengths? If not, can you either develop your skill set to include comparable strengths or leverage your existing strengths to the same effect? What are their challenge areas, and how do they keep such weaknesses from becoming career roadblocks? How can you address your own challenge areas to prevent them from becoming long-term problems? In short, your professional development plan should incorporate regular self-assessments that help you identify and manage your challenge areas while honing (and owning) your strengths. ■ 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.
What’s Your Story?
Tips to Make Your Audience Care
TRIAL LAWYERS ARE, IN ESSENCE, WELL-DRESSED STORYTELLERS. Our roles are to develop themes that inspire action, introduce evidence that can be understood and present witnesses who connect. These elements of trial are essential to creating the necessary momentum to win. The best movie and television directors know these elements as well and provide us with scenes, circumstances and characters that keep us engaged and ready to do something—even if that “something” is to tune in again for the next show or sequel. When criticizing the state of ovie-making during his time, Alfred m Hitchcock noted, “In many films being made, there is very little cinema; they are mostly what I call ‘photographs of people talking.’” What Hitchcock saw and commented upon was a number of films that failed to produce emotional connection and intellectual engagement and simply followed a well-worn pathway created by others. Similarly, it could be argued that many of our current trials simply consist of “courtrooms with people talking.” The level of creativity, ingenuity and new thought that characterized the classic trial battles of years past are no longer the norm, and our audiences ( juries, judges) are taking note. Indeed, the fact that fewer cases are being tried plays a role in the “cookiecutter” approaches to trying cases. With much more on the line and fewer opportunities to be creative, many trial lawyers are taking a more conservative approach to presenting matters to juries and judges. Even with that reality in mind, it is important to remember the basics—the most persuasive story (generally) wins. Here is the challenge: What our audiences view as persuasive is changing. We must change with them. What follows are suggestions for telling a solid trial story with meaning and
tips for making your audiences care.
■■Start with the end in mind: The best
political minds teach us that the most successful political campaigns are those that know exactly what election day will look like—from the number of poll workers at each precinct to the color of the vans driving volunteers though neighborhoods—and each day of the campaign is geared toward making that vision a reality. Our trials should use the same approach: What will the verdict sheet look like? How will witness X be presented and perceived by the jury? How will each piece of evidence establish each element for which it is introduced? The most successful trial lawyers view the trial journey as a necessary pathway to a specific end. Know what that end looks like, and take your audience with you. ■■Strike a chord: Our audiences are like tuning forks for musicians. When a tuning fork is struck, it creates a sound that allows a musician to tune an instrument. Our goal should be to strike the correct chord with our audience members to create resonance with them—to get them to emit a particular tone that gets them to know, like and believe in us. To that end, we must conduct as much research as possible to determine the right chords to strike and refuse to under or over play how hard we strike. If the story and story-
The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think but to give you questions to think upon.” —Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings
teller do not resonate with them, they will not care about us, our clients or our cases. ■■Embrace your “but”: Students of television and film learn the importance of big “buts” and develop storylines that force their audiences to embrace their “buts.” Michael Corleone was a ruthless gangster, but he was a loyal family man who did what he did for his family. Olivia Pope is having an affair with the president of the United States, but she is an amazingly effective “fixer” and a supremely strong professional woman. Audiences like “buts,” and directors want them to focus on and embrace them. That is what keeps them engaged. Our clients and cases may have some thorns, but there is something out there that explains each of them or places them in context. Our audiences cannot embrace our “buts” unless we do. We must do so and present our cases in such a way that our audiences remain engaged and interested. As we think about directing, staging and casting our trials, keep the above suggestions in mind. Today, it is all about the story, and we have to make the stories we tell memorable and meaningful. ■ CRAIG A. THOMPSON, ESQ. (cathompson@venable.com) is a partner with Venable LLP and an experienced trial lawyer with close to 20 years of experience representing clients in civil cases in federal and state courts throughout the country. Contact him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/getcraig and LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/craigathompson.
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PERSEVERANCE IN PROFILE | BY TOM CALARCO
Janni Lehrer-Stein: Guardian for the Rights of the Disabled CAN SOMEONE’S LIFE BECOME RICHER after being set back by a disability? Just ask retired attorney Janni Lehrer-Stein, a board member of Disability Rights Advocates and member of the National Council on Disability, an independent federal agency composed of presidential appointees. “I would love to be cured,” says Lehrer-Stein, who was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa in 1982, a congenital condition, and is now almost totally blind, “but will not complain because it has allowed me to engage with people I so admire and who are some of the most courageous people I’ve ever met.” Lehrer-Stein’s road to becoming a guardian for the rights of the disabled in the U.S. began in Saskatoon, a small prairie town in Saskatchewan, Canada, in the “true north just below the tree line,” according to Lehrer-Stein, where the days are short and the winters long and cold. “I had a lovely childhood. It was a tight, safe community where we left our doors unlocked during the day,” she says. “I had no idea that I would someday become blind.” She wasn’t aware of anyone in her family going blind, though in later years, she learned of a distant cousin with the condition and more recently, her sister was also diagnosed with the same condition. She didn’t realize that her klutziness as she grew up was the result of her deteriorating vision. During her teens, her family moved to British Columbia, and after high school, she entered the University of British Columbia. However, wanting to spread her wings, she enrolled at Yale Univer-
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sity, majoring in American history. It proved fortuitous as she came under the counsel of historian John Morton Blum, who ironically steered her away from history as a career because he said there were no jobs. In any case, she had always wanted to go to law school. “I appreciate a good argument, different points of view and coming to a good resolution,” she says. “There are many ways for making progress in the world, legislation, cooperation and litigation. Litigation is very powerful; the law is what we have to rely on when society throws roadblocks in the way.” She enrolled at the University of Toronto Law School to be closer to home because her father had been stricken with terminal cancer. She obtained her law degree there and also spent a year as a special student at Harvard Law School, studying American jurisprudence in order to prepare for the American bar and practice in the U.S., where her future husband, whom she had met at Yale, was a student. After graduation from law school, the Steins moved to Washington, D.C., where Lehrer-Stein became an associate attorney at Shaw Pittman Potts & Trowbridge, working in employment discrimination. It was there that her life changed forever.
“It was in January of 1982, and I had this raging eye infection,” she says. “I went to an ophthalmologist, and he gave me a prescription, and then he said the words I will never forget: ‘You’re going blind, and you’ll likely go blind in six months.’ I was 26. I had been married for six months, just passed the bar and landed my dream job. A moment before I was at the top of the world, and suddenly I didn’t know what was going to happen to me.” Lehrer-Stein went to a number of specialists and learned that the ophthalmologist wasn’t completely right. Her loss of vision would occur gradually over a period of years. However, she needed to come to grips with her situation. “I thought I was falling into the disability club,” she says she felt at the time, because she didn’t understand yet what it meant to overcome the challenges posed by a disability. In 1983, the Steins moved to San Francisco, where they live today. For several more years, Lehrer-Stein worked as an attorney for Thelen, Marrin, Johnson & Bridges, where she specialized in employment discrimination. She retired from the practice of law before the birth of her second child. “I wanted to be a married woman, have a family and engage in the practice of law, but I hadn’t thought about the impact of having children and having a career,” she says. “I was worrying about clients when I was home and my kids while at the office. I wasn’t someone who could raise a family and
Janni Lehrer-Stein
I appreciate a good argument and different points of view, and coming to a good resolution. There are many ways for making progress in the world, legislation, cooperation and litigation. Litigation is very powerful; the law is what we have to rely on when society throws roadblocks in the way.
keep up a career, but I do respect women who can do that.” Meanwhile, she was progressively losing her eyesight, first the peripheral vision and then her central vision. She got a guide dog and began listening to audiobooks. “There are options,” she says. “You need to have the energy to deal with things at a higher level. There are 57 million people with disabilities in America today, and they have the wherewithal to live fully as part of the fabric of American society.” While staying home and raising her kids became her primary occupation, it did not prevent
her from participating in her community. “As they grew, I became involved in so many school and local committees,” she says. Her first major involvement was with Foundation Fighting Blindness in 1996. She is now a member of its board of directors and a national trustee. The leading foundation devoted to researching and identifying treatments and cures for retinal degenerative diseases, it has raised more than $400 million for the treatment of retinal degenerative diseases, among them macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa, and Usher’s syndrome, she says.
Among its fundraisers and one she has chaired numerous times in the past is “Dining in the Dark.” Held annually in about 10 different communities around the nation, it serves a meal in complete darkness. The wait staff is blind, and servers tell their personal stories of how they cope. “People don’t know what they’re getting to eat,” she says. “You have to figure it out, how to pour the wine and pass your bread as a person who is [temporarily] blind. It’s about discovering and extending the threshold of capability, and it’s really exhilarating.” Capability is a concept she kept coming back to when discussing disabilities. “It’s not about what people can or can’t do,” she says. “It’s about how they do it. It’s not disability, but capability, that matters in building productive lives.” Another organization of which Lehrer-Stein was a board member for seven years was Medical MCCA.COM MAR.APR.2015 D I V E R S I T Y
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PERSEVANCE IN PROFILE
Research Charities, of which FFB is a member charity. It is devoted to funding cutting-edge cures for life-threatening diseases. In 2010, she became a board member of Disability Rights Advocates on which she still serves. A nonprofit law firm of people with disabilities serving people with disabilities, DRA has a mission to advance equal rights and opportunity for people with all types of disabilities nationwide. It provides free legal representation to people with disabilities whose civil rights have been violated. In its 20-year history, it has successfully litigated more than 400 cases involving problems of access for those with disabilities, from access to subways and taxis, voting rights, closed captions in movies, assisted technology accessibility
It actually had begun, she says, on the morning of Dec. 24, 2008. “I heard the phone ring,” she says. It was Kareem Dale (a member of President Obama’s transition team, who was later appointed as his special assistant on disability and whom we profiled in our May/ June 2011 issue). She had earlier learned that the Obama administration was searching for educated persons with disabilities who were interested in serving the administration. A colleague had submitted her name, and Dale, following up on the recommendation, asked if she would be interested in serving the administration. He asked her to identify what role she might be able to play. She identified several potential positions, and the process began for her vetting, nomination
We have come so far; people with disabilities are far more included in American society. But we still need to improve basic accessibility in education, transportation and employment. Inclusion for people with disabilities improves the lives of all Americans.
on websites, and accommodations during standardized tests, among many other situations most of us take for granted. “They are crossing the final frontier for civil rights in America,” Lehrer-Stein says. “The work they do is phenomenal.” Later that year, the hard work and dedicated selflessness of Lehrer-Stein was given special recognition when she was nominated to the National Council on Disability.
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and Senate confirmation. “I can’t tell you how much I love the work we are doing,” says Lehrer-Stein, who was recently confirmed for a second term. The council currently comprises 15 members, who are selected by geography and expertise. They advise the president and Congress on disability issues. Some of the council’s innovative contributions Lehrer-Stein has been deeply engaged in have included the issuance of a tactile $10 bill
designed for release in 2019 the beginning of the process to render all American paper currency tactile over time and a program called “Rocking the Cradle,” which is advocating for the parental rights of those with disabilities. She also has been part of efforts to provide better accessibility to social media and provide assistance to veterans with disabilities. A major initiative of the council is the ratification of the United Nations treaty for the rights of people with disabilities, which already has been ratified by 106 nations. “It’s an honor and privilege to serve the Obama Administration and people with disabilities,” she says. Today, her vision has been reduced to shadows of light and dark. But her life is full. She is doing important work for the council, DRA and FFB, and all three of her children (two daughters and a son) are doing well in the various stages of their education: one daughter is finishing her PhD, another is attending grad school, and her son is doing undergraduate work. “San Francisco is a great city to be blind in. I do my own shopping, go to yoga classes, work and raise my children,” she says. “We have come so far; people with disabilities are far more included in American society. But we still need to improve basic accessibility in education, transportation and employment. Inclusion for people with disabilities improves the lives of all Americans. I am proud to be part of this incredible movement.” ■ TOM CALARCO (tomcalwriter@yahoo. com) is a freelance writer and author of seven books on the Underground Railroad. He is based in Loveland, Ohio.
GENERAL COUNSEL INSIGHT | BY MIGUEL R. RIVERA SR.
The General Counsel: Advisor, Confidant, Partner and Advocate THE ROLE OF THE GENERAL COUNSEL in today’s modern company is a complex and challenging one. Becoming general counsel frequently means that being “the lawyer” is just a small part of the role and forms the least of the expectations of those in the executive suite. Don’t get me wrong, the executive suite expects the GC to be “the lawyer” but assumes that being a lawyer is in the DNA. The roles the GC plays are far more varied and complex. In the same 10-hour day a GC is advisor, confidant, partner and advocate. Advisor
The GC must be someone whom the CEO, CFO, SVP of Human Resources, buyers and business partners alike can count on for advice and good judgment. Much of the job of a GC is helping executives and business people make good decisions. The GC’s value as advisor is not as a good legal mind or advocate; it’s all about her listening skills and good judgment. When playing this role, the GC must give advice without being didactic or arrogant. The GC must show humility and empathy.
Confidant
Business is a complex process and involves strategies and tactics that must be kept confidential and dealt with deftly. The GC is privy to highly sensitive information of both a business and personal nature. The GC will see his clients during stressful circumstances, dealing with complex and sensitive issues. The GC as confidant is the person clients can trust to be calm
under fire, to give advice without judgment and to take on their burdens. As confidant, the GC gives the client the assurance that the issues are handled and the client’s interest are protected.
Partner
The GC must frequently lose some objectivity and be in the moment with the client, addressing issues and resolving business problems in ways that demonstrate that she is in the thick of things too, feeling it, and not just an objective automaton spouting the law. Many attorneys expect to remain detached and objective, providing legal advice but providing little in the way of empathy and partnership to the client. Opining on the law in a detached manner is not what clients always need; sometimes they need a partner, someone in the trenches with them. To partner, you must get into the struggle with the client. Getting bumped and bruised is a part of being a partner.
Advocate
The GC must sometimes advocate a position and convince others of an idea or position that may not be popular. Ensuring that the business understands the risks and knows where the boundaries are is the traditional role of the GC. Defining the risk, defining the consequences andsometimes, saying “no” are part of the job. But being an advocate is the role the GC should play the
To partner, you must get into the struggle with the client. Getting bumped and bruised is a part of being a partner. least of all. Being the advisor, the confidant and the partner are far better ways to serve and to accomplish goals. Your clients will listen to you more and appreciate you better. ■ MIGUEL R. RIVERA SR. (miguel.rivera@ payless.com) is the DSVP and general counsel for Payless ShoeSource.
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By Lekan Oguntoyinbo
Battling Mental Illness About four years into his career at a law firm, Brian Clarke found himself engaging in classic avoidance behavior. He stopped returning calls or responding to emails promptly. In some instances, he didn’t respond to messages. As a college student, he says, he’d suffered from depression but didn’t know it at the time. But he believes working at a law firm exacerbated his issues with anxiety, depression and fear.
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in the Legal Profession “In private practice, perfection is what everyone expects, and what I always expected of myself was perfection,” says Clarke, now an assistant professor of
Higher rates of depression and mental illness among lawyers Studies by scholars such as Larry Kreiger, a law pro-
law at Charlotte School of Law. “That’s an unattain-
fessor at Florida State University, show that lawyers
able standard. My bosses were expecting that from
suffer from high rates of depression and mental illness.
me, and I was expecting that from myself. But then I
Data from the Healthy Minds Network showed that
started having kids and started having other significant
law students are more than twice as likely to be diag-
responsibilities and felt the need to be perfect in all of
nosed with anxiety than other students are. The Amer-
those realms. For me, it first started with anxiety and
ican Bar Association, state bar associations, many law
the fear of not being perfect and then the fear of not
schools and groups like the David Nee Foundation are
being perfect and lot of guilt about failing at father-
working to heighten awareness of mental illness in the
hood and the law practice and then about not being
legal community, to remove the stigma and to develop
perfect.”
strategies for addressing it.
Mental health challenges are widespread in the
Some law professors say addressing this issue in
legal profession and run the gamut, from substance
law schools is long overdue. In an essay in the Journal
abuse challenges to anxiety, from depression to
of Legal Education published last year, Clarke argued
suicide.
that law schools too often avoid dealing with the “the
Last July, Cheryl Hanna, a law professor at Ver-
dark side” of being a lawyer. Having a more candid
mont Law School and respected scholar on domestic
conversation with students about the challenges of the
violence, shot and killed herself at her Burlington, Vt.,
job can help them meet and overcome them after they
home with a handgun she’d purchased the previous
graduate, he says.
day. Hanna, a high-profile media commentator on the
Terry Harrell, chair of the American Bar Associ-
constitution and the environment, had been hospi-
ation’s Commission on Lawyer Assistance program,
talized for depression for nine days shortly before
says several factors contribute to the high rates of sub-
she committed suicide. In published news accounts,
stance abuse and mental illness in the law profession,
Hanna’s husband said she had been concerned about
including its adversarial nature.
the impact the possible disclosure of her illness would
“You’re often up against another lawyer; it’s a win-
have on her as a public figure. She worried she would
lose system,” says Harrell, who also serves as executive
be stigmatized and that her adversaries would use it
director of the Indiana Judges and Lawyers Assistance
against her.
program. “It’s different from other professions.
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BATTLING MENTAL ILLNESS IN THE LEGAL PROFESSION
Adderall is the one most commonly abused. What’s sad is these are not kids out partying; these are kids who want to get through law school. —Terry Harrell
It requires great accuracy, which leads to perfectionist tendencies. Pessimistic people tend to do better in law school. As a lawyer, you are usually dealing with unhappy people. You may do a great job for a client in a divorce, but at the end of the day the client is still divorced. Lawyers are very reluctant to seek help or ask for help. Lawyers are good at solving problems. Lawyers see themselves as giving help and not receiving help. Then there is fear about reputation. They wonder if people will view them as weaker and take advantage of that.” Harrell says the ABA, which first started to address mental health concerns in the late 1980s, is also paying attention to issues like cognitive impairment. “There is an aging lawyer population. We are seeing
Lawyers see themselves as giving help and not receiving help. Then there is fear about reputation. They wonder if people will view them as weaker and take advantage of that. —TERRY HARRELL, chair of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Lawyer Assistance program
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people staying in practice longer, which is good. But there are also people staying in practice too long, which is also caused by financial need,” says Harrell, adding that the ABA has created a senior lawyer committee to address it. “And there are people who don’t want to give up that role. Because of that, we are seeing an increase in calls about lawyers with cognitive impairments.” Harrell says she’s seen a trend of prescription drug abuse by law students. “Law students are using prescription medication that’s not theirs so they can stay up and study all night,” she says, adding that when she talks to law students, half of them will often raise their hands when she asks if they know someone who abuses prescription drugs. “Some people can get away with it for a brief time, and some people get addicted. Adderall is the one most commonly abused. What’s sad is these are not kids out partying; these are kids who want to get through law school.”
Promoting mental health awareness begins in law school
Rachel Barrett, executive director of the Dave Nee Foundation, which works with dozens of law schools around the country to promote awareness of mental illness, says many students are under considerable pressure to make good grades and law review in order to optimize their chances of getting choice jobs upon graduation. “The external pressure doesn’t end after law school,” says Barrett. “They have to worry about getting
billable hours. There is a lot of isolation because the environment is so competitive and people tend to work as individuals and not necessarily in groups. That can be a factor in depression and anxiety. We want to dispel those myths associated with mental health. We want to teach them to recognize signs and symptoms so that they will be able to talk to that person. It doesn’t have to take mental health professionals only to recognize when someone is in need. Our objective is always to create a safe place for law students and raise awareness about these issues and direct them to resources to help them.” She says some students are reluctant to seek help because they worry that it might come back to haunt them when they fill out the character and mental fitness portion of the bar application. Last August, the U.S. Justice Department reached a settlement agreement with the Louisiana Supreme Court. The department found that Louisiana based its bar admissions process on mental health diagnosis rather than conduct. David Jaffe, associate dean of student affairs at American University’s Washington College of Law, says that in recent years the college has worked harder at preparing students mentally for the challenges and realities of law school. “I like to say we’re doing a slightly better job than in orientations of the past,” Jaffe says. “We try to say law school brings in a whole new set of different factors. We tell them, ‘You are all at the top of your game. You’re all high achievers, but there are new stressors that will come, like a new language, the Socratic method, the competitive nature of looking for employment opportunities, and, for a number of students, tuition.’ We’re saying a little bit of stress is good, but when that stress is taking over, you need to say something. And you need to know that you’re not the only student coming to us.” Jaffe says the college has launched a general wellness initiative that includes a variety of ongoing activities, including meditation sessions and yoga classes. During finals week last fall, administrators had a few people bring puppies into the college’s main lobby to socialize with the students. “We’re trying to send a message to take the edge off,” says Jaffe. “We say that at an absolute minimum, they should have an outlet outside of law school.”
Some students are reluctant to seek help because they worry that it might come back to haunt them when they fill out the character and mental fitness portion of the bar application. —RACHEL BARRETT, executive director of the Dave Nee Foundation In addition to a university counselor, the school uses student volunteers, peers students can contact online for assistance. A student volunteer at the college, who asked to be identified only as Nick, says few students take advantage of the online assistance programs. He thinks that may be in part because the level of denial is high. Katherine Bender, program director of the Dave Nee Foundation, says many law professors are re-evaluating their teaching methods. “They are starting to ask ‘How can we teach law differently so the students can be engaged and get called on and not get ridiculed in front of their peers?’” says Bender, who visits many law schools each year to do workshops on mental illness and awareness.
Focus more on the whole rather than a part
Larry Kreiger, a law professor at Florida State University, who has written extensively about happiness and mental health in the law profession, says law schools should work harder at educating students about sources of happiness and depression. He believes too much emphasis is placed on GPAs and law review. The GPA is important for getting you interviews for your first job, he says. “But after you have your first job, it’s going to be completely irrelevant,” he says. “On your second job they’re asking you how well you did on your first job. The people who interview you who mostly care about your GPA will offer you a job that won’t make you happy. If they’re working 80 hours a week, they’re going to make you work 80 hours a week, too.” He says the happiest lawyers are not the ones who make the most money but those who are driven by a firm belief in what they do. “I know lots of lawyers in little practices who are helping regular middle-class people and are very happy,” he says. ■ LEKAN OGUNTOYINBO (oguntoyinbo@gmail.com) is a freelance journalist based in Columbia, Mo.
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Promoting Diversity Through
Inclusive
By Bruce N. Hawthorne and Edward S. Harrison
D
IVERSITY CONTINUES TO BE A CHALLENGE for a legal profession that continues to lag behind its counterparts. This challenge remains even though the moral case for diversity is an obvious one and the business case for diversity has been wellestablished and embraced by our business counterparts across most industries.
The myriad of reasons for the lack of diversity in the legal profession are well-documented.
The history and ongoing effects of both the de jure and de facto academic and professional barriers relating to race, gender and sexual orientation should not and cannot be downplayed. Further, the natural tendency each of us has to stay within our comfort zones and gravitate toward individuals superficially most like ourselves (often referred to as unconscious or implicit bias) likely plays a significant role in perpetuating the effects of the historic and current barriers to increasing diversity in the legal profession, even as such barriers continue to fall.
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Leadership While most general counsel and chief legal officers have acknowledged the importance of diversity, many have relied on the promotion of overly general concepts of inclusion and cyclical initiatives to overcome implicit bias within their departments—with limited success on the whole. To advance diversity and inclusion more effectively, legal department leaders should now go further and take direct, systematic, measurable steps toward building a lasting culture of inclusion. We believe 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. This requires that leaders manage each of the three drivers of initiative: empowerment, transparency and knowledge.
At the root of the inclusion problem are three commonly encountered issues: 1. A lack of clarity around what is authorized and expected. 2. A lack of transparency about how things really work. 3. A lack of available information about what is going on. When an imbalance occurs in any of these matters, those “in the know” or “on the inside” are better positioned to succeed and implicit bias can do great harm by limiting “who knows what.” In contrast, the execution of a leadership paradigm that positions everyone equally well to succeed in taking initiative necessarily diminishes the impact of implicit bias because most of what is important to know is well-understood by all team members.
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PROMOTING DIVERSITY THROUGH INCLUSIVE LEADERSHIP
Inclusion Requires Leadership
Developing a culture of inclusion that promotes initiative starts with strong, focused leadership within the legal department. The onus is on law department leaders to create a culture of inclusion at the top and establish formal policies and procedures to infuse such culture into the DNA of their legal departments. What is the connection between inclusive leadership and overcoming bias? By establishing and implementing robust policies and procedures that provide all attorneys within a legal department equal access to the empowerment, information and opportunities needed to exercise initiative, grow and advance, law department leaders can directly lessen the impact of barriers and ongoing bias within their departments. Little room is left for bias to affect outcomes in which every attorney in an organization is enabled to take the initiative to further the goals of the organization. By creating an inclusive environment that promotes attorney initiative, legal department leaders will in turn be able to better attract, develop and retain high-quality, diverse groups of attorneys. They will have the varied skills and viewpoints necessary for modern legal
departments to advise their organizations successfully in the face of ever-changing conditions.
Fostering Initiative
One of the first steps to creating an inclusive culture (and one that is not often discussed) is for legal department leaders to acknowledge that leading and managing legal professionals is often different from the challenges faced by most other company leaders. Professionals by definition are people who are responsible for achieving a result, so prescriptive management is often inappropriate. Indeed, directing lawyer conduct is often counter-productive to the development of effective lawyer-client relationships between legal team members and company managers. More importantly, the ultimate goal of high client satisfaction usually occurs when highly skilled lawyers address a legal problem by giving it their personal priority, energy and creativity—all of which are about taking initiative. A key leadership challenge for establishing and maintaining a culture of inclusion and promoting the same within a legal department is to foster initiative on a systematic basis. Legal department leaders must find a way to ensure that all lawyers consistently take initiative on behalf of the company when opportunities arise.
Keys to Fostering Lawyer Initiative Empowerment
Am I authorized to act or will it be a “swim lane” violation?
Point of View
Do I have a thought that I think others will value?
Knowledge
Do I know what I need to know about the situation?
Concerns about any of these stifle initiative ©2014 Huntington Ingalls Industries. All rights reserved.
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Legal department leaders must find a way to ensure that all lawyers consistently take initiative on behalf of the company when opportunities arise. How can you foster initiative throughout the department? To foster initiative among attorneys, legal team leaders must ensure that each attorney: ■■Is and feels empowered to take initiative on behalf of the company within his or her area of expertise. ■■Feels comfortable that his or her point of view will be valued and respected within the organization. ■■Has the requisite knowledge to form a thoughtful point of view and provide practical solution-oriented advice to clients. Empowering Attorneys. Legal department leaders should openly and actively communicate to show each attorney within the department, and to all department attorneys as a group, that they are empowered to take initiative and encouraged to serve as leaders within the organization (i.e., to become a “trusted advisor”). Assuming you have recruited and retained attorneys with the appropriate skill sets, you must give attorneys clear lines of authority and entrust them to engage directly with their peers in other areas of organization. Attorneys should be encouraged to consider themselves partners with their peers, both within the legal department and other areas of the organization. As a law department leader, you should communicate leadership expectations to attorneys and encourage them to have a sense of ownership and vested interest in positive outcomes for the organization. By communicating these expectations and empowering your attorneys to work directly with their peers within the organization, you will likely increase the profile of each attorney within the organization. This, in turn, increases the likelihood that the attorneys’ skills and achievements will be valued and recognized for advancement and reduce the potential negative effects of bias on the same. Promoting Respected Points of View. To exercise initiative and serve as an empowered trusted advisor, it is important that each attorney’s viewpoint be valued and respected by his or her peers both within the legal department and the organization. To garner such respect among peers, it is important that each lawyer be encouraged by legal department leaders to move beyond traditional concepts of “lawyering” and seek to add value to the company as business partners rather than gatekeepers. Each attorney should be encouraged to act as a trusted advisor rather than a “legal oracle.” To do so, each attorney should be expected to provide riskbased solutions and alternatives to the legal and business issues
faced by the organization rather than recitations of applicable law. Legal department leaders must ensure that their attorneys are poised to provide practical guidance and alternatives for navigating through legal challenges and accomplishing company goals rather than simply telling company managers whether proposed actions are permitted under law. Each attorney must also be trained to understand that being treated as a peer and a trusted advisor is a two-way street. To be perceived and treated as a peer of other leaders, each counsel must gain the trust of other leaders by treating them as peers and understanding and valuing their responsibilities and contributions. To further this goal, law department leaders should, among other things, encourage each attorney to: ■■Frame the Issues. Help lead the conversation by asking questions or suggesting approaches that facilitate effective discussion and debate. ■■Seek to be a Business Partner. Constructively critique, guide and improve important business decisions (not just note problems from a narrow legal perspective). ■■Offer Solutions. Continually seek to provide practical alternative ways forward that reflect creativity, engagement and energy. MCCA.COM MAR.APR.2015 D I V E R S I T Y
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PROMOTING DIVERSITY THROUGH INCLUSIVE LEADERSHIP
Relating to other leaders as peers will enhance each attorney’s ability to influence and lead by facilitating trust, openness and information sharing among other leaders. It will also help to ensure that the legal department’s goals and perspectives and those of other leaders are aligned. Creating a peer culture in which each attorney’s viewpoint is valued will increase both client satisfaction and attorney job satisfaction. This, in turn, should increase retention and opportunities for advancement and reduce the potential negative effects of bias on the same. Further, within the legal team itself, if attorneys are empowered and expected to take initiative as peers of one another, team performance is likely to be enhanced as any failure will be viewed as letting down colleagues. Providing Access to Knowledge. Last, but perhaps most importantly, to promote initiative and the trusted advisor model, legal department leaders must provide each attorney with the information necessary for him or her to exercise such initiative and provide a well-considered and fulsome point of view that takes into account the goals of the organization and the legal and business realties that affect the organization’s ability to achieve the same. Access to such information will not only enhance each attorney’s ability to provide great legal advice but also permit him or her to serve as a “conduit” or “clearinghouse” for the transfer of solutions across groups and potentially “connect the dots” between other members of management by creating opportunities to collaborate and share insights—a real value-add to any organization. To promote such transparency and information sharing, legal department leaders should: ■■Institute appropriate policies and behaviors, including regular reports from each area of expertise. ■■Hold regular meetings of the legal team at large. ■■Encourage group discussions of current developments. ■■Discuss overall budget visibility. ■■Encourage overt discussions of outside counsel selection and management processes. ■■Institute performance plans for each attorney that align with the goals and values of the legal department and the whole organization. If all attorneys are provided with the requisite knowledge to provide insightful, solution-based advice as a trusted advisor, then they will be valued and feel valued by the organization. This will likely result in an increase in retention and opportunities for advancement for all attorneys (including diverse attorneys) and reduce the potential negative effects of bias on the same.
The Model for Inclusion
The graphic on the next page is illustrative of the model that the Huntington Ingalls Industries legal team uses to promote an
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inclusive environment and attorney initiative within the legal department. The HII team consciously seeks to use: ■■The trusted advisor model to promote attorney empowerment. ■■ A peer culture to promote respect for points of view. ■■Information sharing and transparency to provide all attorneys with access to knowledge. The HII legal team has used this model to effectively recruit talented attorneys and grow the department, increase its influence throughout the company and make a positive impact on the company’s outcomes. It is often said, “that which is measured, is valued,” and recent surveys of HII stakeholders indicate that implementation of these concepts has had a significant positive impact on client satisfaction. As the HII legal team continues its progress on these issues, the next step is to create tools to elicit perceptions from within the legal department of our current level of success in these areas and to use such metrics to inform ways our policies and procedures can be further improved and our level of diversity can be increased going forward. As an example of metrics, consider asking the following three polling questions of all team attorneys on a regular basis to help to create baselines and progress vectors concerning a team’s inclusion qualities: 1. Do you and your legal team colleagues have a clear understanding of whether and to what extent you and they are empowered to act and take initiative as team members? 2. Do things happen on the legal team with enough transparency to allow you to know what is going on and how things get done? 3. Do you have knowledge of the information necessary for you take initiative and succeed in your role as a team member? While these may not be the kinds of questions typically asked in polls relating to diversity and inclusion, they would seem to provide both a natural barometer on inclusion and, more importantly, specific information that can let leaders know when they need to do a better job of engaging the key drivers of initiative to create inclusion and help overcome bias.
Using Attorney Initiative to Drive Inclusion
Although inclusion can be and has been addressed through numerous pathways, law department leaders may be well-served in using a focus on attorney initiative to drive such efforts. Legal department leaders can drive attorney initiative and, in turn, inclusiveness within their department, by creating a team of peers who share information and leverage professional initiative and by promoting peer expectations and shared values to consistently achieve high performance in the role of trusted advisors to the client community—an operating model that typically aligns well
The Model for Inclusion Trusted Advisor Model
Inclusive team structure
Empowerment
Peer Culture Validation
Point of View
Information Sharing & Transparency
Knowledge
Team members positioned to flourish and overcome potential effects of bias
©2014 Huntington Ingalls Industries. All rights reserved.
with collaborative company culture. Establishing this model requires that legal department leaders ensure that each attorney within the legal department: ■■Is empowered to take initiative. ■■Has his or her point of view valued. ■■Receives information regarding a majority of the critical issues being handled by the legal department and not just those issues that are within their particular expertise. The absence of any one or more of these elements within the culture of any legal department will stifle such initiative and, in turn, reduce the effectiveness of its attorneys and the likelihood that they will remain to develop and advance within the organization. However, where each of these elements is applicable to all attorneys within the organization (and not just those that have the closest relationship with law department leaders) the likelihood is that the effects of bias will be lessened significantly. In such an environment, diverse and non-diverse attorneys alike will feel valued and be valued by clients, and they will take the initiative necessary to improve company outcomes and develop and advance their careers within the organization—a win-win scenario all effective legal department leaders should desire. Additional note: While not the focus of the discussion above, fostering initiative within your legal department is predicated on having high-quality attorneys that have strong legal skills valued by your organization. Strong legal skills are the foundation upon which any effective legal department is built. While an inclusive culture will certainly enhance the ability of your legal department to attract and retain diverse talent,
the starting point is to have a core group of attorneys that have the mix of legal skills needed by your organization. If your legal department lacks such a core, then your key task as a leader is to engage in the hard work of recruiting the right diverse group of personnel. Notably, the task of recruiting may be substantially more effective if you are able to communicate to candidates a strong vision for an inclusive work environment that supports individual initiative and, in turn, diversity. ■ Editor’s Note: This article was created out of conversations following a session at MCCA’s Creating Pathways to Diversity Conference titled “Speaking Your Client’s Language: Being a Lawyer and Strategic Advisor.” For details about the 2015 conference, please visit www.mcca. com/pathways. BRUCE N. HAWTHORNE (bruce.hawthorne@ hii-co.com) is corporate vice president and chief legal officer, Huntington Ingalls Industries. His corporate career includes serving as executive VP, GC and secretary, Electronic Data Systems; executive VP and chief staff officer, Sprint Corporation; and senior partner, King & Spalding. Hawthorne holds a BBA, University of Michigan; an MBA, University of Detroit; and a JD (Order of the Coif), Vanderbilt University. EDWARD S. HARRISON (edward.s.harrison@ hii-co.com ) is senior counsel—lead corporate transactions counsel, Huntington Ingalls Industries. Prior to joining the HII team, he was a partner in the corporate and securities practice of Baker & McKenzie LLP in Chicago. Harrison holds a BA in economics from Hampden-Sydney College and a JD from Howard University School of Law.
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NEW ES I T I N U T OPPOR ERSITY FOR DIV HE IN T
N O I S S E PROF Morgan Stanley has made a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion and seeks to expand its ranks in its legal and compliance division, a sometimes overlooked career option with significant growth trajectory due in part to increased regulations. Diversity & the Bar talked to Nate Saint-Victor, an executive director, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, Legal and Compliance, and Michael Henry, an executive director of legal and compliance at Morgan Stanley.
By Dianne Hayes
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AINT-VICTOR AND HENRY ARE LEADERS of Morgan Stanley’s financial services diversity roundtable for legal and compliance professionals. Their goal is to educate and encourage more in the legal profession to consider opportunities in compliance. In 2014, MCCA awarded the Morgan Stanley Legal and Compliance Division the George B. Vashon Innovator Award for a collaborative Pipeline Initiative with three other organizations. Also, MCCA previously recognized the department as the 2012 Employer of Choice Award winner for the Northeast Region for its diversity efforts. Saint-Victor provides advice to Morgan Stanley Wealth Management on issues pertaining to the laws, rules and regulations applicable to investment advisers and brokers-dealers, with a focus on the formation, distribution and marketing of hedge funds and other alternative investment vehicles. Henry is an executive director of Morgan Stanley and the chief compliance officer for the merchant banking & real estate investing division of investment management. He manages a team of compliance professionals in New York, the U.K., Hong Kong and Tokyo, and either directly undertakes or oversees a variety of responsibilities, including advising senior management on regulatory developments and compliance-related risk issues, annual compliance policies and procedures review, monitoring and testing, development and delivery of training programs, employee trading oversight, investor due diligence meetings and inquiries, regulatory reporting, and preparation for regulatory inquiries and/or examinations.
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What are some strategies that can be used to increase awareness about opportunities in the compliance profession? Saint-Victor: One of the subcommittees of our legal and compliance diversity and inclusion committee is the Diversity Pipeline Initiative. Its mission is to build a pipeline of diverse candidates interested in pursuing a legal and/or compliance career, and one of its goals is to expose college and law school students to lawyers and compliance professionals in the financial services sector. DPI is doing this in a number of ways, including partnering with the NYC Bar DPI Committee to increase the pipeline with programs targeting diverse individuals at various ends of the spectrum—from high school students to newly admitted attorneys. Programs include participation in collaborative think-tank exercises, development of best-in-class guides for various pipeline initiatives, providing hands-on training and coaching of students and junior attorneys, and assisting students with resume writing and interview skills. Specific events have included a speed networking get-together and a diverse career opportunities panel.
judgment. You gain credibility when people recognize that you have a credibility reputation to rely on. Why is it important for people to pay attention to this issue? Saint-Victor: Besides it being the fair and decent thing to do, by fostering a culture of diversity, employers benefit from varied perspectives on how to confront business challenges and achieve success. To have a quality legal and compliance department, our workforce must consist of the most talented and creative individuals available. In order to attract and retain this talent from a representative cross-section of our global community, we must strive to maintain an environment in which diversity and inclusion is respected and encouraged. We seek to leverage our similarities and differences, which include the full range of social and cultural identities, organizational roles and perspectives, to enhance our effectiveness. What’s the organizational structure of most compliance departments? Henry: It varies. One of the big issues out there now is that there are some institutions that are taking the chief compliance officer out from under the chief legal officer and they are direct reports to the board of directors or CEO. At Morgan Stanley, the chief compliance officer reports to the chief legal officer. Some companies are deciding that legal and compliance are sufficiently distinct. We are seeing more of that happening.
Please define what’s included in the compliance area. Can you offer a brief overview of the profession? Saint-Victor: The word compliance is derived from the verb “to comply,” which means “to act in accordance with the rules.” In the context of a financial service firm, it refers to the need to act in accordance with the rules of various regulators and the need to abide by internal systems of control that are imposed to achieve compliance with the externally imposed rules. The To have a quality legal and role of a compliance officer can include compliance department, our developing policy and practices that ensure regulations are adhered to; workforce must consist of the ensuring that no conflicts of interest most talented and creative arise within the firm; identifying risks to the firm and designing and impleindividuals available. ment controls to protect the firm from — Nate Saint-Victor such risks; monitoring and reporting on the effectiveness of those controls; and advising the business on rules and controls. Within the finanWhen it comes to diversity, what are the issues? Is there a lack cial services industry, compliance covers many areas, including of representation? banking, investment management and securities, marketing and Saint-Victor: This is a diverse country and a diverse world. advertising, investment products and services, monitoring and Firms that have a workforce as diverse as the population have testing, surveillance and technology. many perspectives, views and ideas that strengthen their ability to do business, to strategize and communicate. There certainAre there people who are better suited for compliance work? ly are groups who are not yet represented in the compliance Henry: The more senior you are, the more important it is to have workforce. real gravitas. Sometimes there is tension. It is important to be able to say no when necessary and be willing to say maybe. Our Was there a particular shift toward compliance at some job is to find points of convergence for what business wants to do point? If so, when and why? and what regulators say. It is a combination of intelligence and Saint-Victor: Regulation of this industry has increased dramatiMCCA.COM MAR.APR.2015 D I V E R S I T Y
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cally over the last decade, and thus so has the need for compliance. What are the diversity issues when it comes to taking advantage of opportunities in compliance? Saint-Victor: It seems mainly an issue of lack of awareness among certain groups about compliance opportunities, which is why our focus has been on outreach efforts among certain groups. Does compliance require any special training? Saint-Victor: It depends. Certain coverage areas require or prefer licenses, like the Series 24. Other areas require a JD. But there are many positions that do not require special training. What’s being done as it relates to the diversity pipeline for compliance? Saint-Victor: Our legal and compliance
If you look at the compliance profession, it has evolved and is very different from what it was 20 years ago. — Michael Henry
diversity & inclusion committee’s summer intern program provides diverse college and law students with exposure to financial services compliance and legal professions and seeks to enhance future LCD diversity recruiting efforts. We actually made some hires from college through our summer intern program. Some schools like Fordham have developed curriculum to prepare students right out of law school. Recently, we hosted a symposium that was attended by 80 law students. We introduced them to compliance, and it was well-received. We don’t typically hire from law school, but we do recognize supply and demand. Some can come in and do a great job right after law school.
Is there a better path to get into compliance, directly from law school, or is it more important to gain other types of experience first? Henry: It works either way. If you look at the compliance profession, it has evolved and is very different from what it was 20 years ago. It wasn’t a clear career path. Now people are seeing opportunities to really grow and have meaningful engagement, especially when you look at an industry like financial services. People are coming directly into compliance and are developing themselves. They are developing a skill set through tutelage. Where should you go to learn more about compliance opportunities? Henry: We don’t want to create the impression that being a lawyer gives you more of an advantage over people in compliance. We have people who are accountants. There are people working in compliance who never went to law school. Right now, there is definitely a slight bias for those with a law degree. Recruiters want people who are bright. We list opportunities on our firm’s website. We want to increase diverse representation. We are looking to work more closely with organizations like MCCA and post jobs on other sites so people can become aware of the opportunities. Recently, we had a career and compliance symposium. We had volunteers who were able to meet with attendees. As a result of that outreach, we hired about 10 people. What’s appealing about this field to you? Henry: There are a lot more opportunities to manage people. The legal staff tends to be relatively leaner than compliance. Even at the junior level, there are more opportunities to manage. You are more ingrained with the business to make sure it works, short-, intermediate- and long-term. You tend to work on projects with a lot more continuity, and you are seeing things come to fruition. There is opportunity for it to be tested and to improve the process. All of those elements can make it a satisfying career. ■ DIANNE HAYES (Hayesassociates@comcast.net.) is a freelance writer/editor based in Maryland who specializes in diversity issues, education and STEM.
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2015
Rising Stars By Dianne Hayes
MCCA’s Annual List of Rising Stars proves that the profession has upcoming talent who may or may not be of a certain age group or practice law as a second career, but they all give back. MCCA.COM MAR.APR.2015 D I V E R S I T Y
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2015 MCCA Rising Stars Their backgrounds are as diverse as their practice areas, but what these Rising Stars have in common is their love of law, their diligence and their pursuit of excellence, while possessing a compassion for those in need and a strong desire to give back to others. They are dedicated to their profession but have also learned the art of balancing work with a life that includes being expert speakers and authors, parents, culinary and sports enthusiasts, and volunteers and leaders in their communities. Though they are different ages and at varying stages in their careers, they share a common goal to pursue justice in its various forms. The nomination pool of talented Rising Stars was great, but the Minority Corporate Counsel Association narrowed the field down to 15 stellar attorneys whose accomplishments and dedication to the field and to their community place them among those “attorneys to watch” in the legal profession. We salute the MCCA Rising Stars!
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ALISHA CIESLAK
General Counsel Gordon Food Service “ Bring your whole self to work; don’t be afraid to have a voice and an opinion, but be smart enough to know that not everyone always wants to hear it.” She is a go-getter who has always known exactly where she wanted to be and was prepared to work hard to get there. Alisha Cieslak began her law career at age 17 as a file clerk in a complex civil litigation law firm. She continued to hone her craft through her previous work as director of legal affairs, North America for Benteler, which employs 30,000 people globally and has business units in automotive, steel/tube and distribution. She was the company’s first American lawyer and was tasked with helping form the first regional legal department outside of Western Europe to support Benteler’s $2 billion North American operations. She has also worked in private practice in Oakland County, Mich.
“I knew at 14 years old what I wanted to do,” Cieslak said. “While no one else in my family is an attorney, my family was not surprised at the path I chose because of a tenacity I developed at an early age.” At age 30, Cieslak is general counsel for Gordon Food Service, a multibillion dollar food service distribution company. She was brought to Gordon to develop an in-house legal department and bring structure to the way the company engages external law firms. Cieslak is responsible for overseeing all legal aspects of the business for all locations and business units. Her team, the Legal Service Center, enables company strategy while also proactively mitigating and managing risk. She is one of three women who sit on the North American Senior Leadership Team. She is a proponent for diversity and inclusion inside the company and throughout the company’s extended legal service provider network. Cieslak is a member of the American Bar Association, Food and Drug Law Section; the State Bar of Michigan, Business and International Law sections; and the Women Lawyers Association of Michigan. She has served as a panelist at the Women Lawyer’s Association Annual Meeting and authored an article for the International Law Section’s e-magazine in 2013. In 2014, she was named one of Detroit’s Top Corporate Counsel by DBusiness Magazine. “Gordon Food Service is a company with a unique culture, grounded in its cornerstone values,” Cieslak said. “That culture closely aligns with my personal beliefs: stay hungry, be humble and practice gratitude.”
IAN CLEMENT
Senior Associate Wong Fleming “ Find those things in life, whether at work or outside, that leave you inspired and fulfilled.” He has a nose for flushing out the truth and instinctive skills that work to the advantage of Wong Fleming’s Corporate Asset Recovery Group. Before becoming an attorney, Ian Clement was an undercover narcotics officer with the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division. He later worked as a deputy attorney general with the Casino Prosecutions Bureaus in Atlantic City, N.J., where he prosecuted financial crimes and gambling offenses. Clement is now a senior associate at Wong Fleming, where he manages a team of attorneys and paralegals representing several of the firm’s Fortune 500 clients in complex litigation. His team’s work includes representing a regional bank regarding corporate asset recovery of more than $29 million in defaulted commercial loans; litigation matters, including fraudulent transfer complaints, asset investigations, contract
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disputes, deficiency and replevin actions. “My work is primarily corporate asset recovery,” he said. “We help banks recover aircraft, automotive floor plans and large pieces of equipment. It brings me full circle to a lot of the criminal work I used to do. I have to do a lot of detective work to find out where the money is, if there is money to be recovered.” He has also prepared plaintiff civil rights cases for trial involving racial and religious discrimination, Americans with Disabilities Act violations, First Amendment political affiliation discrimination, hostile work and school environments, and bullying. A strategist with more than 15 years of litigation experience, Clement credits Dan Fleming and Linda Wong for serving as positive mentors. He is associate editor for Litigation News, a publication of the American Bar Association, Section of Litigation. Clement is published monthly online and quarterly in ABA’s publication on topics ranging from attorney ethics to civil procedure techniques. He has also developed a CLE seminar titled “Handling the Police Liability Claim,” addressing topics such as theories of liability and immunity, state versus federal jurisdiction, and filing a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. When he isn’t working, he mentors African-American boys in the Philadelphia area as a youth basketball and baseball coach.
ANDREW DIAZ-MATOS
VP, Assistant General Counsel Dir.—Enterprise Transactions Law The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. “ Focus on developing yourself and the people you work with so that everyone understands and is able to perform at a high level.” His love of “the deal” has served as a major asset to the Hartford Financial Services Group. Andrew Diaz-Matos joined The Hartford in 2006 from IBM, where he was the lead lawyer for the mid-range mainframes business. Currently, he is vice president, assistant general counsel and director of enterprise transactions law, where he leads a team responsible for overall legal support of The Hartford’s commercial and strategic transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, sourcing, real estate and technology. He played a significant role in the company’s strategic transactions in 2012, which were responsible for putting the company on a successful trajectory.
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Some of the transactions he and his team handled in 2014 include divesting the international variable annuity business to Berkshire Hathaway (UK) and Orix (Japan); negotiating a six-year, $500 million cloud-based IT infrastructure outsourcing with IBM; and acquiring a new property and casualty insurance policy management system. He is also known for his innovation in his team’s day-to-day work. He has spearheaded an overhaul of the library of template forms used in the procurement organization, developed training materials for use by negotiators, created office hours to train staff on which contracts to use and which provisions can be negotiated without escalation to lawyers, and has created an RFP process for soliciting alternative fee arrangements with outside counsel—which has led to reduced and more certain costs. He is keenly focused on his team’s professional development, an investment for which his team members showed their appreciation by nominating him for the Law Department Award of Excellence for Managers, which he won this year. “I have had such tremendous support from my team, and I try to reciprocate by building their skills and expertise,” said Diaz-Matos. “I spend a lot of time on development. The company reaps the rewards when people are engaged in cross-training and sharing best practices.” He is a member of the board of directors of the Hartford Public Library and a veteran of the U.S. Army. He gives back through the Pro Bono Partnership, which provides free business and transactional legal services to nonprofits.
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NICOLE DUCLOS
Partner Covington & Burling LLP “ With the profession of law being as demanding as it is, find something you are passionate about. If you are going to spend a lot of time at the office, find something you love.” Nicole Duclos has proven she knows what she wants and has the work ethic to achieve it. Beginning her study of law at the age of 16 in Chile, she came to Harvard to get an LLM and an SJD in international law. After completing her LLM she put her SJD on hold to join a law firm as a foreign associate doing arbitration work. “I really wanted to do more international work,” Duclos said. “I thought that having another degree would open new horizons. But after doing arbitration work, I never went back to get the SJD.” Duclos is a partner in Covington’s New York office and draws on her Latin American background and Spanish and Portuguese language skills to lead a team of multi-cultural and multi-lingual arbitration attorneys at the firm. She focuses her practice on interna-
tional commercial and investment arbitration, with emphasis on Latin America, where she has represented clients in more than a dozen jurisdictions. She is currently representing Latin American, European, Asian and American clients in major international arbitrations involving projects such as copper and gold mines, biomass-to-ethanol plants, electricity generation and transmission, and oil and gas exploration. Duclos has published on international arbitration and is a regular speaker on commercial and investment treaty arbitration. “Most of my clients are in Latin America,” she said. “What I like about this work is that I am always learning about new industries and legal systems. It’s a challenging, yet rewarding, experience.” She has served on the Programs and Courses Committee of the Latin American Arbitration Association and the Arbitration Committee of the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution and is a volunteer arbitrator for the Small Claims Court in the Bronx. She has also taught international arbitration courses in several graduate programs in South America. Recognized for her handling of cases, she has received honors from the Legal 500 U.S. and Latin America, Chambers U.S. and Latin America, and Latinvex and is noted for her international arbitration work in “Chambers Guide to World’s Best Lawyers 2012.” “It takes hard work, perseverance and a bit of luck,” Duclos said. “I am a woman who came to the U.S. alone to pursue a career in international law. A school teacher once told me that sometimes opportunities come along and you have to be willing to take risks to take advantage of them. I am pleased I did.”
RUDY FIGUEROA
VP Admin, Legal & HR General Counsel and Secretary Mitsui Rail Capital LLC “ Build, cultivate and leverage relationships. Find ways to help people out. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Find a mutually beneficial exchange.” Rudy Figueroa wears multiple hats at Mitsui Rail Capital LLC. He is vice president of administration, human resources and legal, and general counsel and corporate secretary. He juggles time zones with the global conglomerate, where he manages rail-related assets and consulting. He manages operational infrastructure in North America and consulting/ project management in Europe, Asia and South America. “We provide rail cars to a lot of big product manufacturers and shippers,” he said. “We need to move a lot of product at a time.” Figueroa previously worked as an attorney at Chuhak & Tecson PC, practicing in mergers and acquisitions, aviation, equipment finance and leasing, corporate and commercial transactions, insurance
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coverage and commercial litigation. He represented numerous companies (public and private), high-net worth individuals and organizations. In addition, he was an attorney at Daley & Mohan PC (a firm spun off from Ross & Hardies prior to the later merger with McGuire Woods), where he practiced mergers and acquisitions, private placements and fund formation, employment matters, complex mechanics lien litigation and FELA Defense for Class 1 Railroads. “Take your career and professional development in your own hands,” Figueroa said. “I am the son of immigrants who taught me to take control of your own destiny. You have to take a chance on opportunities even if you are not sure.” In the midst of his work challenges, he is committed to giving back to others. Figueroa has worked over the past three years to spearhead the establishment of the National Filipino American Lawyers Association. He has also led the organization’s advocacy efforts related to obtaining temporary protected status for Filipino refugees in the U.S. in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan, as well as immigration reform and other public policy efforts. He also continues to lead efforts to make Filipino-American attorneys more visible in their own organizations and encourages them to find good mentors. “I felt that I needed to give back,” Figueroa said. “One of the values of this profession is being an advocate. From the perspective of Old World Asian countries, being vocal meant being disrespectful, but being vocal in the U.S. is different. We are working to help Filipino-American lawyers overcome professional barriers. We want to help them to become partner, GC or judge and make even greater inroads.”
JAMIL FRENCH
Director and Senior Counsel Pershing Advisor Solutions LLC, a BNY Mellon Company “ You can’t just look at what’s in front of you; you must have a three-dimensional view of what’s going on. It’s important to understand all of the connections.” Jamil French’s drive to succeed came by watching his father work and go to law school at night to achieve his goals. But the biggest lessons he learned were from his mentors, who taught him to dig deeper and to look for connections. “I try to keep that in mind,” French said. “Everything is everything. It’s a lawyer’s job to understand all of the connections. When you do that, you gain a broader understanding of the client and the law.” French provides advice to more than 200 employees at Pershing Advisor Solutions, a BNY Mellon company focused on advisor custody services, where he’s contributed to a significant growth in new assets. He also covers Pershing’s multi-billion dollar mutual fund platform.
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“This kind of work keeps you on your toes,” he said. “It drives me to be my best. I like the idea that the work I’m doing in some small way is helping the financial markets to run. At the end of the day, I’m helping someone to preserve a legacy.” He has nearly 15 years of experience in investment management and securities regulation, beginning his career as an associate in the investment management groups at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP and Seward & Kissel LLP, both in New York City. Prior to his current role, French covered BNY Mellon’s Asset Servicing division, representing the bank in its trust and custodial relationships with asset managers. He has worked and consulted for a number of investment advisors, including Sandell Asset Management, Glenview Asset Management and CBRE Real Estate Investment Management. He has also served as chief of staff to an executive at Credit Suisse in charge of global talent, branding and communications. French is active throughout the industry, where he has played a role in joining other advisor custodians to offer the Securities and Exchange Commission an industry perspective on its custody rules, and he’s educating Pershing employees about game-changing trends in the financial advisor marketplace. He was awarded the 2013 Pershing Leadership Award for helping to bring “electronic signature” capability to clients. He is an active member of his company’s LGBT employee resource group and enjoys volunteering for causes of importance to the black and LGBT communities at the national and local levels. He volunteers with a groundbreaking initiative providing LGBT people with an understanding of how federal tax law affects their relationships. He serves on BNY Mellon Legal Department’s Diver-
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sity and Inclusion Council, developing initiatives to attract, retain, train and promote diverse legal talent. He represents BNY Mellon on the Council of Urban Professionals. The National LGBT Bar Association named him one of 2014’s “40 Best LGBT Lawyers Under 40.” French has an international bent—he speaks French, Brazilian Portuguese and Japanese and enjoys traveling. French taught English in Japan for a year following graduation from Princeton, before going to law school at Harvard.
DORIS GILLIAM
Senior Attorney AARP “ Continue to research new issues and educate yourself. Never get away from the law clerk experience.” Doris Gilliam’s love of law and her strong desire to help others were perfectly matched with the needs and requirements of AARP, where she began as a law clerk to Leslie Nettleford and advanced to her current role of senior attorney at its headquarters in Washington, D.C. AARP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization with a membership of nearly 38 million.
Gilliam is the lead attorney for the state group of six, which provides legal support to AARP field offices in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Senior management has recognized her leadership in guiding the team, which handles issues ranging from intellectual property to membership. Gilliam manages the trademark portfolio, trademark prosecution, clearance and licensing, in addition to supporting several other departments. “For a nonprofit, there is a huge workload, including providing counsel to AARP and its affiliates,” Gilliam said. “There are a lot of complex issues to be evaluated all the time. It’s very exciting. “Always be willing to learn from other people. In a legal department, the best solutions typically come from a team effort. Unfortunately, sometimes in law, a competitive atmosphere can be an impediment to getting the work done well. Sometimes we forget that we really need our colleagues. I’m blessed to work with wonderful people, including General Counsel Cindy Lewin, who encourages me to be innovative. No matter what the issue is, I like to focus on customer service, serving my clients well and doing it with a great attitude and really listening.” Her department won the 2014 WMACCA In-House Innovators Award, recognizing a new review approach that Gilliam put in place with the support of several colleagues, including Larry Cohen, Dan Koslofsky, David Morales and Charlene Wilson, which was implemented to address high review volumes. She is credited with creating more than 20 new policies, guidelines and processes that have been successfully implemented. “I’ve always liked helping people,” Gilliam said. “Law seemed like a good place to use that desire. I work with an amazing
group of clients who serve the needs of the 50-plus.” When she isn’t working at AARP, she can be found giving back to the community, including pro bono work at her church, where she serves as general counsel. She is also extremely involved in her children’s schools. Gilliam and her husband, Darryl, have two children. Her younger sister is also an IP attorney at Google.
NICKY JATANA
Shareholder Jackson Lewis PC “ First and foremost, be yourself. Provide the best service and counsel that you can to clients.” A shareholder in the Los Angeles office of Jackson Lewis PC, Nicky Jatana co-leads the firm’s Privacy, E-communication and Data Security Practice Group. Jatana also focuses on complex employment litigation, advising employers regarding daily workplace and privacy issues. She is a certified information privacy professional with the International Association of Privacy Professionals. Jatana has litigated numerous wage and hour class and multi-plaintiff actions and has significant trial experience. As
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part of both her litigation and counseling practice, Jatana regularly advises employers on privacy, social media and data security issues and their impact on business and the workplace. She is a regular speaker on these topics. Her background includes litigation involving wrongful termination, discrimination, harassment, breach of contract, systemic, wage and hour, preventive advice and training, and other labor and employment and privacy-related matters. “What attracted me to law was the analysis that is required,” she said. “Not everything is black and white. More often than not, you are dealing with issues somewhere in the middle. I like problem solving.” She is a member of the Labor and Employment Law Section of the State Bar of California and a member of the Los Angeles County Bar Association, the South Asian Bar Association and the National South Asian Bar Association. She has co-authored articles on topics ranging from “The Impact of Employees Left to Their Own Devices: Top Ten BYOD Considerations,” Association of Corporate Counsel online legal esources; to “Advising Employers on the Use of Social Media in the Workplace,” Los Angeles Lawyer magazine.
Jatana also has a robust history of mentoring and sponsoring women inside and outside her firm. She is extremely active in the Women, Influence & Power in the Law network, including presenting on a panel during the 2014 WIPL conference discussing the importance of leadership for women in the law. She was honored in 2012 with the Sharing the Power Award at the Transformational Leadership Awards Western Conference presented by InsideCounsel magazine. She also serves as the firm’s partner liaison to the Association of Corporate Counsel’s national employment and labor law committee. Jatana was recognized as a 2007 Southern California Super Lawyer Rising Star and has since been recognized as a Southern California Super Lawyer in 2010 through 2014. She has served as litigation committee chair in 2009–2010 and 2010–2011 on the Litigation Committee for the executive board of the South Asian Bar Association of Southern California.
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STEPHEN LESSARD
Senior Associate Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP “ If you really love what you do, you will do it well. I’m fortunate to have found two careers, the Navy and now the law, that I love.” Stephen Lessard has proven that it’s never too late to launch a second career. After serving 20 years in the U.S. Navy, Lessard followed an almost lost dream of becoming a lawyer. A self-described military brat, with his father serving as a career officer in the U.S. Air Force, Lessard was commissioned in the Navy and enjoyed his time as a surface warfare officer. “I always planned to go to law school,” Lessard said. “I used to watch Perry Mason as a kid. When I ended my Navy career I realized that if a law career was ever going to happen, 20 years in the Navy seemed like the right point to do it.” Lessard naturally gravitated to tax law and honed his skills at Orrick, where he advises on complex tax issues and represents clients before the IRS and the U.S. Tax Court. He has published a number of articles and recently co-authored a Lexis practice guide on the “Foreign Account
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Tax Compliance Act” that will be used by lawyers in the U.S. and UK. His practice is focused on the taxation of debt and equity offerings, cross-border transactions, tax controversy and municipal finance. He is also experienced in counseling nonprofit organizations on federal tax law and corporate governance. He plays a key role in Orrick’s diversity and inclusion program, serving in leadership of the firm’s New York diversity committee and LGBT and Veterans affinity groups. He has been instrumental in planning a veteran legal career fair to be held in Washington, D.C., this May, which will include leading law firms and corporate law departments. He currently serves as treasurer of the New York County Lawyers’ Association and a delegate to the New York State Bar Association House of Delegates. Lessard is dedicated to his pro bono activities, particularly in the service to low-income taxpayers and veterans. He founded and currently oversees pro bono programs in New York City that assist unrepresented taxpayers appearing at calendar sessions before the U.S. Tax Court (the first program of its kind in New York) and veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder/military sexual trauma to upgrade the characterization of their military discharges so they can pursue veterans benefits. Additionally, he drafted legal arguments used in obtaining recent, groundbreaking decisions permitting transgender Army and Navy veterans to change the name on their military discharge certificates to conform to their gender. “Orrick is committed to providing pro bono opportunities,” Lessard said. “I’m fortunate to be able to be involved with pro bono, including helping veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.”
TAMIKA S. MAYES
Senior Tax Attorney General Motors Company “ The most difficult times or failures might be the most transformational. Seek to find the lesson in them—it will be worth gold.” Through her experience as a certified public accountant at Ernst and Young, an attorney at top Chicago and New York law firms, and now in-house tax counsel for General Motors Company, Tamika S. Mayes has developed a practical, entrepreneurial, client-centric approach to problem-solving and team work. Mayes is a senior tax attorney in the tax staff of General Motors, where she is responsible for global transfer pricing matters. Prior to this assignment, she managed the U.S. federal, state, and local tax issues and served as tax counsel to OnStar and General Motors Global Connect Consumer unit. “Each day, I know what I am doing matters in my community and in the world,” Mayes said. “Working at one of the world’s largest global automotive companies constantly provides innovative products, projects and issues to which I
can add a unique valuable perspective.” Her more than 15 years of accounting and tax experience includes working in the areas of audit, federal income tax, state and local taxation matters, tax planning and controversy. “My most recent role in transfer pricing has surprisingly been one of the most fulfilling. It is a multidisciplinary team (of economists, tax practitioners and lawyers, among others), all of whom are extremely passionate about the company and about providing the best service at all times. In that role, daily I must draw on all my legal and accounting knowledge and professional experience to deliver quick, responsive advice on various global business and legal challenges.” Mayes has co-authored “Separation Anxiety” (bifurcation of financial instruments) published by Practicing Law Institute and received special recognition for the contribution in the capital assets tax management portfolio published in Bloomberg BNA. She received the Rising Star Award for the 2014 Crain’s General and In-house Counsel Awards and the Cornerstone Award from Lawyers Alliance for New York, which recognized her pro bono legal services to New York City nonprofits. Mayes serves on the board of several organizations and tax committees and remains an active volunteer with various New York and Michigan nonprofit organizations and small business initiatives. Her passion is the personal and professional development of girls and women and entrepreneurship. She is frequently requested to speak at various career development and youth leadership events. She is a mentor in Women of Tomorrow Mentor and Scholarship Program, where she mentors 20 high school students from Osborn Academy of Math Science and Technology, where she exposes young
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women to various career options in STEM-related careers in automotive and careers in law. “I view mentoring as much of an opportunity to learn as it is to share. The insight and lessons I have learned have been invaluable.”
ALEX PONCE DE LEON
Counsel Google Inc. “ As a lawyer, assume nothing. People get in trouble when they assume.” Working at two of the most desirable tech firms has been extremely satisfying for Alex Ponce de Leon. Since 2014, he has served as counsel for Google Inc., where he develops and implements innovative discovery strategies for a broad cross-section of litigation matters.
His practice includes patent litigation, complex commercial litigation, trade secrets litigation, contract disputes, internal investigations and employment matters. In addition to managing his own caseload, he also facilitates the implementation of new discovery policies and procedures designed to reduce costs and mitigate legal risk across the company. Prior to joining Google, he was a senior litigation counsel at the Intel Corporation for four years, where he focused primarily on discovery and general litigation matters. “You can win or lose a case in discovery,” he said. “It’s a fascinating part of the law. It’s also why it’s the most expensive part of litigation, because you have to put in so many hours.” Ponce de Leon is credited with going above and beyond what is expected. He is a national leader on e-discovery and diversity. At Intel, he developed and began implementation of a legal vendor diversity pledge to encourage firms and legal vendors to improve diversity. He conceived the idea, drafted the initial pledge and helped lobby for its approval at Intel. He is also the national co-chair of the E-Discovery Institute’s Diversity Council. In that role, he is working on a similar legal diversity pledge to help improve diversity among law firms and vendors. He became a catalyst for diversity nationally. When Intel acquired McAfee, Ponce de Leon managed a challenging assimilation of the McAfee litigation discovery group. He managed the integration and reduced the legal risk. He has been a national advocate and frequent speaker on the use of innovative e-discovery techniques, from robust claw-backs to predictive coding. He is also a sought-after speaker on the topic of e-discovery law.
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He has been a part of the national organizing committee for the MCCA Annual CLE Expo since 2012. He recently served on the MCCA scholarship selection committee for the 2015 LMJ Scholarship. Ponce de Leon spent six months working with the Intel Education Service Corps. This volunteer opportunity culminated in a two-week teaching deployment to an orphanage and early education center in Kenya. He is a member of the California Bar Association’s Council on Access and Fairness, and was recently awarded the 2014 Young Hispanic Corporate Achiever Award.
SCHUYLER A. SMITH
Associate Hamilton Miller & Birthisel LLP “ Embrace and be confident about what is authentic about you. Find the right balance between serious work and personal joys.” Hailing from the hills of Central Jamaica, Schuyler A. Smith has always envisioned a career in advocacy. As a litigation associate in the Insurance Practice Group
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at Hamilton Miller & Birthisel LLP, her goals are being realized. “I love the practice of law because it is never boring and is always evolving and constantly challenging,” Smith said. “I love the feeling of accomplishment I get from helping to zealously advocate for my clients—win or lose.” Based in the firm’s Miami office, Smith advises clients on various complex insurance matters in Florida and the Caribbean, specifically the U.S. Virgin Islands. She represents hotels, physicians and medical providers, major cruise lines, product manufacturers and distributors, international businesses, transportation companies and underwriters, including major marine domestic and international underwriters in state and federal court in both jurisdictions. Smith began her legal career as a trial attorney for the State of Florida Department of Children and Families, where she prosecuted parents who abused, abandoned or neglected their children and litigated dependency and termination of parental rights cases. Subsequently, Smith worked at a large Florida defense firm, where she handled complex business and business tort matters, community association litigation, professional liability litigation and labor and employment litigation. “One of the keys to success is to surround yourself with the best people in the world doing what you do,” Smith said. When she is not working, she is actively involved in legal and community organizations. Smith has served as elected governor for the Florida Bar Young Lawyers Division for the 11th Judicial Circuit since 2011, and as elected director for the Dade County Bar Association, Young Lawyers Section. She was selected as one of approximately 15 applicants from across the
country for the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division Diversity Scholar in 2012. She also served as vice chair of the Women in the Profession Committee for the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division in 2013. In addition, she was the youngest elected president of the Caribbean Bar Association at the age of 26. She also volunteers as guardian ad litem for children victimized by domestic violence. “I glean tremendous joy from my participation in organizations which give me a sense of purpose.”
DAVID J. TSAI
Partner Perkins Coie LLP “ You have to treat people the way you want to be treated. You can’t just make sure you make everyone happy; you have to be happy as well.” After working late nights in a lab on weekends studying neuroscience and gene therapy, David J. Tsai realized he wasn’t being true to his calling. He has always had a passion for law, civil rights
and finding ways to help ethnic minorities and LGBT individuals. “When I went to law school, my dean looked at all of my technical background and asked if I had ever considered patent work.” Tsai holds a degree from Harvard in biochemical sciences, a master of science in biological sciences from Stanford and a law degree from Santa Clara University. Today, he is a partner at Perkins Coie in the firm’s litigation practice, focusing on trade secret and patent litigation involving the Internet, software, semiconductors, set-top boxes, smartphones, light-emitting diodes, pharmaceuticals, biotechnologies and medical devices. His legal experience also includes successfully second-chairing a trade secrets arbitration case involving silicon technology; litigating in the areas of copyrights and trademarks; preparing and prosecuting U.S. electrical engineering patent applications; drafting patentability freedom-to-operate and non-infringement opinions; and patent interference in the area of biotechnology. He has written and lectured on Internet software applications, Hatch-Waxman/Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) litigation and stem cell gene therapy. He is the immediate past president of the Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Law Association. Prior to starting his legal career, Tsai worked in product management with Internet/software startups. He is committed to pro bono work,and has represented pro bono clients at settlement conferences through the Northern District Court Assisted Settlement Conference Program. He has also worked on civil rights and immigration pro bono matters with the Asian Law Caucus and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, including successfully representing an
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HIV+ transgender Mexican client in immigration court. Tsai led the filing of five amicus briefs related to the California same-sex marriage cases, for which more than 100 organizations signed. He has served on the boards of 10 organizations, including the Asian American Bar Association and Bar Association of San Francisco, and chaired the Minority Bar Coalition (and the ABA Section of Litigation’s LGBT Litigators Committee). He created joint scholarships with numerous minority bar organizations, providing tens of thousands of dollars to minority law students. He also co-chairs Perkins Cole’s API Affinity Group. His accolades include being recognized as a top 50 California Lawyer on the Fast Track by The Recorder, Super Lawyer in Intellectual Property Litigation (2013 and 2014), Best Lawyer Under 40 by the National LGBT Bar and Best Lawyer Under 40 by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association.
JOYCELYNN WATKINSASIYANBI
Assistant General Counsel, Global Supply Chain and International Businesses W.W. Grainger Inc. “ Give a person a fish they will eat for a day; teach them to fish, and they will eat for a lifetime.” An MBA, attorney and chemical engineer Joycelynn “Lynn” Watkins-Asiyanbi brings the benefits of her background to her role in Global Supply Chain and International Business at W.W. Grainger Inc., where she is assistant general counsel. A catalyst for change at Grainger, Watkins-Asiyanbi supports the global supply chain, including transportation (international and domestic); global sourcing; global trade compliance; product management; environmental, health and safety; corporate social responsibility; and Fabory North America (a Grainger subsidiary). “In engineering there is a definite right and wrong,” she said. “In law, there are gray areas and flexibility. There is the ability to be creative.” Watkins-Asiyanbi is the primary legal advisor for the global supply chain and
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advises the international business units in various areas, including procurement, corporate social responsibility and transportation logistics. In addition to her normal legal duties, she has worked to help make the legal department more efficient, deliver better customer service and save money. Her background as a chemical engineer and years as an attorney (both inside and outside) have helped her to analyze processes and identify areas for improvement using technology. She has helped to revamp the department’s intranet site to be more user-friendly. One of her most significant contributions has been to lead a large project to evaluate outside counsel fees with the best providers at the most favorable rates. When completed, it is projected to save Grainger 15 percent annually on its outside counsel spend. Coming from a family that was heavily involved in community service, she has a strong commitment to giving back. She has been a part of raising money and being a mentor for a scholarship program for high school students in Chicago for Links Unlimited Scholars. Her community involvement includes serving as a member of the Auxiliary Board for the Shedd Aquarium. She is an active board member of Women Employed and active member of Jack and Jill of America (Chicago Chapter). In addition, she volunteers with the Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago & Northwest Indiana. She is also a recruitment committee member for the only all-girls public high school in Chicago. “My parents always gave back. They instilled the importance of an education. We stand on the shoulders and backs of others who have paved the way for a lot of what we have.”
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MICHAEL W. WEAVER
Partner McDermott Will & Emery LLP “ Don’t take yourself too seriously. Work hard, get the job done and then have some fun.” A true people person, Michael W. Weaver grew up learning about hospitality in his family’s bed and breakfast at the base of a ski mountain in Vermont. He began his career in higher education, working in undergraduate admissions and residential life. He pursued a law degree, assuming he would return to higher education, but after a clerkship, he began as an associate in the trial department of McDermott Will & Emery and never left. Weaver is now a partner based in McDermott’s Chicago office, where he focuses his practice on complex civil litigation, trust and family business controversies and product liability defense. He has appeared in and represented clients in both federal and state courts across the country, and before arbitration tribunals. His practice represents a diverse range of clients in cases ranging from toxic torts to estate litigation. Weaver is admitted to practice in Illinois and American Samoa—–one of the few mainland attor-
neys licensed to practice there. He is the author of “The Territory Federal Jurisdiction Forgot: The Question of Greater Federal Jurisdiction in American Samoa,” published in 2008. Active at the firm, Weaver is the Chicago hiring partner and coordinates the recruitment of McDermott’s summer associates and helps to manage the 1L Diversity Fellowship Program. He is also co-chair of the Chicago office’s pro bono committee. He serves as the partner-in-charge for LGBT diversity and inclusion, where he promotes and develops supportive LGBT policies and programs that allow McDermott to maintain its perfect score on the HRC Corporate Equality Index for the past nine years. He also organizes McDermott’s LGBT Workplace Awareness Program, which promotes LGBT understanding through film and discussion. “I want to mentor others and make sure diverse attorneys feel welcome,” Weaver said. “I want LGBT attorneys to feel comfortable and to know that McDermott recognizes their work.” As an associate, Weaver developed a legal clinic focused on legal issues facing LGBT youth and organized McDermott’s involvement in a legal clinic for LGBT individuals with the Center on Halsted, the largest LGBTQ community center in the Midwest. Weaver also serves on the boards of Equality Illinois PAC and the Family Defense Center, which helps families involved in neglect and abuse cases. Every year since 2011, Weaver has been selected as an Illinois Rising Star by Super Lawyers magazine. ■ DIANNE HAYES (hayesassociates@comcast.net) is a freelance writer/editor based in Maryland who specializes in diversity issues, education and STEM.
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Gateways How General Counsel Are Trying to Change the Tech Industry Harvey Anderson
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Brian Cabrera
By Lydia Lum
hen Harvey Anderson recounted his college and career paths to disadvantaged undergraduates at Marquette University last year, the curiosity and interest among the ethnically diverse audience sparked ideas that percolated after he left Milwaukee. Anderson shared his ideas with officials at Marquette, his alma mater. He also contacted colleagues at technology companies in California’s Silicon Valley, where he has been an information management and tech lawyer for two decades. By summer, a group of college and high school students flew 1,800 miles to Northern California, where Anderson led them on a four-day tour of major tech companies. There, the young people, some of whom are the first in their families to attend college, learned about app development, product marketing and other jobs. Anderson believes that such introductions can help improve racial diversity in an overwhelmingly white industry.
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“That is my hope,” says Anderson, the chief legal officer at AVG Technologies Inc., in San Francisco, a provider of online security software and services. Hispanics and African-Americans comprise 16 and 12 percent, respectively, of the labor force, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Since last year, however, some of the highest-profile, Silicon Valley technology titans have released workforce and executive leadership data that confirmed the embarrassing racial disparities that journalists, equal opportunity activists and other observers had long suspected. A USA Today analysis of seven corporations revealed that only 2 percent of their technology employees are African-American and 3 percent, Hispanic. A survey of 22 companies by the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, headed by civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson, showed three Hispanics and six African-Americans among 307 C-suite executives. “I really would like to see these numbers change,” Anderson says of the disparities, a sentiment echoed by other general counsel. It’s not known how many—or more to the point, how few—tech companies employ minority legal
to Diversity Dawn Smith chiefs such as Anderson. Nonetheless, he and some of his Silicon Valley peers have spent years trying to increase underrepresented minorities in their law departments.
Steps Toward Progress
When Brian Cabrera was general counsel of Synopsys Inc., in Mountain View, Calif., from 2006 until last year, he regularly asked recruiters for diverse job candidates. Cabrera’s senior leadership team adopted his commitment by expanding contact lists and scouring job banks for resumés of minorities and women. The result was a law department that MCCA recognized in 2010 with one of its annual Employer of Choice Awards. By then, women and nonwhites combined to constitute a majority of the department’s top leadership, a contrast to the white men who occupied most of these posts when Cabrera had taken the helm. Before Cabrera left the semiconductor design software company, half of his direct reports were women. Several African-Americans and openly LGBT individuals were among high-level managers of the 40-member department.
But diverse viewpoints and backgrounds aren’t limited to minorities. Similarly, the definition of minorities isn’t confined to racial, gender and sexual orientation categories. Just ask Delida Costin, who was general counsel of Pandora Media Inc., an online, personalized radio service, from 2010 until last year. Job candidates for the Oakland-based company included lawyers who hadn’t taken the traditional route of working for big law firms after graduation because the firms rescinded offers for financial reasons. Costin was impressed that these lawyers, however, overcame setbacks. “They were hungry to obtain work and gain experience,” she says. “They were persistent in securing temporary in-house assignments and displayed grittiness.” Sometimes, diverse candidates emerge when job vacancies don’t exist. When Anderson was a law school symposium panelist in 2009 at the historically black Howard University in Washington, D.C., he met a student who stayed in touch afterward. Anderson was then-general counsel of Mountain View-based Mozilla Corporation, which distributes the Firefox web browser. He later interviewed the man, among other finalists, for a law department vacancy. The meeting would not have occurred without their introduction at the symposium, Anderson says, adding, “Recruitment doesn’t have to be purely formulaic. It can happen organically if you put yourself in the right places.” That is what Dawn Smith hopes will result from this year’s launch of a new summer associate program at VMware Inc. Smith has traveled to multiple law schools in or near U.S. cities where her company has offices, including institutions near the corporate headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. At these schools, which enroll a critical mass of African-Americans or Hispanics, Smith asked deans to steer underrepresented minorities into the VMware program so that before becoming 2L, they can work alongside in-house lawyers or with members of the government relations team. “While most of our job opportunities are not for recent law school graduates, we want to introduce stuMCCA.COM MAR.APR.2015 D I V E R S I T Y
Recruitment doesn’t have to be purely formulaic. It can happen organically if you put yourself in the right places.
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dents to VMware [so] that once they gain some professional experience, VMware is at the top of their list,” says Smith, who’s senior vice president, general counsel, chief compliance officer and secretary for the virtualization software company. Anderson, meanwhile, arranged last summer’s Digital Discovery Tour for 10 Wisconsin youths without limiting it to legal teams. Instead, he exposed students to a spectrum of technology-related careers at Google Inc., Dropbox Inc. and Twitter Inc., where top executives discussed their professional paths and how they made choices. The youths explored more of the digital ecosystem with venture capitalists who Joseph explained how they selected businesses in which to invest. “There are constantly new opportunities in the information economy, so I wanted to shorten their discovery process,” Anderson says. “Some of them did not realize that a giant tech company can start with only five people working from a coffee shop.” Before and after the California trip, the students have been participants in Marquette’s Educational Opportunity Program, part of a national initiative aimed at increasing the graduation rates of young people from low-income families. Students on the digital tour were struck by the fact that so many executives persevered through failures on their road to success, says Joseph Green, EOP director at Marquette. “The trip opened their eyes,” Green says. “Seeing real people work at these companies underscored that they aren’t mythical. Many of the students could envision themselves at these kinds of companies.” The latter is significant, he says, because college students tend to pursue jobs in the region where they’re educated. If not for the California trip, his EOP participants would not think to apply for Silicon Valley positions.
Respect Helps Fuel Retention of Personnel
Just as Hispanics and African-Americans are few at Silicon Valley corporations, women have historically been underrepresented, too. Women constitute 46 percent of the nation’s workforce, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but news reports indicate that they hold less than 20 percent of computing jobs at some tech companies.
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Green
Jan Kang
Even so, the number of female legal chiefs is multiplying industrywide. Of the 180 members of the Women’s General Counsel Network—most of them northern Californians— more than 60 percent work in the tech sector, says Jan Kang, the group’s founder. Furthermore, membership in the organization, which began in 2009 with five women, including Kang, hovered in the 50s for a couple of years until more Silicon Valley companies brought their legal work in-house. Look no further than VMware’s law department as an example of stepped-up gender inclusion. Before Smith joined the company as GC in 2009, none of the direct reports to her female predecessor were women. Now, women make up half of Smith’s senior leadership tier and about half of her 138 lawyers. But workforce observers emphasize that improved head counts won’t guarantee that a company climate is welcoming and supportive. Without respect from supervisors and peers, employees across all divisions will likely seek jobs elsewhere, even outside the field. Amid last year’s release of dismal race and gender data in Silicon Valley, the San Francisco Chronicle published accounts from female tech workers who were groped by male colleagues and subjected to suggestive remarks. Offensive behavior crosses racial lines, too. Costin was a junior law firm associate at the 1995 conclusion of the murder trial of former football star O.J. Simpson. One of the few African-Americans at her firm, Costin was using the restroom at work when two white colleagues came in. The women, who were outside
Everybody has an aspect to their lives that could make them a target for discrimination or singling out. —Brian Cabrera
Costin’s stall, speculated on public reaction to Simpson’s acquittal. One woman predicted riots in the neighborhood where many African-Americans lived. Costin deliberately exited the stall, managed to smile at her colleagues, gave a quick “hello” and Rachel Gonzalez washed her hands before leaving. Neither of the women reacted to her presence. Costin, however, calls the offensive remark “an example of problems in the world that aren’t solved in a workplace.” She believes that senior executives can cultivate more racially sensitive and inclusive environments by encouraging employees to disclose these kinds of incidents to their supervisors. “You need to have compassion for the fact your employees are experiencing the problems of the world and experiencing events personally,” she says. “Diversity is about dignity. Too often, we do not talk about race in the workplace. To retain talented employees, you need to acknowledge problems and have the dialogue.” Costin also encourages mid-career lawyers and other employees “who have seniority and political currency to speak up. Open doors for other people.” She and other legal chiefs say that young minority lawyers shouldn’t bypass in-house jobs in the tech sector just because they might be the sole, nonwhite person in their department. Kang, who is vice president and general counsel of Campbell-based AOptix Technologies Inc., which provides wireless communications and mobile network solutions, recalls how she, her brother and sister were the only three Korean-American kids in their Chicago-area school. “Many of us grew up in places where we were the only one of our racial group,” Kang says. “Go in and show them how skilled you are. Show them you belong there. Change the industry. You can’t effect change if you aren’t in the workplace. If you can help change the culture, that can be quite a legacy that you give your company.” Cabrera, who’s now senior vice president and general counsel of NVIDIA Corporation in Santa Clara, Calif., hasn’t endured the same level of marginalization his Colombian-American father did. But he manages a hearing impairment. Cross-talk at meetings can prove tough to keep up with. Cabrera supplements his hearing aid with lip reading at the visual computing company.
“Everybody has an aspect to their lives that could make them a target for discrimination or singling out,” Cabrera says. “My advice to others is think of differences as a blessing. Be who you are. These differences can drive a corporate culture in ways that change the status quo for the better.”
Opportunities Near and Far
Although the tech domain is often associated with Silicon Valley, the industry thrives elsewhere, too. Rachel Gonzalez knows this firsthand. Last fall, she joined Sabre Corporation in Southlake, Texas, as its executive vice president and general counsel. Gonzalez notes that the technology solutions provider to the travel and tourism fields “is growing fast, and for the past 20 years, my work has supported corporate and commercial transactions, mergers and acquisitions and growth strategy.” Two years ago, Gonzalez was promoted to GC of a packaged foods company in a neighboring city but found the Sabre opportunity “an irresistible proposition.” The move marked her return to the tech realm; she held an in-house post at a third Texas company prior to 2008. Like other legal chiefs interviewed by Diversity & the Bar, Gonzalez enjoys the field because technological advances can constructively disrupt and transform daily life. Anderson and Green, meanwhile, believe the power and influence of technology have captivated the disadvantaged students in Wisconsin, two of whom still correspond with Anderson. Green, the Marquette administrator, hopes to send another cohort of youths to Silicon Valley this summer and for the Digital Discovery Tour to occur annually. He is seeking university funds to cover travel costs that Anderson underwrote last year for students and three Marquette staff members who were chaperones. Green wants students to tackle research projects during the academic year so that the digital tour becomes a capstone experience. Back in California, Anderson eagerly monitors the young people’s job search direction. “Tech companies are always looking for bright people, and there is tremendous opportunity,” he says. ■ A former reporter for the Houston Chronicle and Fort Worth Star-Telegram, LYDIA
LUM (lydialum999@yahoo.com) is a freelance writer and editor.
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MOVERS & SHAKERS CARLOS ENRIQUE PROVENCI0 Of Counsel Wilson Elser
National law firm Wilson Elser has enhanced its securities and commercial and business litigation practices, with the recent acquisition of Carlos Enrique Provencio, formerly associate general counsel with Raymond James. Provencio is of counsel in Wilson Elser’s Washington, D.C., office. While with Raymond James, Provencio managed and litigated a docket of high-yield bond fund arbitrations and tried or participated in numerous arbitration hearings before FINRA and AAA. He also directed global expert witness and key fact witness preparation and strategy. In addition, Provencio has counseled large corporations on e-discovery, document management and data privacy. He previously served as antitrust committee Internet/publications officer of the International Bar Association in London. Throughout his career, Provencio has been active in his local community and the greater legal community through volunteerism and pro bono work. He has served on the board of trustees for the Thurgood Marshall Academy, a Washington charter school; chaired the fundraising committee for a Memphis-based pro bono legal services provider; and represented a Guantanamo detainee. Provencio graduated magna cum laude in 1996 with his JD degree from Saint Louis University School of Law, where he was editor-in-chief of the Saint Louis University Public Law Review. He graduated with a BA degree from Swarthmore College in 1990.
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MARK ARIMOTO Deputy General Counsel Hawaiian Airlines
Hawaiian Airlines has announced three leadership promotions in its legal department. Mark Arimoto has been promoted from associate general counsel to deputy general counsel, and both Robin Kobayashi and Scott Miyasato have been promoted from assistant general counsel to associate general counsel. In his new position, Arimoto will oversee many of the day-to-day activities of Hawaiian Airlines’s legal department, including litigation, transactions and government regulations. Arimoto first joined Hawaiian Airlines as assistant general counsel in 2007. Before that, he worked in securities litigation for a private law firm in Boston and Los Angeles. An alumnus of ‘Iolani School in Honolulu, Arimoto graduated from Harvard University magna cum laude and earned his law degree from Georgetown University.
MOVERS & SHAKERS
ROBIN KOBAYASHI
Associate General Counsel Hawaiian Airlines Robin Kobayashi is now associate general counsel at Hawaiian Airlines. She will continue to focus on labor and employment issues for the airline. Kobayashi first joined Hawaiian Airlines in 2012. Prior to this, she spent 12 years working for various law firms and government agencies, including four years as an attorney for the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C. She is a graduate of Kaiser High School in Honolulu and earned a bachelor of arts degree in English literature with distinction from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, before receiving her law degree from the University of Washington.
SCOTT MIYASATO
Associate General Counsel Hawaiian Airlines Scott Miyasato is now associate general counsel at Hawaiian Airlines. In his new role, he will continue to perform, manage and supervise legal transactional matters for the airline. Prior to joining Hawaiian Airlines in 2012, Miyasato spent 10 years working as a transactional attorney in private practice and serving as general counsel for a medical device company. Miyasato is an alumnus of Pearl City High School on O‘ahu and obtained his undergraduate degree from the University of Washington before earning his law degree cum laude from the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.
MCCA.COM MAR.APR.2015 D I V E R S I T Y
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NEWS YOU CAN USE
MCCA Survey Ad News PageYou Can Use www.mcca.com/research
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About 33% of all respondents felt that their workplace was not utilizing technology very well with regard to overall productivity, while 48% of all respondents felt that their workplaces did not utilize technology efficiently as a training and development tool. Source: Sustaining Pathways to Diversity—Workplace 2020: What Gen Y Attorneys Experience & Expect
75% of legal departments reported they track the diversity efforts
and results of their outside counsel.
Source: “A Comprehensive Examination of Diversity, Initiatives and Policies in Corporate Legal Departments”
Currently, there are 1,366 active judges, of which only 269 are judges of color. There are 2 Native Americans, 142 African-Americans, 97 Hispanic/Latin-Americans and 28 Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders serving in Article III judgeships. Source: “The Report on the Integration of the Federal Judiciary”
About 12% of LGBT attorneys (12% of men and 11% of women; 12% of partners and associates alike) felt that their sexual orientation would hinder their advancement in their firms. Source: Sustaining Pathways to Diversity—The New Paradigm of LGBT Inclusion: A Recommended Resource
50 D I V E R S I T Y & T H E B A R MAR.APR.2015 MCCA.COM
MCCA General Counsel Summit (Formerly the General Counsel Invitational Summit)
May 6 - 9, 2015
Palm Beach Gardens, FL The GCS offers you opportunities to network in an intimate, relaxed fun setting which creates an atmosphere that fosters business development and key learning. In-house counsel discuss key concerns in an open-dialogue setting.
Make your CLE experience count! Check out our all-star speaker line up and event schedule at www.mcca.com/gcs.
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 AARP Accenture LLP AECOM Allstate Insurance Company Altria Client Services American Airlines American Express Company AON Corporation AT&T Corporation Avis Budget Group Bechtel Corporation Becton Dickinson and Company BNY Mellon Boehringer Ingelheim USA Corporation Booz Allen Hamilton BP America Inc. Bristol-Myers Squibb Company CALIBR global leadership network Capital Legal Solutions LLC Capital One Financial Corporation Cargill Inc. Carter’s Inc. Catalent Pharma Solutions 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 Dell Inc. DHL America Diageo North America Inc. Dignity Health Dow Corning Corporation Duke Energy Corporation DuPont Company Eaton Corporation
Eli Lilly & Company
Liquidity Services Inc.
Scripps Networks Interactive Inc.
Entergy Corporation
Macy’s Inc.
Sears Holding Company
Estée Lauder Companies Inc.
MAHLE Industries Incorporated
Exelon Business Services Company
ManpowerGroup
Sempra Energy
Fannie Mae
Marriott International Inc.
Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh
MassMutual Financial Group
Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco
McDonald’s Corporation
Sony Electronics Inc.
Medifast Inc.
Southeastern Freight Lines Inc.
Flagstar Bank
Merck & Co. Inc.
Southern California Edison Company
Freddie Mac
MetLife
Fujitec America Inc.
Spanish Broadcasting Systems Inc.
Microsoft Corporation
Gap Inc.
MillerCoors
Staples Inc.
Genentech Inc General Electric Company
Mondelez International [Formerly Kraft Foods Inc.]
General Mills
Morehouse College
Synopsys Inc.
GlaxoSmithKline
Morgan Stanley
Tanenbaum Harber of Florida LLC
Goldman Sachs & Co.
Nabholz Construction Services National Grid
Target Corporation
Google Inc. Graduate Management Admission Council
Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company Navistar Inc.
Halliburton Company
Neighborhood Defender Service
The Church Pension Fund
Herbert L. Jamison & Co. LLC [Jamison Insurance Group]
New York Life Insurance Company
The Clorox Company
Hewlett-Packard Company
Newegg Inc.
The Coca-Cola Company
NORCAL Mutual Insurance Company
The Conference Board Inc.
H.J. Russell & Company Honda North America Inc. Honeywell International Huntington Ingalls Industries
Northrop Grumman Corporation Nuclear Electric Insurance Limited Office Depot Inc. Pacific Gas and Electric Company
ServiceMesh Inc. Shell Oil Company
Starbucks Coffee Company Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide
Tessera North America Inc. The Brookings Institution
The Vanguard Group Inc. The Walt Disney Company The Williams Companies Inc.
IBM Corporation
Pepco Holdings Inc.
Towers Watson
Ingersoll-Rand PLC
PepsiCo Inc.
Tyson Foods Inc.
Intel Corporation
Pfizer Inc.
International Paper Company
UBS AG
Pitney Bowes Inc.
J.P. Morgan Chase Bank NA
Porzio Life Sciences LLC
UnitedHealth Group
JC Penney Company Inc.
PPG Industries Inc.
JetBlue Airways Corporation
PRAXAIR Inc.
JM Family Enterprises Inc.
Premier Media Inc.
U.S. Foodservice Inc.
Johnson & Johnson
Prudential Financial
Verizon Communications
Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc.
Quest Diagnostics Incorporated
Walmart Stores Inc.
KeyCorp
RBS Americas
Waste Management
Law School Admission Council
Reckitt Benckiser Inc.
Leading Educators
Reed Elsevier Inc.
WellPoint Inc.
Leidos [Formerly SAIC]
Rockwell Collins
Leo Burnett Company Inc.
Rolls Royce North America Inc.
Liberty Mutual Insurance Company
Rosetta Stone Inc.
Xerox Corporation
Lifelock Inc.
S.C. Johnson & Son Inc.
Xylem Inc. Formally ITT Corporation
LifeVantage Corporation
Sara Lee Corporation
Yazaki North America Inc.
United Parcel Service United Technologies Corporation
Wells Fargo & Company Xcel Energy
For more 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 MAR.APR.2015 MCCA.COM
MCCA® LAW FIRM AFFILIATES MCCA® acknowledges the decision of the following law firms who have joined with MCCA to advance the goal of furthering diversity in the legal profession.
Alchemy-Partners PC
Goldberg Segalla LLP
Peter Law Group
Alexander & Associates
Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan LLP
Phelps Dunbar LLP
Alvarez Arrieta & Diaz-Silveira LLP
Griffith Sadler & Sharp PA
Pinckney Harris & Weidinger LLC
Anderson Kill PC
Hamilton Miller & Birthisel LLP
Archer & Greiner PC
Helms & Greene LLC
Polsinelli PC
Arent Fox LLP
Hinckley Allen & Snyder LLP
Arrastia & Capote LLP
Hughes Roch LLP
Axiom
Husch Blackwell LLP
Baldassare & Mara LLC
Ice Miller LLP
Benesch Friedlander Coplan & Aronoff lLP
Innis Law Group LLC
Berger Singerman LLP
Jeffrey Samel & Partners
Beveridge & Diamond PC
Kaufman Dolowich & Voluck LLP
Blank Rome LLP
Kenyon & Kenyon LLP
Sanchez & Amador LLP
Bond Schoeneck & King PLLC
Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP
Bressler Amery & Ross PC
King Branson LLC
Sanchez-Medina Gonzalez Quesada Lage Crespo Gomez & Machado LLP
Bricker & Eckler LLP
Kirkland & Ellis LLP
Saul Ewing LLP
Brown Law Group
Kramer & Amado PC
Schiff Hardin LLP
Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC
Kumagai Law Group PC
Shella Harris and Aus PC
Butler Snow O’Mara Stevens & Cannada PLLC
Kumar Prabhu Patel & Banerjee
Sher Garner Cahill Richter Klein & Hilbert LLC
Calfee Halter & Griswold LLP
Leader & Berkon LLP
Shook Hardy & Bacon LLP
Cavitch Familo & Durkin Co. LPA
Lim Ruger & Kim LLP
Snell & Wilmer LLP
Christian & Small LLP
Littler Mendelson PC
Clifford Chance U.S. LLP
Littleton Joyce Ughetta Park & Kelly LLP
Steptoe & Johnson LLP
Cohen & Gresser LLP
Loeb & Loeb LLP
Cooley LLP
Lowe & Associates LLC - Counsellors & Advisors
Cottrell Solensky & Semple PA
Marrero & Wydler
Courington Kiefer & Sommers LLC
Martin & Martin LLP
Cozen O’Connor
Maynard Cooper & Gale PC
Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP
Crumbie Law Group LLC
McGuireWoods LLP
The Goldstein Environmental Law Firm PA
Davis & Gilbert LLP
Meckler Bulger Tilson Marick & Pearson LLP
The Willis Law Group
DeMahy Labrador Drake Victor & Cabeza (DLD Lawyers)
Messner & Reeves LLC
Troutman Sanders LLP
Dickstein Shapiro LLP
Miles & Stockbridge PC
Vinson & Elkins LLP
Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP
Miller Law Group
Waas Campbell Rivera Johnson & Velasquez LLP
Duane Morris LLP
Montgomery Barnett Brown Read Hammond & Mintz LLP
Elliott Greenleaf
Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP
Epstein Becker & Green PC
Moritt Hock & Hamroff LLP
Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner LLP
Morris James LLP
Fish & Richardson PC
Nemeth Burwell PC
Fitzpatrick Cella Harper & Scinto
Nicolson Law Group LLC
Wong Fleming PC
Florio Perrucci Steinhardt & Fader LLC
Ogletree Deakins Nash Smoak & Stewart PC
Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor LLP
Gaffney Lewis & Edwards LLC
Patton Boggs LLP
Zuber Lawler & Del Duca LLP
GibbsWhitwell PLLC
Pepper Hamilton LLP
Zupkus & Angell PC
Porzio Bromberg & Newman PC Quarles & Brady LLP Quintairos Prieto Wood & Boyer Rivero Mestre LLP Roig Tutan Rosenberg Martin & Stoller PA [Formerly Infante Zumpano] Rooney Rippie & Ratnaswamy LLP
Steptoe & Johnson PLLC Stevens & Lee Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth PC Sughrue Mion PLLC
Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP Wheeler Trigg O’Donnell LLP Willenken Wilson Loh & Delgado LLP Winston & Strawn LLP
For more information, contact David Chu, MCCA’s Vice President of Membership & Development, at 202-739-5906 or membership@mcca.com. MCCA.COM MAR.APR.2015 D I V E R S I T Y
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MCCA provides a variety of events that all feature substantive content, dialogue and networking around the diversity and inclusion conversations. We then help you turn conversation into reality. Our 2015 event schedule is below.
May 6-9
The General Counsel Summit, Palm Beach Garden, FL: a four-day event that provides innovative educational offerings focusing on leadership and diversity. Proceeds from this summit go to support our LMJ Scholarship Program.
June 29
The Pathways to Diversity Conference, Washington, DC: a full-day educational conference focused on global diversity, inclusive leadership and talent optimization.
June 30
The MCCA Diversity Gala, Washington, DC: this special evening honors corporate legal departments for industry leadership and achievements in their diversity programs.
Oct 5-6
CLE Expo, San Diego, CA: a two-day educational conference that provides advanced educational seminars focused on leading topics of interest to the corporate legal community and unsurpassed networking opportunities.
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PLUS: The Academy for Leadership and Inclusion: a groundbreaking, interactive training program designed to learn about diversity and inclusion principles which can be implemented at your organization. Hosted in seven cities throughout the year.
For event details, please visit www.mcca.com/events. Certain levels of MCCA membership provide complimentary registration to these events. To find out if your legal department or law firm belongs to MCCA or to join, please visit www.mcca.com/membership. For sponsorships, email sponsorship@mcca.com.