2013 Nov/Dec - Diversity & The Bar Magazine

® November/December 2013

URSULA BURNS A LIFETIME OF ACHIEVEMENT

MCCA’S 2013 AWARD WINNERS PAGE 26

RAINMAKERS RAKE IT IN PAGE 36

®

®

®

®

®

Taking diversity and inclusion to the next level At Ogletree Deakins, we believe that our philosophy and practice of inclusion—soliciting, valuing, and incorporating the myriad viewpoints of our lawyers—make the firm more creative, stronger, and better able to address the evolving issues in the workplace.

With more than 650 attorneys in over 40 offices in the United States and Europe, Ogletree Deakins is one of the nation’s largest labor and employment law firms, exclusively representing management.

FOR QUESTIONS ABOUT OGLETREE DEAKINS’ INCLUSION EFFORTS, PLEASE CONTACT: Michelle P. Wimes, Director of Professional Development and Inclusion michelle.wimes@ogletreedeakins.com | Phone: (816) 471-1301 | www.ogletreedeakins.com

Chicago Leaders Carmen H. Lonstein

Baker & McKenzie LLP

Chicago

312.861.8000

Beverly N. Masuda

Brady Connolly & Masuda PC

Chicago

312.425.3134

Danielle Anne Phillip

Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione

Chicago

312.840.3232

Aurora N. Abella-Austriaco

Clark Hill PLC

Chicago

312.985.5900

René A. Torrado, Jr.

Corboy & Demetrio PC

Chicago

312.346.3191

Sang-yul Lee

Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP

Chicago

312.873.3631

LaVon M. Johns

Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan LLP

Chicago

312.236.0475

Emily J. Kuo

Harrison & Held LLP

Chicago

312.332.5547

José Jorge Behar

Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym Ltd

Chicago

312.604.2614

Rick Hammond

Johnson & Bell Ltd

Chicago

312.984.3425

Nerissa Coyle McGinn

Loeb & Loeb LLP

Chicago

312.464.3130

Li-Hsien Rin-Laures MD

Marshall Gerstein & Borun LLP

Chicago

312.474.6300

Michael C. Kim

Michael C Kim & Associates

Chicago

312.419.4000

Langdon D. Neal

Neal & Leroy LLC

Chicago

312.641.7144

Larry R. Rogers, Jr.

Power Rogers & Smith PC

Chicago

312.236.9381

Larry R. Rogers

Power Rogers & Smith PC

Chicago

312.236.9381

Jorge V. Cazares

Pugh Jones & Johnson PC

Chicago

312.768.7800

Walter Jones, Jr.

Pugh Jones & Johnson PC

Chicago

312.768.7800

Kathleen R. Pasulka-Brown

Pugh Jones & Johnson PC

Chicago

312.768.7800

Preston L. Pugh

Pugh Jones & Johnson PC

Chicago

312.768.7800

Stephen H. Pugh

Pugh Jones & Johnson PC

Chicago

312.768.7800

Patricia Brown Holmes

Schiff Hardin LLP

Chicago

312.258.5722

Erika N. Chen-Walsh

Schiller DuCanto & Fleck LLP

Wheaton

630.784.7412

Graham C. Grady

Shefsky & Froelich Ltd

Chicago

312.836.4036

Michael A. Chabraja

Vedder Price PC

Chicago

312.609.7790

Leading Lawyers Recognizes Our Diversity

Bankruptcy & Workout: Commercial Workers' Compensation Defense Intellectual Property

Foreclosure Defense; Real Estate: Associations & Condominiums; Real Estate: Residential; Real Estate: Commercial Antitrust; Commercial Litigation; ADR: Commercial Litigation; Personal Injury: General Employment: Management; International Business & Trade; Labor: Management

Land Use, Zoning & Condemnation; Public Finance; Real Estate: Commercial; Real Estate: Finance Trust, Will & Estate Planning

Civil Rights/Constitutional; Employment: Employee; Employment: Management; School Law Insurance, Insurance Coverage & Reinsurance

Advertising & Media; Arts, Entertainment & Sports; Copyright & Trademark; Intellectual Property Intellectual Property

Real Estate: Associations & Condominiums; Real Estate: Commercial; Real Estate: Residential

Commercial Litigation; Governmental, Municipal, Lobbying & Administrative; Land Use, Zoning & Condemnation; Public Finance; Real Estate: Commercial Personal Injury: General

Aviation; Personal Injury: General; Personal Injury: Professional Malpractice; PI: Transportation Including FELA & Maritime Civil Rights/Constitutional; Land Use, Zoning & Condemnation; Public Finance Civil Appellate; Commercial Litigation; Criminal Defense: White Collar

Commercial Litigation; Federal Regulatory; Governmental, Municipal, Lobbying & Administrative; Telecommunications

Civil Rights/Constitutional; Commercial Litigation; False Claims Act/Whistle Blower; Governmental, Municipal, Lobbying & Administrative Commercial Litigation; Governmental, Municipal, Lobbying & Administrative; Public Finance Commercial Litigation; Criminal Defense: White Collar Family Law

Governmental, Municipal, Lobbying & Administrative; Land Use, Zoning & Condemnation; Real Estate: Commercial Commercial Litigation

A lawyer CANNOT buy the distinction of being a Leading Lawyer. This distinction was earned by being among those lawyers who were most often recommended by their peers in statewide surveys. Respondents COULD NOT recommend themselves or lawyers at their law firm. For a complete list of all Leading Lawyers and to view profiles of the lawyers listed on this page, go to www.LeadingLawyers.com.

312.644.7000 | LeadingLawyers.com

A Division of Law Bulletin Publishing Company–est. 1854

November/December 2013

TABLE OF CONTENTS

p.26

Best organizations for diversity.

p.18

Ursula Burns is committed to winning the brain race.

p.36

FEATURES

It takes talent to generate business.

18 MCCA’S LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Ursula Burns, Xerox’s CEO, is many things. She is the first female African American CEO of a Fortune 500 company. She is also the first woman to take the helm of a company that size from another women. More importantly, she is a model for diversity and an inspiration to millions. MCCA celebrates her life and legacy with its Lifetime Achievement Award. BY JOSHUA H. SHIELDS

26 MCCA’S 2013 AWARD WINNERS MCCA awarded the Employer of Choice to five companies around the country. Learn about them and the five law firms that won the Sager Award. MCCA also presented Innovator Awards for trailblazers and the Paula L. Ettelbrick Award for LGBT champions. BY DIANNE HAYES

36 Rainmakers Rake It In MCCA’s annual list of Rainmakers proves it is a great time to be a lawyer. This list includes attorneys from around the country who practice a wide variety of law.

Their success stories offer insight and value to those trying to make the cut. BY PATRICK FOLLIARD

VISIT WWW.MCCA.COM FOR THE LATEST INFORMATION ON OUR EVENTS, AWARDS, AND RESEARCH.

MCCA® Board Of Directors

COLUMNS 8 Notes from the President & CEO 10 Perseverance in Profile Highlighting the contributions and talents of attorneys with disabilities.

Jared D. Hager

BY TOM CALARCO

14 Lawyer’s Lantern

Offering illuminating professional guidance for your career.

An Interview with Mark Roellig

16 Spotlighting Tshneka T. Tate

BY PATRICK FOLLIARD

DEPARTMENTS 42 Association Focus Justice at Stake

BY BRIAN DABBS

44 Diversity News

Questions Women Should Ask During a Large Law Firm Career

BY JOANNA HORSNAIL

46 In Closing…

An Interview with Elaine Johnson James

BY JOSHUA H . SHIELDS

50 Movers & Shakers

BY JOSHUA H . SHIELDS

2013 STRATEGIC DIVERSITY SPONSORS

3

Vernon G. Baker II Senior Vice President & General Counsel, Meritor, Inc. Michelle Banks Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary & Chief Compliance Officer, Gap, Inc. Clarissa Cerda Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary, LifeLock, Inc. A. B. Cruz III Former Chief Legal Officer & Corporate Secretary, Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. Anthony K. Greene Director, Jamison Insurance Group Gary F. Kennedy Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Chief Compliance Officer, American Airlines, Inc. Jean Lee Vice President & Assistant General Counsel, JPMorgan Chase Don H. Liu Senior Vice President, General Counsel, & Secretary, Xerox Corporation Hinton J. Lucas Vice President & Assistant General Counsel, DuPont Company Robbie E. B. Narcisse Vice President-Global Ethics & Business Practices, Pitney Bowes Inc. Advertising For advertising inquiries, contact Don Cooksey, Montrose Media Sales, at donald.cooksey@verizon.net.

MCCA® Membership Please visit our web site at www.mcca.com for membership and other information.

General Information and Address Changes Send your questions, complaints, and compliments to MCCA®, Editor, Diversity & the Bar®, 1111 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20004. Address changes should be sent to MCCA’s Director of Membership and Development at 1111 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20004.

Permissions and Reprints Reproduction of Diversity & the Bar in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. The Copyright Act of 1976 prohibits the reproduction by photocopy machine or any other means of any portion of this issue, except with the permission of MCCA. To obtain permission, contact: Joshua H. Shields, Editor-in-Chief, 1111 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20004.

Copyright Copyright® 2013 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

Samuel M. Reeves Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Walmart U.S. Legal Carlos Rincon Partner, Rincon Law Group, P.C. Thomas L. Sager Senior Vice President & General Counsel, DuPont Company Robin H. Sangston Vice President, Chief Compliance Officer, Cox Communications, Inc. Kenneth S. Siegel Chief Administrative Officer & General Counsel, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. Mary E. Snapp Corporate Vice President & Deputy General Counsel Legal & Corporate Affairs, Microsoft Corporation Lawrence P. Tu Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary, Dell, Inc. Neil Wilcox General Counsel Chase Card Services, JP Morgan Chase Simone Wu Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary & Chief Compliance Officer, Choice Hotels International, Inc.

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 herein 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 consequences resulting from the use of the information herein, or in any respect for the content of such information, including (but not limited to) errors or omissions, the accuracy or reasonableness of factual or other data, including statistical or scientific assumptions, studies or conclusions, the defamatory nature of statements, ownership of copyright or other intellectual property rights, and the violation of property, privacy, or personal rights of others. MCCA is not responsible for, and expressly disclaims and denies liability for, damages of any kind arising out of use, reference to, or reliance upon such information. No guarantees or warranties, including (but not limited to) any express or implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular use or purpose, are made by MCCA with respect to such information.

Copyright in this publication, including all articles and editorial information contained herein, is exclusively owned by MCCA and MCCA reserves all rights to such information.

MCCA is a tax-exempt corporation organized in accordance with section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Its tax ID number is 13-3920905.

2 01 3

M C CA ®

MCCA® Law Department Members

Empowering people.Inspiring leadership.sm

Since 1997

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.

6

3M Company AARP AT&T Accenture LLP AECOM AGCO Corporation Allstate Insurance Altria Group, Inc. American Airlines, Inc. American Express Company American Lawyer Media Aon Corporation Areas USA, Inc. Bank of America Bechtel Becton, Dickinson and Company Behr America Inc. Boehringer Ingelheim Corporation Booz Allen Hamilton BP America Inc. Bristol-Myers Squibb Company BNY Mellon CALIBR, global leadership network Capital Legal Solutions, LLC Capital One Financial Corporation Cargill Inc. Catalent Pharma Solutions CBIC Construction & Development, LLC Chevron Corporation Choice Hotels International, Inc. CIGNA Corporation CITGO Corporation Colgate-Palmolive Company Compass Group, The Americas Compassion Care Hospice Computer Science Corporation

ConAgra Foods, Inc. ConocoPhillips Constellation Energy Cox Communications Crawford & Company Darden Restaurants, Inc. Deere & Company Dell Inc. DHL America Diageo North America Inc. Dignity Health DiversityInc Media, L.L.C. Dow Corning Corporation Duke Energy DuPont DynCorp International Eaton Corporation Eli Lilly and Company Entergy Corporation Estée Lauder Companies Inc. Exelon Business Services Company Fannie Mae Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco Fickel Enterprises Inc. Flagstar Bank Freddie Mac Fujitec America, Inc. Gap Inc. General Electric Company General Mills Inc. GlaxoSmithKline Graduate Management Admission Council Genentech, Inc. Goldman Sachs & Co. Google Inc. Hewlett-Packard Company HJ Heinz Company H.J. Russell & Company Halliburton

Honda of America MFG., Inc. Honeywell International Huntington Ingalls Industries IBM Corporation Ingersoll-Rand PLC Intel Corporation International Paper Company Jamison Insurance Group JC Penney Company, Inc. JetBlue Airways Corporation Johnson & Johnson JPMorgan Chase Bank NA JM Family Enterprises, Inc. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc. KeyCorp Kraft Foods Law School Admission Council (LSAC) Leo Burnett Company LexisNexis Liberty Mutual Insurance Company Lifelock, Inc. LifeVantage Corporation Liquidity Services, Inc. Macy’s, Inc. ManpowerGroup Marriott International, Inc. MassMutual Financial Group Medifast, Inc. MetLife Inc. Merck & Co., Inc. McDonald’s Corporation Microsoft Corporation MillerCoors Monsanto Company Morgan Stanley National Grid Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company Navistar, Inc.

Neighborhood Defender Service Newegg Inc. New York Life Insurance Company NORCAL Mutual Insurance Company Northrop Grumman Corporation Nuclear Electric Insurance Limited Office Depot Pacific Gas and Electric Company Pepco Holdings, Inc. PepsiCo, Inc. Pfizer Inc. Pitney Bowes, Inc. PPG Industries, Inc. Porzio Life Sciences, LLC PRAXAIR, INC. PreCash Premier Media, Inc. Prudential Financial Quest Diagnostics Incorporated RBS Americas Reckitt Benckiser, Inc. Reed Elsevier, Inc. Rockwell Collins Rolls Royce North America Inc. Rosetta Stone Inc. Sara Lee Corporation Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. Sears Holding Company Sempra Energy ServiceMesh, Inc. Shell Oil Company Sodexo Sony Electronics, Inc. Southeastern Freight Lines, Inc.

Southern California Edison Company Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) Staples, Inc. Starbucks Coffee Company Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. Spanish Broadcasting System Inc. Synopsys, Inc. Target Corporation Tessera North America, Inc. The Brookings Institution The Church Pension Fund The Clorox Company The Coca-Cola Company The Conference Board, Inc. The Dow Chemical Company The Juilliard School The Vanguard Group, Inc. The Walt Disney Company The Williams Companies, Inc. Tyson Foods Inc. UBS UnitedHealth Group United Parcel Service United Technologies Corporation U.S. Food Service, Inc. Verizon Communications Walmart Stores, Inc. WellPoint, Inc. Waste Management Wells Fargo & Company Wireless Generation Inc. Xerox Corporation XO Holdings, Inc. Xylem Inc. Yazaki North America Inc. Zenith Insurance Company

All Firm Affiliates Receive These Exceptional Benefits: • Use of MCCA Law Firm Affiliate Network’s logo for the firm’s business cards, ads, website, etc. (under license agreement).

marketed to MCCA member companies for outside counsel selection.

• Listed as a Firm Affiliate Network (FAN) member on the MCCA website—this will be regularly circulated to MCCA member companies who care about diversity for their information and reference.

• Access to the FAN Virtual Library of diversity resources (FAN directory, law firm best practices, sample documents, message board) and ability to contribute and share resources for inclusion in the FAN Virtual Library or Career Center.

• Ability to post bios and practice information on the firm’s diverse attorneys in an online directory that is

• Access to MCCA’s Career Center. Firms will be able to post jobs at low cost and review resumes at no cost.

DIVERSIT Y & THE BAR®

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

• Professional development information via Career Center and Group Mentoring opportunities via KAN-Do! Mentoring.

• Special firm affiliate e-newsletter containing trends, statistics, article links, and information on in-house counsel promotions.

• Two (2) MCCA Diversity Planning Toolkits (compendium of diversity research and best practice information compiled by MCCA).

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 Alexander & Associates Archer & Greiner, P.C. Arrastia & Capote LLP** AXIOM Law Baldassare & Marra LLC** Benesch Friedlander Coplan & Aronoff LLP Beveridge & Diamond, P.C. Bond, Schoeneck & King, PLLC Bressler, Amery & Ross PC Bricker & Eckler LLP Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione Brown Law Group** Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC Butler, Snow, O’Mara, Stevens & Cannada, PLLC Calfee, Halter & Griswold LLP Cavich, Familo & Durkin Co., LPA Christian & Small LLP Clifford Chance US LLP Cooley LLP Cottrell Solensky & Semple, P.A. Courington Kiefer & Sommers LLC Cozen O’Connor Crumbie Law Group, LLC** Davis & Gilbert LLP DeMahy Labrador & Drake, PA** Dickstein Shapiro LLP Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP Duane Morris LLP Epstein, Becker & Green, PC Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP Fish & Richardson P.C. Fitzpatrick, Cella, Harper & Scinto Goldberg Segalla, LLP Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan LLP** Griffith Sadler & Sharp, P.A.** Hamilton Miller & Birthisel LLP** Helms & Greene LLC Hinkley Allen & Snyder LLP Hughes Roch LLP**

Ice Miller LLP Infante Zumpano** Igbanugo Partners International Law Firm Jeffrey Samel & Partners** Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman LLP Kaufman Dolowich & Voluck, LLP Kenyon & Kenyon LLP Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP King Branson LLC Kirkland & Ellis LLP Kumagai Law Group PC Kumar, Prabhu, Patel & Banerjee** Lathrop & Gage LLP Leader & Berkon LLP Littler Mendelson P.C. Lim Ruger & Kim LLP** Loeb & Loeb LLP Lowe & Associates LLC Martin & Martin, LLP** Maynard Cooper & Gale PC McGuireWoods LLP Meckler Bulger Tilson & Pearson LLP Messner & Reeves, LLC Miles & Stockbridge P.C. Miller Law Group** Montgomery, Barnett, Brown, Read, Hammond & Mintz LLP Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP Nemeth Burwell, P.C.** Nicholson Law Group LLC** Ogletree Deakins Nash Smoak & Stewart P.C. Patton Boggs LLP Pepper Hamilton, LLP Peter Law Group** Phelps Dunbar LLP Pinckney, Harris & Weidinger LLC** Polsinelli PC Porzio, Bromberg &

Newman, PC Quarles & Brady LLP Quintarios Prieto Wood & Boyer, P.A.** Rivero Mestre, LLP** Rooney Rippie & Ratnaswamy, LLP Sanchez & Amador, LLP** Sanchez-Medina, Gonzalez, Quesada, Lage, Crespo, Gomez & Machado LLP** Saul Ewing LLP Schiff Hardin, LLP Schwartz Hannum PC** Shella, Harris and Aus, P.C.** Sher Garner Cahill Richter Klein & Hilbert LLC Shook, Hardy & Bacon L.L.P. Smith, Anderson, Blount, Dorsett, Mitchell & Jernigan, LLP Snell & Wilmer LLP Steptoe & Johnson LLP Stevens & Lee Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth, P.C. Sughrue Mion PLLC Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP The Goldstein Environmental Law Firm P.A. Thompson Hine LLP Troutman Sanders LLP U.K. Vyas Law** Vinson & Elkins LLP Waas Campbell Rivera Johnson & Velasquez LLP Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP Willis Law Group** Winston & Strawn LLP Wheeler Trigg O’Donnell LLP Wong Fleming P.C.** Vinson & Elkins LLP Xupkus & Angell, P.C.** Zuber Lawler & Del Duca LLP

• Unlimited licenses to reprint articles/ information from Diversity & the Bar® and MCCA Research Reports for internal educational use and distribution within the firm.

• Subscriptions to MCCA’s invitation-only Connected online community (Connected is a social networking service offered by Lexis/Nexis via MCCA).

• Ability to sign up high potential diverse associates as KAN-Do! mentees.

** Minority or Women Owned Law Firm

• Bulk rate subscriptions* to Diversity & the Bar for unlimited number of firm’s attorneys.

* This item will require an additional payment at MCCA’s cost for printing and centralized shipping of a specified number of copies of the magazine to an office of the firm for the firm’s further internal distribution.

For more information, contact David Chu, MCCA’s Director of Membership & Development, at 202-739-5906 or davidchu@mcca.com.

MCCA.COM

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

DIVERSIT Y & THE BAR®

7

Notes

From the President & CEO

A TOAST TO XEROX AND URSULA BURNS ON SEPTEMBER 17, 2013, MCCA PRESENTED XEROX CHAIRWOMAN AND CEO URSULA BURNS WITH its 2013

8

Lifetime Achievement Award at its sold-out Diversity Honors Gala. It was the first time MCCA recognized a non-lawyer with its biggest honor.

Burns’ career is a testament to MCCA’s mission.

Raised in a low-income neighborhood by a single immigrant mother, she excelled in high school, college, and eventually at Xerox. When she was presented an opportunity to advance, she seized it and worked tirelessly to prove her value.

She benefited from many mentors—from MCCA’s first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Vernon Jordan to her former boss Wayland Hicks— proving that mentoring works across generational and racial divides.

Her work promoting science, technology, engineering, and math inspires others to take the path less traveled. She is living true to her mother’s maxim of “leaving more than you take.” You can read about her life and career on page 18.

MCCA also recognized five Employer of Choice companies during the festivities at the Lincoln Center.

Entergy, Target, Comcast, Toyota, and Aetna are standard-bearers when it comes to diversity and inclusion. Their commitment to the cause is how MCCA can produce quality research and programs.

All of 2013’s award winners are profiled in this issue, starting on page 26. MCCA recognized the Human Rights Campaign for their assiduous work for the LGBT community by awarding it the Paula L. Ettelbrick award. For the second year MCCA presented

the George B. Vashon Innovator Awards to firms and companies that are driving change through innovation.

Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, New York Life Insurance Company, Pepper Hamilton, and Prudential Financial created programs for mentoring, pipeline, and LGBT initiatives that will help change the face of the legal profession.

Finally, make sure to read the Rainmaker profiles that begin on page 36. They prove that diverse lawyers can generate income at the same level as their majority counterparts. In the coming months, look for MCCA’s report “Do Good & Do Well” which examines firms that make significant profits and have a robust diversity program. Both those firms and rainmakers are producing where it counts: the bottom line.

JOSEPH K. WEST

President & CEO MCCA_law

www.facebook.com/mcca.law

Publications Staff President & CEO Joseph K. West Founder and Publisher Emeritus Lloyd M. Johnson Jr. Editor-in-Chief Joshua H. Shields

DIVERSIT Y & THE BAR®

Publishing Consultants Bill Cox Toni Coleman Advertising Don Cooksey Design/Art Direction Quad/Graphics Creative Solutions

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

MCCA® Staff Jennifer Chen Mahzarine Chinoy David Chu Donna Crook Charles Hollins Jessica Martinez Aracely Muñoz Petrich Andrea Pimm

Contributing Writers Tom Calarco Brian Dabbs Patrick Folliard Dianne Hayes Joanna Horsnail Joshua H. Shields

MCCA.COM

Perseverance in Profile

JARED D. HAGER: The Sky Is the Limit

BY TOM CALARCO

10

Jared D. Hager climbed Mount St. Helens on one leg.

The climb personifies the perseverance of the 35-yearold Perkins Coie attorney, who lost his right leg at the hip to cancer when he was 12. Such determination has been the trademark in a life of achievements that belies his circumstances.

DIVERSITY & THE BAR® NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

H

ager, who graduated first in his class at the University of Minnesota School of Law, is the only one is his family to complete college. He was raised amid addiction and abuse along with two older brothers by a single mother who worked two jobs and relied on the charity of others to make ends meet.

His father has suffered from recurring bouts of illness and homelessness. His brothers were varsity athletes in high school, but did not receive college athletic scholarships.

“I can confidently say my adversity was a blessing,” he says. “I didn’t have even a 50-50 chance of survival when I was diagnosed, but long odds mean a bigger payoff, right?

It changed my life for the better because it redirected and channeled my focus. Had I not lost my leg, had I not battled cancer, I almost certainly would not have joined the debate team, gone to college and law school, or become an attorney.”

Hager is sensitive to the issues of the “disability” movement and its careful application of the word, yet prefers being known as a disabled attorney than an attorney with a disability. “I personally identify first and foremost with my permanent condition,” he explains, “not my profession.”

MCCA.COM

“[Debate] really piqued my interest, so I ended up going to law school. To me, it was going pro. You don’t have a pro circuit in debate like you do in football, but you do have the law.”—Jared Hager He says that because his leg was taken off at the hip, a prosthetic device would be useful primarily for aesthetic purposes.

“I’m most comfortable without a prosthetic device,” he says. “So I get around on my walking sticks. Rather than try to be normal, I celebrate my abnormality.”

Not only did his determination help him to climb Mount St. Helens but to become a Senior Attorney at Perkins Coie in only six years, the author of a number of journal articles, the litigator in a high profile international commercial arbitration case involving hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, and an adjunct professor at Seattle University School of Law. Looking back it seems like an impossible road for someone to navigate.

“I had a rare form of cancer at age 12,” he recounts, “it started in my right femur, but broke the bone and spread into the quadriceps. It hurt so badly I wanted them to take it off.”

Just one month after diagnosis, his leg had ballooned to twice its normal size, and it was amputated.

Hager missed seventh and eighth grade while undergoing a regimen of chemotherapy, radiation, and physical therapy, and finally the cancer went into remission.

MCCA.COM

“I was 14 and they weren’t sure what to do next,” he explains about going back to school. “I always got straight As, so they decided to put me in high school rather than make me make up seventh and eighth grade.”

Hager explained that before his illness he had been very competitive in sports, challenged by playing with his older brothers. Now, he threw that competitive energy into his academics, and he fondly recalls the encouragement of his grandmother who gave him $2 bills as a reward when he got straight As. “I still carry a couple of them in my wallet,” he says.

In his junior year of high school, he found the speech and debate team.

“It wasn’t until I joined the speech and debate team that I truly became comfortable in my skin. It gave me a voice. It empowered me in ways a second leg never could. Plus I enjoyed the research, putting together the arguments, and arguing both sides,” he says.

His debate team took third place in Oregon’s state competition his senior year, and he was awarded a scholarship to Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon.

“Without that scholarship I probably would not have been able to go to college,” he says. “And if I had two

legs and invested in athletics instead of academics, I most certainly would not have gotten a scholarship.”

At Lewis & Clark, he continued his success in speech and debate.

“I competed for four years, and we won some national tournaments,” he says. “Some called us the Harvard of the West.”

In his junior year, he spent much of his time in Lewis & Clark’s law school library, researching that year’s debate topic. It required the affirmative to increase protections against employment discrimination on the basis of race, gender, or national origin.

Hager’s case proposed incorporating the Americans with Disabilities Act’s requirement of reasonable accommodation into the Pregnancy Discrimination Act to give women a choice to continue working during their pregnancy rather than rely on unpaid leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. Coming from a family with modest means, Hager understood the need for such opportunities for low-wage single mothers and other low-wage families.

“It was the first real experience I had with the law,” he says. “I really loved it, loved reading the law reviews and cases, and thinking about problems and solutions. The law seemed dynamic, legally and politically, with real-world impacts at stake. It grabbed my interest, so I went to law school. To me, it was like going pro, debate’s pro circuit.”

At the University of Minnesota Law School, Hager excelled.

“I had six years’ experience researching, constructing, and defending arguments,” he says, referring to his debating experience, “and I was trained to argue both sides of every issue at every step of an argument, and my professors seemed to appreciate that.”

The most meaningful preparation for his career, however, came outside the classroom when he clerked for the Honorable Ronald M. Gould, judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Seattle, Washington.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 DIVERSITY & THE BAR®

11

12

“Judge Gould was the first person with a disability appointed to the federal appellate courts,” Hager says. “He has MS and uses a wheelchair to get around, and is the greatest mentor I could have hoped for. He’s a role model not only to me, not only to lawyers with disabilities, but to the entire disability community.

He’s truly my hero.”

Hager says that Judge Gould taught lessons that continue to serve his life and his career.

“He showed me that it’s not about disability, it’s about ability, that if we focus on the things we can do, we have a whole slate of opportunities. He made me feel the sky was the limit, that there was opportunity regardless of what you look like or might be lacking. The law is so much more mental than physical, and he showed me that and more and did it with such grace. He’s phenomenal.”

After a year as an associate at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in Los Angeles, Hager returned to Seattle, taking a position at his current firm, Perkins Coie, where Judge Gould had been a partner before his judicial appointment. Two weeks after joining the firm, Hager became part of the international commercial arbitration team representing The Boeing Company in matters related to Boeing’s six first-generation, high-power, HS702 concentrator-array, communications satellites. In one matter, Telesat Canada, a global satellite operator based in Ottawa, sued for $395 million in damages and lost profits for Boeing’s alleged breach of contract, gross negligence, and willful misconduct in connection with the constructive total loss of the Anik F1 satellite. As a boy he had wanted to be an astronaut, so he found the intricacies of the subject matter fascinating.

“It has occupied a lot of the last seven years of my life,” Hager says of the case, which was recently concluded, resulting in no payment or admission of liability.

Now an expert in international arbitration as a result of the case, Hager has written several journal articles, developed a course that he teaches at Seattle

University School of Law, and drafted legislation to establish more uniform rules in the state of Washington regarding international arbitration.

“The case also gave me an opportunity to develop an expertise in export control regulations and the complex web of international, federal, and state law related to outer space,” he adds.

Hager, the first attorney that selfidentified as disabled at Perkins Coie, spurred the recognition and express inclusion of disability within the firm’s diversity goals. In 2010 he helped organize and launch an affinity group for lawyers with disabilities at Perkins Coie, which he now co-chairs.

“It has been very successful,” he says. “We have just eight members but we keeping growing and what we lack in numbers we make up for with our passion. Our mission is twofold. We seek to increase the hiring, retention, and promotion of lawyers with disabilities at Perkins Coie, and also to raise awareness about disability diversity in the legal profession. We want to spearhead change for us and for others.”

His group has hosted yearly panel presentations at law schools and receptions at Perkins Coie offices, most recently in October at Lewis & Clark Law School and the Perkins Coie office in Portland, Oregon.

“It’s positively transformative, not only to show ourselves in the community but to talk about the issues we face as lawyers with disabilities and to brainstorm strategies for increasing disability diversity in the profession,” he says. In March of 2013, the affinity group convinced the firm’s leadership to sign the ABA’s Commission on Disability Rights “Pledge for Change.”

Hager also penned an article for the ABA’s Commission on Disability Rights, documenting Perkins Coie’s successful experience with disability and diversity. In 2012 he spoke at the ABA’s annual convention about the promise of mentoring for those with disabilities.

Mentors have played a huge role in his success, from his grandmother, to Judge Gould, to his boss at Perkins Coie, Steve

DIVERSITY & THE BAR® NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

Koh. A mentor in the ABA National Mentor Program for Lawyers and Law Students with Disabilities, Hager believes mentors are instrumental in helping young professionals succeed: “It’s absolutely essential to have a champion, to have someone you can confide in, lean on, and learn from.”

So what does the future hold for the young attorney? Well, for one, he’d love to travel to outer space in one of the commercial spacecraft that are being developed by such companies as Blue Origin, SPACE-X, and Virgin Galactic. Hager has actually done some of his own legal research assessing regulations for commercial space tourism. He also wants to be a grandfather, so he can pass on the love and guidance he learned from his grandmother. Of course, that means being a parent first, but with his significant other nearing the completion of her dissertation, that goal looks to be within reach. Last, he’d like to follow in Judge Gould’s footsteps.

“My dream job is to be a judge.” D&B Tom Calarco is a freelance writer based in Wildwood, Fla. MCCA.COM

ADVERTORIAL

RAJ MADAN

AVA E. LIAS-BOOKER

BINGHAM MCCUTCHEN

MCGUIREWOODS LLP

Raj’s practice is concentrated in the area of federal tax controversy and litigation, with an emphasis on cross-border transactions and financial institutions. He has represented numerous clients in all stages of IRS administrative practice, Federal District Court litigation and Tax Court litigation. Raj’s substantive experience includes a wide range of complex tax issues in the following areas: foreign tax credits, structured finance, transfer pricing, cross-border withholding, life insurance, investment tax credits and business purpose/economic substance. Prior to joining Bingham, he served as a trial attorney for the Internal Revenue Service, Manhattan District, where he was a three-time recipient of the Chief Counsel’s Special Act Award.

Noted as being “strategic, creative and committed to the client” and “one of the best of the next generation,” Raj has been named one of the country’s leading practitioners in the field of taxation by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business since 2006. Clients point to his “exhaustive understanding of the procedures and the strategy, which he uses to get the most favorable outcomes,” consistently “bringing an entrepreneurial, engaged spirit to his representation.” Legal 500 described Raj as “an excellent lawyer with considerable negotiating skills” and listed him as a leading lawyer in national tax controversy.

We congratulate Ava E. Lias-Booker, managing partner of McGuireWoods’ Baltimore office, for being named a “Rainmaker for 2013” by Diversity & the Bar magazine.

With more than 25 years of experience, Ava maintains a significant commercial and civil litigation practice while heading the firm’s Baltimore litigation practice group. As lead counsel on high-stakes litigation in state and federal courts, she represents clients in a range of industries, including financial, retail, telecommunications and petroleum/energy.

Ava’s talent as a litigator, her contributions to the legal community and her dedication to mentoring young lawyers have earned her a position as one of the few African-American woman managing partners at a top 100 law firm, as well as recognition in the “Power 100” by On Being a Black Lawyer, the “Top 250 Women in Litigation” by Benchmark Litigation and in The Best Lawyers in America by Woodward/White, Inc. She serves on McGuireWoods’ board of partners and on the boards of several civic and professional organizations, including the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the University of Maryland School of Law. She is a Gubernatorial Appointee to the Maryland Appellate Judicial Nominating Committee.

Lawyer’s Lantern

MARK ROELLIG Mark Roellig is the executive vice president and general counsel of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual).

He is a champion for diversity and an avid follower of MCCA’s general counsel survey.

14

You joined MassMutual in 2005. What are the biggest changes you have made or seen at the company in your time there?

I was asked to join MassMutual over seven years ago, following the appointment of a new CEO. Since the time I first joined the company, we have focused our strategy on our life and protection business, and reaffirmed our constant and consistent mission to help our customers and policyholders secure their future and protect the ones they love. From a board perspective, we have improved diversity and composition of the directors and put in place best-in-class governance. Right now, almost half of our board members are women or people of color. From a law department perspective, approximately 50 percent of the attorneys have joined the team since 2005, and over half the department is diverse. We have successfully transitioned our department to one that is extremely high-quality, efficient, proactive, and strategically business focused—we are dedicated to helping our clients meet their business objectives.

All of this has contributed to making MassMutual’s and our department’s performance exceptional.

You are known for advocating for alternative fee arrangements. Why is it important for law firms to embrace new methods of billing?

I believe it is all about our aligning interests and getting the best results for a reasonable cost. Law firms generally are in the business of selling hours. I don’t want to buy hours; I want to buy excellent results. In-house attorneys work on a DIVERSITY & THE BAR® NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

fixed fee—salary—basis so we have an incentive to continually look at how we can do more and better with less. If law firms worked on a similar arrangement, I believe they would also have the same incentives and both parties would be better positioned to accurately forecast future costs. I would also suggest that fixed fees are better for diversity. Diverse teams get exceptional results. If you don’t focus on the hours and instead concentrate on the results, it should be easier for firms to allow for more work flexibility and diverse staffing.

As a white male, and a major proponent of diversity programs, do you ever get a surprised look from people when they find out you are very serious about diversity? What do you tell them?

Being a white male, some people are surprised at times. They shouldn’t be. I tell them that I have social beliefs which drive me to support diversity and inclusion. My parents clearly taught me to think this way. But, in addition, and possibly as important, I have actually spent some time thinking about what makes me happy. Maybe you focus on these types of things as you get later in your life and career—we all should really think about it now regardless of our stage of career.

To me, adding significant positive value to those who have put their love or trust in me is what drives me and makes me happy. In the business context, in order to get the best results for those who have put their trust in me, or have entrusted their assets with our company, I simply need the best team to help me. And the best teams are diverse and inclusive—great results are all about great talent and teams.

MCCA.COM

If you want the best talent, want to understand your customers, make better decisions, be creative, and develop a workplace where your employees are most engaged, it has to be diverse.

How would you encourage other white males to become involved in the diversity and inclusion movement?

I routinely communicate and demonstrate the importance of active engagement in our diversity and inclusion efforts to our entire team. It is in our best personal interest to do so. If you want the best talent, want to understand your customers, make better decisions, be creative, and develop a workplace where your employees are most engaged, it has to be diverse. Plus, we all recognize that our customer base is becoming more and more diverse, and our workforce and teams need to reflect that diversity in order to be successful.

And, you know what? Diversity is fun too. I enjoy interacting with people who are different from me and have different backgrounds, thoughts, perspectives, and experiences, as I can continuously learn from them—and see things I would never see through my own lens.

You have a background in science—you worked at Thermo Fischer Scientific for years. One of the key findings of MCCA’s general counsel survey was that women are making strides in traditionally male-dominated “hard hat industries.” Can you give any insight into the way that the legal profession has changed over the years, MCCA.COM

especially in different industries?

Demographics are shifting fast. By the year 2042, whites will be a minority in this country—never to be reversed.

Fifty-seven percent of undergraduates are now women, and law schools are essentially equal in gender makeup.

America’s Latino market is now the 11th largest economy in the world—just below France, Italy, and Mexico and larger than Korea, Spain, Indonesia, and Turkey. The world’s center also clearly is shifting west—Asia is exploding. And I truly believe, when the 21st century is over, we will view it as the “century of the woman.” Don’t get me wrong, other diversity initiatives will advance too. But many of the leadership skills and attributes necessary to be successful in the 21st century are skills that many women possess. Smart companies, in all industries, will recognize that the makeup of the leadership and the law departments of the past—generally comprised of white males—will simply not allow you to be competitive in the future.

Over the years, the GC survey has found that there are more minority and women general counsel in the Fortune 1-500 than in the Fortune 501-1000.

Why do you think there’s more diversity at the largest, most profitable companies?

First, I would look at the statistics.

Over the last six years, the number of woman general counsels has increased by more than 25 percent and the number of woman of color general counsels has increased by more than 200 percent. I believe that this trend with gender and other diversity is just starting at the Fortune 500, but will accelerate across all of corporate America. I would be very worried if I were working at a major law firm—where equity partners are about 15 percent women and are in the low single digits for people of color. The diversity in the ranks of their clients’ law departments and general counsel is changing faster than they are—it may take more than ten years to create a new equity partner while it may take only one day to place a new general counsel! I would be extremely concerned if I was a law firm that did not reflect the changing and diverse needs and makeup of the client base.

The GC survey also found that Asian American women are sorely underrepresented at the GC level.

Why do you think one ethnic group has more trouble than others gaining representation?

A depressing fact and a good question.

And I was not aware of these numbers, until I saw the results of your analysis.

I really don’t have data to support my answer and there may be many factors that have caused this result. But my speculation is unconscious bias has a lot to do with this. The combination of an Asian American stereotype plus the stereotypes many women professionals encounter is not just doubly difficult; it is logarithmically difficult to overcome. Both good leaders and leading companies are aware of their unconscious biases, take affirmative steps to overcome them and objectively consider experience and potential to make a merit-based decision when selecting a general counsel. D&B

Mark Roellig spoke with Diversity & the Bar Editor-in-Chief Joshua Shields for this interview.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 DIVERSITY & THE BAR®

15

Spotlighting

A RACE FOR DIVERSITY Tshneka T. Tate

BY PATRICK FOLLIARD

16

While still a law student, Tshneka Tate wrote down a list of career goals—helping break gender and racial barriers in the stock car racing world was not one of them. But as the senior assistant general counsel for the media arm of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR), Tate has, in many instances, become a face of diversity in a sport that is typically associated with white men.

“P

eople’s perceptions are always interesting,” says Tate, who was the first African American woman in the legal department when she joined NASCAR in 2000. “Early in my career, I remember showing up at a race and some looked surprised to see me.

Today, it’s mostly people outside of NASCAR who are initially a little stunned to learn that I’m the lead media lawyer here. The reality is that our sport is made up of people

DIVERSITY & THE BAR® NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

from all walks of life, and I’m proud to have been a part of that growth.”

An average of nearly 6 million viewers tune in to each NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event from February to November. No other sport comes close to delivering such a large, sustained audience every week for ten months of the year. Founded in 1948 by Bill France Sr., NASCAR is a family-owned business that serves as a sanctioning body; it consists of three national series, four regional touring series, one local grassroots series, and three international circuits. NASCAR sanctions more than 1,200 races at 100 tracks in more than 30 U.S. states, Canada, Mexico, and Europe. NASCAR races are broadcast in more than 150 countries and in 20 languages. Since 2003, France’s grandson, Brian France, has led as NASCAR chairman and CEO. NASCAR is headquartered in Daytona Beach, Fla., with offices in New York, Los Angeles, and Tate’s hometown of Charlotte, N.C., where she is based. Tate oversees all mediarelated matters for NASCAR and its related companies— including their digital business, entertainment division, productions operations—and is primarily responsible for contracts and rights issues related to their broadcasts.

Tate’s tenure at NASCAR coincided with years of explosive expansion and increased visibility for the family-owned company. When she was hired in 2000 as a licensing attorney, NASCAR had recently consolidated and centralized its broadcast rights, resulting in NASCAR signing landmark MCCA.COM

deals with NBC, TBS, and the FOX network in 1999. International broadcast deals would follow a few years later.

Prior to that, television networks struck individual deals with track owners, with as many as six networks broadcasting at least one NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race during the season.

“At that time, NASCAR was growing very quickly,” says Tate. “I knew that I’d have an opportunity to grow with the company; I knew that I wouldn’t be hitting a ceiling anytime soon.”

And indeed, Tate has grown with the company. In 2011, Tate was the lead attorney for negotiations that resulted in NASCAR regaining control of its digital rights in 2013. More recently, in 2012, Tate also managed the legal negotiations for the renewal of NASCAR’s broadcast agreement with FOX. Both moves were important for NASCAR, fans, track partners, race teams, and the industry as a whole. “[Tshneka’s] willingness and ability to go where the company needed her to go and to focus and learn whatever area of the business needed attention gave NASCAR a trusted inside counselor throughout many periods of unexpected growth and strain,” says Karen Leetzow, NASCAR vice president and deputy general counsel.

“Tshneka came to NASCAR with no prior sports, entertainment, or intellectual property experience but she was armed with an outgoing personality, a desire to learn, and an incredible work ethic. With those assets, she was able to transform herself into a world-class media lawyer.”

Growing up in Charlotte (North Carolina’s largest city), it felt like a small town, says Tate. “It wasn’t until much later that its now imposing skyline sprung up. My parents wanted me to be prepared for the best professional opportunities possible in Charlotte and beyond. In our house, not doing well in school wasn’t an option.” Her mother worked two jobs to ensure that Tate could attend one of the best private schools in Charlotte, positioning her to excel there and attend the MCCA.COM

University of Pennsylvania and Florida State University College of Law. “As a kid, I knew lawyers and doctors made money,” says Tate. “I couldn’t see myself cutting people, so I figured medicine was out. Because I was good at math and science my mother suggested I should try to be an engineer. But no, I was determined to be a lawyer.”

The day Tate interviewed with NASCAR in March 2000 was especially stressful. Not because she was unprepared: Tate had exhaustively researched NASCAR and auto racing—two subjects she had previously known absolutely nothing about—and was feeling confident, but that particular morning multiple flights from Baltimore, where she worked at the Maryland Attorney General’s Office, to the company’s Charlotte office were cancelled, postponing her morning interview until that evening. “Quickly, my main concern became just getting there,” Tate recalls. “But what began as a really nerve-wracking experience turned out to be the best thing ever.”

Previously unexposed to licensing matters, Tate was quickly smitten with her new practice area. “It sounds a little corny but I absolutely loved working with trademarks in sponsorship and licensing. And interestingly, it was the one IP-related class in law school that I didn’t take. When I started at NASCAR, I fully embraced it and became really nerdy about it; I still am.

I never thought it would take me to the media side. When asked if I wanted the opportunity to manage the media side of the legal department, I was pleased to take it. Every now and then I miss the pure sponsorship side, but sometimes I still get to dabble in it.”

A huge sports fan, Tate had devised a five-year plan while still in law school: She would get in the door somewhere and learn as much about antitrust as possible. Then she would go to work for a professional sports team, like the Washington Redskins or Philadelphia 76ers (her favorites), or a league like the NFL or NBA. “The plan was

right on schedule. I was hired at the attorney general’s office in Maryland, and worked toward moving into its antitrust division. But after only one year of being there, I was asked to interview with NASACAR,” she says.

“With NASCAR continuing, then, to grow as a nationally and internationally-renowned sports organization, that worked perfectly for me.”

After a month on the job, Tate attended her first NASCAR race.

“Despite all I’d read, I really didn’t know what to expect,” she says, “but once at the track, any notions I had that auto racing was not a real sport were quickly dispelled.”

She realized that racing requires strength, endurance, stamina, and agility, of both the driver and the team members. “It’s not easy to hold a steering wheel at 180 mph for four hours without power steering, sometimes in the heat of July in Florida without air conditioning while wearing a fire suit,” she says. “My second year at NASCAR I remember [well-known, winning driver] Tony Stewart raced in Indianapolis and was then helicoptered to Charlotte to race in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race later that same day. That takes immense determination and pure athleticism.”

Traveling to tracks across the country (NASCAR is by no means confined to the south), Tate notes an increase in diversity among fans in the stands.

“We know we have a way to go but we’re committed,” says Tate, citing NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity program dedicated to building and integrating minority and women drivers in the sport as well as a NASCAR diversity internship program as strong examples.

NASCAR has been Tate’s professional home for essentially her entire career. She threw herself wholly into the job and unwittingly became a trailblazer in the process. “The roar of the engines and the screaming crowds—it’s one of the loudest things ever. But I never wear earplugs. My feeling is, as long as I’m there, I want to get the full effect.” D&B

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 DIVERSITY & THE BAR®

17

L

M T

T

U

B

LEAVING

MORE THAN

YOU

TAKE

by Joshua H. Shields

URSULA L I F E T I M E A C H I E V E M E N T AWA R D

BURNS

S

20

peaking to the New York Times in 2010, Xerox CEO Ursula Burns lamented the constant awards she receives. “The accolades that I get for doing absolutely nothing are amazing—I’ve been named to every list, literally, since I became CEO,” she told the paper shortly after her promotion.

SO WHY WOULD the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, dedicated to diversifying the legal profession, present its Lifetime Achievement Award to the 55-year-old Xerox mechanical engineer-turned-CEO? Is it because she’s the first African American woman named CEO of a major global corporation? Or perhaps because she’s the first woman to succeed another woman in the top executive job at a company of its size? Or could her award be about something else, something she represents?

THE FOUNDATION

Burns was raised in the Baruch Houses, a New York City housing project, by her single Panamanian immigrant mother. “I grew up in a neighborhood that was black and Hispanic, or very, very poor white,” Burns says. “The schools were marginal at best, and if you wanted to go to a better-than-marginal school, you had to save up some money and figure out a way to get your kid there. My DIVERSIT Y & THE BAR® NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

mother did that for us.”

Burns graduated from all-girls Cathedral High School in Manhattan and went on to earn a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of New York University in 1980. The following year she received a master of science in mechanical engineering from Columbia University.

Her mother’s influence is a consistent theme throughout her life. It was only when Burns was a teenager that she began to appreciate how exceptional her mother was. “As I got older, I realized that this woman was an amazing rocket scientist. She had a plan, and she implemented it, and she didn’t waver far from it. Her mission was her kids, and her plan was to make us successful.”

Success never meant earning lots of money in her household. Her mother’s mantra was “you have to leave behind more than you take away.” It is the credo that drives Burns every day.

MCCA.COM

21

MCCA CEO JOE WEST WITH 2013 AND 2012 LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD RECIPIENTS URSULA BURNS AND DENNIS ARCHER.

“EVEN IF WE DON’T GET THE NEXT BIG THING FOR OURSELVES, WE SHOULD ENABLE IT FOR OTHER PEOPLE.”—URSULA BURNS MCCA.COM

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 DIVERSIT Y & THE BAR®

22

URSULA BURNS AS A HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT LEFT AND AS A YOUNG ADULT VISITING SAN FRANCISCO.

“Her big focus was on raising us to strive for the next big thing. And even if we don’t get it for ourselves, we should enable it for other people,” Burns explains.

UPWARD OPPORTUNITIES

Burns started at Xerox, known for selling printers at the time, the year she graduated from college as a summer intern. For the next decade, she worked on product development and planning. In January 1989 she attended a work-life discussion moderated by Wayland Hicks, a senior executive in charge of all customer operations.

Hicks responded to a poorly worded question about lowering standards for diverse workers in a professional, appropriate manner. Burns, who was 31 at the time, was shocked he acknowledged the question, let alone answered it. She was called into his office after the meeting.

“I go see him, and we started a relationship from that day that I still have with him. I mean he’s so different DIVERSIT Y & THE BAR® NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

than I am,” she remembers. “Everything: He’s from the Midwest; a white man; really conservative; had traditional parents; politically conservative. I’m a New York City girl, black. And he’s marketing and sales; I’m engineering.

Everything different that you can imagine. He taught me how to debate and still like people who you are very different from. Like and respect and learn from people that you’re very different from.”

Burns became executive assistant to Hicks.

Nine months later Hicks told her that Xerox’s CEO Paul Allaire wanted to talk to her. She was hesitant because she recently married her coworker Lloyd Bean and was afraid of being transferred away from her husband. Allaire wanted her to become his executive assistant.

Burns was reluctant, but he told her, “’I’m the CEO, and I am asking you to do it. And it’s probably a good idea if the CEO asks you to do something to do it,’” she recalls. She did not realize it at the time, but accepting the position put MCCA.COM

her in a pool of candidates to be developed and groomed for more responsibility.

It was a major turning point in Burns’ career. At Xerox, the thing they call “diversity” really means “opportunity plus hard work,” Burns says. She seized the opportunity she was given.

In 2000, she was named senior vice president and over the next two years became president of two different business divisions. When she was named president of Xerox in 2007 it was clear she was going to inherit the CEO title.

Her professional development has been unique, says Vera Sullivan, who has placed executives for over 30 years.

Most professionals change jobs to increase compensation, responsibility, or prominence to build reputations. Burns did something entirely different.

“She’s an African American woman, who became an engineer when it was incredibly rare for someone like her to do so, who has remained with the same company as a lifer and has gone from an internship to CEO. I wonder if she is the only person in the United States who has done that,” Sullivan says. “I wonder if she’s as unique—and I believe she is—as Hillary Clinton, whose career has been unique and original and special.”

A NATURAL PLAYER

There is an iconic pedigree in American business and it does not look like Ursula Burns. MCCA’s first Lifetime Achievement Award recipient helped Burns understand the gravity of her persona. “Vernon Jordan is one of the people who helped educate me on this responsibility: that I actually stand as an icon of hope for other people. For African American women for sure, for African Americans for sure, for women in general, for anyone who doesn’t have the normal look and feel for whatever they are trying to get into,” she says.

Xerox General Counsel Don Liu believes Burns is a perfect model for diversity programs. She is able to be who she is and it trickles down throughout the company. “We can be who we are and feel comfortable that others will accept us, or each of us, in our own different way. That’s where a diversity program should be, and I think she symbolizes what a diversity program should produce,” he says.

Burns never adjusted her style.

“One of the most important things that I do, now more consciously than I did before, is to represent myself naturally, not to try to fit too much into a space that somebody would define as traditional,” Burns says.

WATKINS & EAGER

Saluting Diversity in the Law WATKINS & EAGER Attorneys and Counselors at Law

Congratulates

Walter T. Johnson for his selection as a 2013 Diversity & the Bar Rainmaker

Walter is an exceptional trial lawyer who has tried numerous complex cases in difficult venues to successful verdicts. We are proud to have him as a long-standing member of our firm.

Watkins & Eager PLLC • The Emporium Building • 400 East Capitol Street • Jackson, MS 39201 Telephone: (601) 965-1900 • www.watkinseager.com

URSULA BURNS WITH 2011 LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD RECIPIENT VERNON JORDAN, HER MENTOR WAYLAND HICKS, AND VISITING HER HIGH SCHOOL ALUMA MATER.

LEAVING MORE THAN YOU TAKE 24

Burns is on a crusade to show students the value of an education in science, technology, engineering, and math, also known as STEM. She can’t comprehend why people would forego a career as an engineer or in the sciences. There is almost a guarantee that a student who is passionate about STEM will earn a good living and contribute to society, Burns says. “We have so many people opting out of it; it’s amazing,” she marvels.

In 2009, President Obama tapped her to lead the White House STEM program. Along with other major CEOs, she leads a nonprofit initiative called Change the Equation.

The program expands summer science camps for girls, allows more students to take part in robotics competitions, increases teacher training, and helps students take more advanced placement courses in math and science.

“She’s in Washington doing a lot of things; pushing STEM initiatives and so forth,” says Ivy Thomas McKinney, Xerox’s deputy general counsel and chief ethics officer. “And I think it gives visibility to what she stands for, and diversity is one of those things that she stands for.”

But even her daughter, described by Burns as a “great mathematician, very smart,” is attending NYU to study writing or social anthropology.

NUMBERS DON'T LIE

Like a true engineer, Burns’ analysis of numbers drives her feelings on diversity. “There’s a tidal wave coming. Look at educational structure. Look at birthrates. If we want to prepare for the future of this nation, we must prepare for a future of diversity,” she says.

“And society still [spends] a lot of energy trying to exclude—and that’s one of the reasons why Minority Corporate Counsel Association and the National Black Employees Association (a caucus of black Xerox employees) and the National Association of Black Engineers—all of these organizations, why they exist is because they’re trying to push against trying to keep people out. So, I think it’s a business imperative; it’s logical. It’s a social imperative; it’s logical. It’s mathematical. I’m an engineer. Just look at the numbers, you can’t avoid it.” D&B

“IF WE WANT TO PREPARE FOR THE FUTURE OF THIS NATION, WE MUST PREPARE FOR A FUTURE OF DIVERSITY.” —URSULA BURNS DIVERSIT Y & THE BAR® NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

MCCA.COM

Thank you to our generous sponsors for their support of the 14th Annual Creating Pathways to Diversity® Conference.

MCCA’S 2013 AWARD WINNERS E M PL OY E R OF CHOIC E

T H O M A S L . S A G E R AWA R D

G E O R G E B . VA S H O N I N N O VA T O R S AWA R D

PA U L A L . E T T E L B R I C K AWA R D

BY DIANNE HAYES

E

ACH YEAR MCCA HONORS LEADERS IN DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION IN THE LEGAL PROFESSION, WHETHER IN LAW FIRMS, ASSOCIATIONS, OR CORPORATIONS AROUND THE COUNTRY, FOR THEIR SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTIONS IN PAVING A PATH OF EXCELLENCE. These leaders offer insight into ideologies and proven programs, and systems that have played a role in developing and retaining minority talent, as well as casting a wide net for nurturing those still in the pipeline.

Many of our diversity awardees are innovators and think outside of the box to successfully engage employees to build impactful programs and systems with staying power.

The prestigious Employer of Choice award recognizes the outstanding accomplishments in the area of diversity in the legal profession from five regions of the United States. Top among companies for diversity, these powerhouses are committed to succeed at creating, maintaining, and monitoring an inclusive legal department.

Five law firms were selected to receive the esteemed Thomas L. Sager Award, given to law firms demonstrating sustained commitment to improve the hiring, retention, and promotion of minority attorneys. Also, the Innovator Award goes to companies and firms that employ unique approaches to successfully achieving diversity, whether in recruitment and retention, mentoring, pipeline initiatives, or client inclusion feedback.

MCCA honors all of its 2013 winners for their passion.

E M PL OY E R OF CHOIC E

28

ENTERGY

TARGET CORPORATION

South/Southwest Region

Midwest Region

DELIVERING ELECTRICITY to 2.8 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, and natural gas to 194,000 customers in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Entergy is a Fortune 500 company, headquartered in New Orleans, La., with revenues of more than $10 billion. Celebrating its 100th birthday this year, it prides itself on building inclusive business strategies.

Entergy’s legal department has had a formal diversity plan in place since 2005, which includes leadership engagement, communication, education, diversity and inclusion training, career and succession planning, recruitment and retention, a Diversity & Inclusion Council, employee engagement, and employee demographics.

“It has long been a part of Entergy’s business strategy to create a culture that fosters creativity, productivity, and mutual respect for all people,” says Entergy Senior Vice President and General Counsel Marcus V. Brown. “We believe that having a diverse and inclusive workforce where we recruit, retain, and develop good people at all levels give us a competitive advantage in meeting the continually evolving needs of our customers and other stakeholders.”

Last year, the legal department increased the amount of pro bono assistance it provides to individuals and nonprofit groups located in its service territory, and the Louisiana State Bar Association recently nominated Entergy’s legal department for a national pro bono award. In 2012, each attorney in the legal department was asked to commit to 50 hours of pro bono legal services per year to a variety of programs such as “Hiring Our Heroes” to assist veterans.

The law department uses formal and informal mentoring opportunities to help. Entergy’s formal mentoring program targets individuals identified by business unit leaders as potential supervisory or manager candidates; an informal mentoring program is available to all employees.

“At Entergy, we understand that our successes as a company are in large measure framed by the differences in backgrounds, talents, and perspectives that our employees bring to the table,” Brown says. “Recognizing this truth, we strive to ensure that our diversity and inclusion goals are not merely aspirational, but rather that they are tangible and a function of our daily workplace environment. Simply put, diversity is embraced as a core value at Entergy.”

DIVERSIT Y & THE BAR® NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

THE TARGET CORPORATION, based in Minneapolis, Minn., has worked hard to build an inclusive culture, seeking to install diverse talent throughout its ranks from its leadership to employees with direct contact with customers, as well as among its staff of attorneys. In the past two years it was more than 33 percent ethnically diverse and more than 50 percent female.

“Diversity and inclusion at Target is core to who we are as a company and how we differentiate ourselves as a business,” says Tim Baer, executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary for Target. “By bringing together individuals with different perspectives and honing their strengths through strong training and development programs, including mentorship, we position Target to drive innovation and deliver results.”

The law department led by Baer handles matters such as assets protection and corporate security departments, as well as government affairs.

A vocal leader in diversity and inclusion, Target’s innovative approach includes sharing best practices for in-house departments at CLE sessions, hosting MCCA’s Academy for Leadership & Inclusion, using a diversity survey to measure the efforts of law firms, and participating in 1L diversity hiring programs such as Twin Cities Diversity in Practice and the Leadership Counsel for Legal Diversity.

Mentoring plays a critical role in developing talent at Target. More than 90 percent of its managers, including attorneys, participate as both mentees and mentors in its program. In 2012, the Target Law Pyramid, the company’s diversity and inclusion program, hosted a mentoring training session for more than 200 team members.

Every department at Target, including the law department, has a scorecard used to evaluate diversity performance. Based on results in the scorecard and anecdotal evidence, each department comes up with a diversity action plan to be carried out by the senior leaders and diversity champions for that department. The scorecard focuses on representation, retention, and reputation, including information such as the diverse makeup of teams, training and development, and level of engagement.

“At Target, our team is our greatest competitive advantage,” says Baer. “By fostering diversity and inclusion across our business, we benefit our team members, guests, shareholders, and communities.”

MCCA.COM

COMCAST CABLE COMMUNICATIONS

TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, USA INC.

Mid-Atlantic Region

Western Region

AS A LEADING media, entertainment, and communications company, Comcast Cable Communications, headquartered in Philadelphia, Pa., is dedicated to opening doors for a more diverse workforce. Its legal department is no exception. Out of the 37 attorneys in Comcast’s law department, 5 are minority and 20 are women.

Comcast is a global company with two primary businesses—Comcast Cable and NBCUniversal. The cable division includes video, high-speed Internet, and phone service to both residential and business customers under the XFINITY brand, while NBCUniversal operates 30 news, entertainment, and sports cable networks, including the NBC and Telemundo broadcast networks, Universal Pictures, and Universal Parks and Resorts.

“Diversity and inclusion are important components of our company’s current and future success—not just as values, but as part of a business advantage central to our operations,” says Douglas Gaston, senior vice president and general counsel at Comcast. “As a global leader in media and technology, we have a responsibility to reflect the customers and communities we serve in all aspects of our business.”

Comcast is a charter member of the Inclusion Initiative, a collaborative effort of 25 companies across a wide spectrum of industries committed to building and maintaining diversity in the legal profession. Every year since joining the Inclusion Initiative in 2010, Comcast’s legal department has increased both the number of minority and women-owned firms it engages and the total spending with these firms.

Formal and informal mentor relationships provide an opportunity to identify future leaders at Comcast and to develop attorneys who understand the business imperatives and challenges facing the company.

Diversity and inclusion is a component of each Comcast employee’s annual performance review. Comcast encourages majority law firms to assign women and minorities, and monitors their use on company matters.

“Comcast is committed to creating a culture of fairness, respect, and inclusion throughout the company and we are equally committed to those principles in the legal group.

MCCA’s recognition is a tremendous honor that validates our belief in the importance of our efforts and encourages us to continue building on our strong foundation to create an even more inclusive legal department.”

MCCA.COM

AS THE BEST-SELLING automotive brand among African Americans, Asian Americans, and Hispanics, Toyota has a special commitment to give back.

Toyota committed to spend more than $1 billion annually with highly qualified minority- and women-owned suppliers—a target it has exceeded by nearly 50 percent on a regular basis.

“As a result of our efforts, Toyota was inducted into the Billion Dollar Roundtable in 2005 for achieving at least $1 billion of spend annually with minority- and women-owned (MWBE) suppliers,” says Christopher Reynolds, Toyota’s general counsel. “In 2011, Toyota increased its spending with MBE suppliers by nearly 35 percent. More than 40,000 U.S. jobs are tied to the Toyota supplier diversity efforts, and the company’s spending with diverse suppliers continues to support local economies where these suppliers operate.”

Reynolds’ strategy is to identify the best that America has to offer to create powerhouse legal teams.

“The answer to the diversity question is the same as it was 27 years ago when I graduated from law school: Talent is not exclusive to a particular demographic,” says Reynolds.

“If you want to apply the richest mix of talent to a problem, you must have a diverse team. Otherwise, you’re giving the client a ‘B’ team, not an ‘A’ team. I also believe that it is important for the legal profession to be effective advocates for the rule and operation of law across American society.

That’s a very important and often-overlooked aspect of our profession. We can’t be effective at it if our profession is perceived as excluding large segments of that society.”

The legal department’s recruitment strategy to identify a diverse talent pool includes using resources such as the California Minority Counsel Program website to post openings. The law department’s formal mentoring program helps new associates and those newly promoted succeed.

“I think the most effective program or initiative is to be direct and consistent in your communications internally and externally about the role of diversity in legal services,” says Reynolds. “Then, follow up that communication with processes that demand accountability, both from yourself and from your internal and external partners. If diversity is linked to talent, as it should be, then it becomes part of the day-to-day functioning rather than a special program.”

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 DIVERSIT Y & THE BAR®

29

T H O M A S L . S A G E R AWA R D

AETNA INC. Northeast Region

30

AT AETNA INC., based in Hartford, Conn., diversity is embedded in a business model it put in place to grow and maintain its standing as one of the nation’s leading diversified healthcare benefits companies.

“A commitment to diversity and inclusion provides a strategic competitive advantage because our workforce reflects the customers we serve,” says Aetna’s General Counsel William J. Casazza. “When we tap into all dimensions of our diverse employee base, we better understand the unique needs of the people who depend on us. As a result, we are more effective at empowering people to live healthier lives.”

Casazza is a strong advocate for diversity and inclusion within the law department and Aetna as a whole. As the executive sponsor of the Aetna Asian Employees Network, he has presented on the topic of promoting diversity within Aetna and the law department. Diversity is one of the metrics Aetna uses to assess the law department, and Casazza reviews diversity-related performance to ensure that the law department exceeds expectations.

Many of Aetna’s law department recent hires have been women and people of color, and the company offers a formal mentoring program to retain them.

“Mentoring relationships provide many advantages, including giving young talent access to more seasoned professionals who can provide insight and guidance based on their own experience,” Casazza says. “Mentors also benefit from the perspective and insight they get from younger professionals who may be dealing with very different dynamics driven by technology, changes in the legal practice, and emerging fields of law. Mentoring relationships also give everyone involved an opportunity to get a feel for how an organization or person operates under different circumstances over time.”

The law department’s Shaping the Future program, for attorneys with 12 or less years of experience, exposes participants to the outside counsel who advise Aetna in emerging areas of law.

Committed to developing future talent, Casazza cites the Diverse 1L Summer Internship program that began this summer in partnership with one of its outside law firms.

“The program allows diverse first-year law students to gain valuable experience working on Aetna legal matters and the unique perspective of working in-house at a law firm over the summer,” Casazza says.

DIVERSIT Y & THE BAR® NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

REED SMITH LLP Tyree P. Jones Jr. Western Region IN 2001 AT THE inception of Reed Smith LLP’s formal diversity initiative, there were six minority partners firmwide.

Today, there is more than ten times that number. How did the Pittsburgh, Pa.-based firm that represents leading international businesses accomplish such a feat? The success is partly born of necessity—with more than 1,800 lawyers in 25 offices throughout the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, the firm knows diverse talent helps it cultivate the global perspective required to serve its broad client base.

That success also stems from leadership’s commitment to diversity.

As global director of Diversity & Inclusion and chair of the diversity committee, Tyree P. Jones Jr., a partner in the financial industry group, has the unique challenge of addressing cultural diversity issues globally, while managing strategic programs to ensure U.S. offices are recruiting and retaining diverse talent.

Engaging senior leadership in diversity efforts is essential. “When we are at our annual partner retreats, we may have programs around diversity and inclusion. We engage partners from each office to get some face time together and try to understand issues of diversity and inclusion that may manifest in those markets,” Jones says.

Jones plays the unique role of helping to heighten sensitivity for those working with other cultures around the world, while developing diverse talent throughout the country.

“When we are talking about making sure we are building the organization utilizing and building on diversity, it has to be done in an inclusive way–everyone has a stake,” he adds.

Recruitment efforts include the Diverse Scholars Program, which recognizes first-year law students and awards a $15,000 scholarship and a summer position at one of the U.S. offices.

The program acknowledges students who exhibit a demonstrable commitment to diversity and inclusion through their life experiences.

As a result of an active recruitment campaign, 56 percent of new hires are minorities or women.

Diversity training and development is evident through the CareeRS Initiative, which is a comprehensive competency-based program that is open to all associates to develop the skills to meet the needs of a diverse client base and to succeed in their own careers. The CareeRS program includes a mentoring component in which every associate is assigned a partner who acts as his or her career advisor.

MCCA.COM

SEYFARTH SHAW LLP

ROPES & GRAY LLP

J. Stephen Poor Midwest Region

Diane Patrick Northeast Region

INNOVATION IS A KEY factor in Seyfarth Shaw LLP’s success, whether it’s providing new strategic approaches to addressing clients’ needs to its forward-thinking methods of strengthening its culture of inclusion and diversity.

Founded in 1945 by labor lawyers who were practical and visionary, Seyfarth Shaw’s history laid the foundation for the work that continues today with the firm’s more than 800 attorneys in the U.S., London, Shanghai, and Sydney. Headquartered in Chicago, the firm provides services in litigation, employment, corporate, real estate, and employee benefits.

Seyfarth’s diversity efforts are focused in three strategic areas: developing a strong talent pipeline at all stages from exposing high school students to the legal professional through equity partnership; creating an organizational strategy through programs, policies, and business practices that build a diverse and inclusive culture; and having internal and external impact by supporting organizations, clients, and the law profession.

In practice, these strategies include using feedback from law students and professors to recreate the Seyfarth Fellows program that provides substantive training and helps students understand what it means to be a lawyer in today’s industry.

In an effort to retain high-performing diverse attorneys, Seyfarth launched a pilot mentoring and sponsorship program, where senior associates or those promoted to partner in 2013 are teamed with a local mentor and a national executive-level sponsor. The sponsor group includes executive committee members, national practice leaders, and firm managing partners.

The yearlong triad approach of mentor-mentee-sponsor includes goal-setting and individual development planning.

The triad meets periodically to connect as a team. The firm developed and launched the pilot mentoring and sponsorship program to accelerate promotion, while creating a stronger pipeline of potential diverse partners.

“I am very proud of the engagement of my colleagues around the firm who care deeply,” says J. Stephen Poor, chair and managing partner of the firm. “I am very proud of the overall firm effort; it’s not a commitment of only one or two people. The mentoring program is structured in a very unique way. It’s had great success right out of the box.

I’ve seen several people in the mentoring program move up to partner status.”

MCCA.COM

TO MAKE IT TO the A-List of the top 20 law firms and gain a top ranking for diversity achievements, Ropes & Gray LLP instituted a comprehensive plan to recruit, retain, and celebrate the contributions of the 1,100 attorneys that make up its global team.

The firm’s diversity committee hosts programs and events, addresses policy issues, and works to ensure that diversity is a central focus throughout its 11 offices from New York to San Francisco and London to Shanghai.

Headquartered in Boston, Ropes & Gray serves organizations, investors, and individuals at all stages of the business life cycle, from start-ups to established industry leaders.

Since the plan was implemented in 2010, the number of minority attorneys increased from 144 to 180 while the number of women attorneys grew from 387 to 453. In addition, there are 32 minority equity partners, up from 26.

How does Ropes & Gray achieve and sustain such results?

It embeds diversity and inclusion practices into all aspects of its business, processes and systems; engages partners, associates and staff in its diversity efforts; measures results using its own scorecard as well as external rankings; demonstrates leadership’s commitment to the cause; and communicates and celebrates diversity in and outside the firm.

“Diversity is not a ‘program’ at Ropes & Gray. Rather, it is an integral part of the fabric of the firm, woven into everything we do, from hiring to associate development, from staffing to business development,” says Diane Patrick, chair of the diversity committee and an employment law partner. “This approach enhances our ability to meet our clients’ needs with the diverse sets of perspectives and experiences that increasingly are necessary to successfully compete in our global economy.”

The firm’s recruitment efforts include leveraging relationships with law schools, bar associations, former employees, and other professional organizations. Ropes & Gray created its own 1L program to attract and expose students to the firm’s culture.

In addition, it hosts a pre-job fair reception for the Boston Lawyers Group, which is a consortium of more than 40 of the largest law firms, government agencies, and corporations in Boston created to promote hiring, retention, and the professional development of attorneys of color.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 DIVERSIT Y & THE BAR®

31

T H O M A S L . S A G E R AWA R D

32

BEVERIDGE & DIAMOND

HAYNES AND BOONE LLP

Ben Wilson Mid-Atlantic Region

Terry W. Conner South

FOR THE LAST 40 years Beveridge & Diamond, P.C. has kept pace with changes in the environmental legal landscape. The Washington, D.C.-based firm also prides itself on being a pacesetter through its commitment to diversity and inclusion.

Achieving that goal required significant introspection and adjustment to its recruiting strategy. It would no longer recruit almost exclusively from top 10 law schools, require law review work, or experience as a federal judicial clerk. Creating a path for diversity has meant broadening its recruitment net and creating more inclusive programs and policies.

“Our firm had a fascinating meeting years ago trying to see why we weren’t as diverse as we would like,” says Benjamin F. Wilson, managing principal. “We realized that we already had lawyers in the firm who didn’t come from those law schools and had different experiences who were succeeding. The other thing that happened was that we listened to our clients. They wanted to see diverse teams.

“We also spearheaded around other issues related to diversity, including gender-oriented issues and flex time.”

Wilson says the firm now offers part-time work to men as well as women. “We’ve even had a shareholder who worked part time,” Wilson says. “We put it in writing and eliminated the stigma (sending the message to men) that it (flex time) was not only for women of child-bearing age.”

A leader in environmental law, Beveridge & Diamond firm members include former senior officials with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Justice, and other federal and state resource and environmental agencies. The firm’s 100 lawyers operate from seven offices in the U.S., and represent domestic and international clients in environmental, natural resource, and land use litigation.

Since 2006, the firm’s diversity efforts have shown results including the hiring/promotion of its first minority managing principal. Women make up 33 percent of principals, up from 24 percent, minorities make up 24 percent of associates, up from 6 percent, and the percentage of associates with flexible work arrangements has nearly doubled.

In February 2013, the firm received an AT&T Legal Department Diversity Award for its inclusion efforts and accomplishments.

“We want to make certain that everyone can find a voice and that the younger attorneys are building on their networks,” Wilson says.

DIVERSIT Y & THE BAR® NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

DIVERSITY IS AN action word at Haynes and Boone LLP. Since its founding in 1964, the firm was built on the foundation of collaboration and mutual respect. As one of America’s largest law firms, it has been recognized for its broad spectrum of diversity programs that reach all ranks within the firm.

Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, Haynes and Boone is an international corporate law firm with offices in Austin, Fort Worth, Houston, Mexico City, New York, Orange County, Richardson, Rio de Janeiro, San Antonio, Shanghai, Silicon Valley, and Washington, D.C. The firm’s diversity initiatives targeting recruitment, retention, and developing its unique talent within its ranks has yielded quantifiable results including recognition by the American Lawyer’s annual Diversity Scorecard, designating Haynes and Boone the highest of any Texas-based law firm for the second year in a row. The Diversity Scorecard ranks firms for the percentage of minority attorneys and partners.

Additionally, the firm was awarded the 2013 Women in Law Employment Forum Gold Standard Certification for the third straight year. The certification recognizes law firms for successfully demonstrating that women represent a meaningful percentage of the firm’s equity partners, highest leadership positions, governance and compensation committees, and most highly compensated partners.

“Diversity is important to our firm, our communities, and clients; diversity make us stronger,” says Terry W. Conner, managing partner.

Haynes and Boone’s 2013 fall associate class is the largest to date with 48 percent minority representation and 52 percent female representation. The Board of Directors includes 28 percent female representation and 17 percent minority.

The firm’s administrative partners, who serve as day-to-day leaders in their respective offices, include 44 percent minority and 11 percent female representation. In addition, the firm’s practice group leadership is comprised of 28 percent female and 17 percent minority.

“We believe strongly in diversity, and communicate and reinforce that at all levels and in all practices and offices.

But what really makes us unique is that we have so many lawyers and staff dedicated to improving our diversity programs,” says Conner. “It’s really a full-court press, with a focus on innovation.”

MCCA.COM

G E O R G E B . VA S H O N I N N O VA T O R AWA R D

ORRICK HERRINGTON & SUTCLIFFE LLP

NEW YORK LIFE INSURANCE

Mentoring

Pipeline

IT’S NOT ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL when it comes to carving out a path for career success at Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe. In 2009, the firm launched its groundbreaking Talent Model, which provides Orrick lawyers with unique career development options ranging from traditional partner tracks to customized positions to meet individual goals.

The 150-year-old San Francisco, Calif.-based firm places a high value on training, mentoring, and sponsorship at every stage.

The Talent Model allows Orrick’s attorneys to follow a track that’s right for their personal career goals. The firm’s shift to the Talent Model impacts all associates, but uniquely impacts the career advancement opportunities of diverse associates as it represents a shift away from traditional models of advancement with one path to partnership.

Instead, the various mentoring and sponsorship approaches at Orrick allow attorneys to carve out their own path, whether it is as a partner or identifying other long-term positions that suit them better within the firm.

The Partner Track allows associates to move toward partnership in a merit-based advancement system. For those seeking a less traditional path to partnership, or who don’t desire to become a partner, associates can choose a Custom Track, allowing them to customize a long-term, meaningful position at the firm.

“Mentoring relationships come in so many different shapes and sizes. So, we knew the most effective program to promote mentoring would approach the challenge in many different ways,” says Siobhan Handley, managing partner for resources and head of the firm’s Talent Initiative.

“That’s what I believe makes our program distinct: We have a menu of offerings and associates draw on what’s valuable to them at any given time. It’s intuitive that this approach would serve the needs of diverse lawyers—and we are really encouraged by their feedback. Now we are working to add to the menu.”

Attorneys may also gain personalized, high-level training and mentoring through Orrick University, which aligns the firm’s training curriculum and development initiatives with the criteria for advancement and practice group benchmarks, as well as mentoring and feedback.

“I would not be where I am in my career today without the benefit of many extraordinary mentors—past and present,” says Mitch Zuklie, the firm’s chairman.

MCCA.COM

NEW YORK LIFE Insurance Company legal department leaders believe it’s never too early to jumpstart a career in law—even while in high school. The department provides historically underrepresented groups with access to opportunities ranging from high school work study to executive leadership training.

Students from the Cristo Rey New York High School, a Catholic college-prep school that requires students to work one day a week during the school year to offset the cost of their education, are among those to benefit from New York Life’s Office of General Counsel’s (OGC) pipeline efforts.

New York Life is a sponsor of the Cristo Rey Corporate Work Study Program, and each year OGC hosts three students, helping them to develop a strong work ethic, confidence, and exposure to the legal profession.

OGC attorneys mentor students and develop their own leadership and management skills.

“New York Life has made an ongoing commitment to integrating diversity and inclusion strategy into every aspect of our business,” says Sheila K. Davidson, executive vice president, chief legal officer, and general counsel. “New York Life is proud that we’ve been recognized for our innovative ideas designed to carry out this commitment.”

The next section of the pipeline is the OGC Summer Legal Internship Program, in which summer legal interns— many of them first-year law students and some from the New York City Bar Association’s Diversity Fellowship Program—are provided with a broad array of work assignments and see firsthand the day-to-day responsibilities of New York Life attorneys.

They also participated in various career seminars, such as “Lunch and Learns,” and practice group discussion.

“Working with the New York City Bar Association’s Diversity Fellowship Program and the Cristo Rey Work Study program has allowed us to bolster our pipeline efforts. But our work doesn’t stop there,” says Davidson.

“New York Life also emphasizes recruiting, talent management, and leadership development to strengthen the pipeline of mid-level attorneys poised for leadership roles within the legal department.

“A strong and diverse pipeline is critical to the success of New York Life, and critical to the future of the legal profession,” she says. “New York Life is committed to providing training to our next generation of lawyers.”

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 DIVERSIT Y & THE BAR®

33

G E O R G E B . VA S H O N I N N O VA T O R AWA R D S

34

PEPPER HAMILTON

PRUDENTIAL FINANCIAL

Pipeline

LGBT

INSTEAD OF TALKING about the need to identify, recruit, and retain diverse talent, Pepper Hamilton is putting its money where its commitment is through a partnership with Villanova Law School that it hopes other firms will replicate as a step toward filling the pipeline.

Since 2006, the Philadelphia-based firm has partnered with nearby Villanova School of Law in a diversity program to enable deserving minority students a legal education, internships, and possibly a full-time job.

Pepper Hamilton, a multi-practice law firm with more than 500 lawyers nationally, provides corporate litigation and regulatory legal services to leading businesses, governmental entities, nonprofit organizations, and individuals globally.

Each year the firm awards a three-year, full-tuition scholarship to two incoming Villanova Law School students of diverse backgrounds. The Pepper Hamilton LLP Pathway Program hires two minority Villanova Law students as firstyear associates and then as part-time law clerks during their second or third year.

In addition, the firm’s Martin Luther King Jr. Lecture Forum brings leading scholars to the law school each year to explore topics of social justice, politics, racial identity, and spirituality. The initiative also includes a six-week summer program at Villanova for sophomores and juniors of historically black colleges and universities to introduce them to a career in law and to provide an introduction to legal reasoning and writing.

“What better way to [find] qualified diverse talent than to create them?” says Kassem L. Lucas, a partner in the commercial litigation practice who is in charge of diversity.

“It’s one program with multiple components.”

There are three goals: • Maintain diversity and inclusion as core values in the firm, • Recruit, retain, develop, and promote diverse talent, • Find ways to partner with clients and members of the community to enhance diversity.

“It’s a tangible way to help increase the quality of diverse persons in our legal system,” Lucas says. “It means a lot more than having the firm’s name on a plaque.”

DIVERSIT Y & THE BAR® NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

HOLDING THE SECOND spot on the list of the 2013 World’s Most Admired Companies by FORTUNE magazine in the Insurance: Life, Health category, Prudential Financial is committed to diversity and inclusion internally and through its outreach efforts.

Prudential Financial’s Law Department has successfully partnered with the LGBT community as part of its diversity and inclusion efforts. Since 2010, the law department has worked closely with the National LGBT Bar Association to identify qualified LGBT candidates for programs including Prudential’s summer minority internship program and its 18-month fellowship program.

The 135-year-old Prudential is one of the world’s largest financial service institutions with operations in the U.S., Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Its business operations in more than 20 countries are an impetus for the legal department’s outreach for talented, creative individuals from a variety of backgrounds, worldviews, and life circumstances.

Executive Vice President and General Counsel Susan Blount says Prudential’s efforts to increase diversity and inclusion awareness make it a trendsetter.

“We’ve had a longstanding commitment to diversity,” says Blount, who has been with Prudential for 28 years, the last eight as general counsel. “Much of corporate America is looking for ways to re-energize their initiatives.”

Blount says the area she oversees in compliance—business ethics and external affairs—has for the last five to six years had annual all-hands-on-deck meetings on diversity topics.

“Each year we’ve focused on a different community,” says Blount. “In the past, for example, we focused on Hispanic Americans, African American culture, and the Japanese culture. This year, the planning committee thought it was time for us to put that same level of focus on the LGBT community committee. We did an outstanding four-hour program.”

“There were nearly 400 people and standing room only in the company’s largest auditorium and [employees] in remote offices [saw the program] at the same time.”

The program’s speakers included firm associates who are gay. The panels included the mother of a New Jersey college student who committed suicide after his roommate broadcast him engaged in sexual activity with another man.

“During the panel discussion, you could hear a pin drop.

It was touching when a group of associates led the auditorium in the song ‘We Are family,’” says Blount.

MCCA.COM

P A U L A L . E T T E L B R I C K AWA R D

THE HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN

REPRESENTING MORE THAN 1.5 million members and supporters nationwide, The Human Rights Campaign is the largest civil rights organization working to achieve equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans, from its base in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1980, HRC advocates on behalf of LGBT Americans through its grassroots activities around the country, and endorses and strategically helps to elect fair-minded candidates to office. In addition, HRC educates the public about LGBT issues.

“HRC is responsible for the advancement of all LGBT Americans, so reaching out into diverse communities is an inherent part of our mission,” says Rob Falk, HRC’s general counsel. “We recognize that we must both build partnerships

to advance our communities’ welfare and give back.

“For instance, in our recent state marriage initiatives, we had an active program to reach out to African American ministers in a number of states,” Falk says. “We partnered with the NAACP.” Some programming that specifically targets the Latino community includes its “La Familia” program, a bilingual guide to foster dialogue with Latino families and churches about sexual orientation. In addition, HRC actively participates in the “Ya es Hora” program, where volunteers help immigrants apply for either permanent status or citizenship in the United States.

HRC’s partnership with the Ya Es Hora campaign, a national non-partisan citizenship and voter registration program, mobilized more than 2,500 volunteers for 60 citizenship workshops in 20 communities including Las Vegas and San Diego. As a result of this partnership, many Latino leaders and organizations pledged to support LGBT issues.

“We fully understand that in order to be effective, we have to have staff who are culturally competent to work in many different types of communities,” he says. “It is through building bridges with all American communities that we will be successful in accomplishing our mission.”

Diversity Makes Us Stronger Congratulations to our partner Jose Valera on being recognized as a “rainmaker”

by Diversity & The Bar.

Americas | Asia | Europe | www.mayerbrown.com

rain makers

RAKE IT IN IT TAKES A GRACEFUL COMBINATION OF HARD WORK, DEDICATION, AND FOCUS, BUT THESE ATTORNEYS HAVE THE RIGHT MOVES TO MAKE IT POUR.

by Patrick Folliard

ns

N

PARTNER, MAYER BROWN

PARTNER, KIRKLAND & ELLIS LLP

Houston, TX

New York, NY

YEARS PR ACTICING: 30

YEARS PR ACTICING: 23

PRACTICE AREA: Energy

PRACTICE AREA: Government & Internal Investigations

JOSE L. VALERA “YOU'RE NOT HATCHED A RAINMAKER. YOU BECOME ONE as the result of good service and hard work,” says Jose Valera, a partner in Mayer Brown’s Houston office. “And you don’t remain a longtime rainmaker unless you consistently provide excellent service and are a good lawyer at the same time.”

Valera, whose practice is focused on domestic and international energy transactions and project development throughout the United States, Latin America, Africa, and Asia, began his legal career in Peru where he attended law school and went to work for a firm as local counsel to a Houston-based oil company.

In 1982, he came to Houston to do an unpaid internship for the same client. After two months he was offered a position. Valera accepted. “The company sponsored me and eventually helped pay for me to go to law school. I got my second J.D. at South Texas College of Law in 1986 and have been in Houston ever since.

“When you begin to generate a decent amount of work in a firm,” says Valera, “you gain a higher degree of autonomy with regard to the matters you work on, and how you allocate your time and resources. That’s important to me.

“I don’t play golf with clients. I prefer to share a meal with clients and potential clients. In addition to actual billable time, I also spend time learning and keeping up with the oil industry and international events, and talking to media, writing, and speaking. A rainmaker must be very knowledgeable of the industry in which his or her clients operate.”

Does Valera work all the time? Without hesitation, he answers “pretty much.”

SHAREHOLDER, LITTLER MENDELSON P.C. Kansas City, MO YEARS PR ACTICING: 21 PRACTICE AREA: Labor and Employment

DONALD S. PROPHETE “IN THE PAST FIVE YEARS, COMPETITION WITH RESPECT TO LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT has intensified,” says Don Prophete, a rainmaking partner in Littler’s Kansas City office. “It’s harder to acquire a client now than it was then. The pie hasn’t grown much, but the number of players has increased. Today, more general practice firms are focusing on labor and employment.”

MCCA.COM

MICHAEL J. GARCIA “COMING FROM THE PUBLIC SECTOR, I HAD TO LEARN THE WORLD OF RAINMAKING,” says Michael Garcia, a government and internal investigations partner in Kirkland’s New York office. “Because I didn’t rise through the ranks of a firm, I missed out on a lot of exposure to the law firm business model. Fortunately, I was able to watch the partners here and pick up pretty quickly on how things worked.”

Before joining Kirkland Ellis in 2008, Garcia was the Senate-confirmed United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He successfully directed a broad range of prosecutions, including investigations into whitecollar fraud, international terrorism, and national security matters. Prior to that, he spent two years as assistant secretary for immigration and customs enforcement at the Department of Homeland Security.

“The public sector isn’t so strictly defined in terms of client relations. But it did give me the confidence to go into new situations,” says Garcia. “When you walk into a boardroom or a pitch, you bring substantive abilities, experience but also your presence. I think my background has given me a sense of presence and that’s clearly communicated.”

After a brief career in journalism, Garcia attended Albany Law School on a scholarship. “I never had a well-thought-out career trajectory. I was a criminal courtroom lawyer for a lot of my career. I ran some agencies in D.C. Hard work and energy have enabled me to turn the skills I picked up over the years into a successful career in private practice.”

But despite the challenges, Prophete remains on top.

(He was featured in Diversity & the Bar’s rainmaker article in 2008.) To maintain existing and new clients, Prophete goes beyond using his substantive skills and delivering wise counsel. He works hard to address the unmet needs (both spoken and unspoken) of his clients. “That’s how I bring in value,” he says. “Eventually a lawyer’s rates will exceed his worth unless he or she is constantly working to elevate their value. If you don’t, clients will feel they’re overpaying.”

To some, the term “rainmaker” connotes an element of magic. “We used to believe that you had to be born with the rainmaker touch,” says Prophete, who has served as lead trial counsel in all types of employment disputes in federal and state courts. “But that’s not true. Anyone who wants to become a strong business developer can with the proper preparation.”

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

DIVERSIT Y & THE BAR®

37

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

YEARS PR ACTICING: 27

YEARS PRACTICING: 29

PRACTICE AREA: Global Immigration and Mobility

PRACTICE AREA: Africa

ELIZABETH E. STERN

JUDE KEARNEY

38

PARTNER, BAKER & MCKENZIE

PARTNER, GREENBERG TRAURIG, LLP

AS CHAIR OF GREENBERG’S AFRICA PRACTICE, Jude Kearney works with major U.S. and international clients in the areas of energy, telecommunications, infrastructure projects, and financial services. He also handles matters involving mergers and acquisitions, complex litigation, and corporate matters, and has specific experience in international markets including Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia. Kearney’s interest in Africa began when he completed a yearlong postgraduate fellowship in Nigeria. At the end of his stay, he vowed to return and be part of the developing continent’s growth.

In some respects he feels personally vested in Africa’s well-being: “Over the decades there have been a lot of opportunities in Africa, but the individuals who pursued those opportunities weren’t always concerned with the ultimate success of their projects—or the impact of those projects on the host countries. I’m keenly aware that commercial realities must play a role in decisions to invest in a market or to develop its infrastructure, but making sure the projects we work on and leave behind has sustainability is incredibly important to me.”

He describes his business development style as very hands on. He stresses the importance of being where the opportunities are. Though based in Washington, D.C., the Arkansas native travels to Africa monthly, visiting one of the ten African nations with whom he does business.

Kearney lived in South Africa from 2000 to 2005, as the founder and head of LeBoeuf Lamb’s Johannesburg office.

He joined Greenberg in June 2012 to establish the firm’s Africa practice.

“There’s probably an expectation around me to continue at this pace, but that’s not my primary motivation. I am constantly moving to make sure the best options are available.”

DIVERSIT Y & THE BAR®

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

LIKE THE MOVEMENT OF GOODS, TECHNOLOGY, AND CAPITAL, THE MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE can trigger legal issues. As the rainmaking head of Baker & McKenzie’s global mobility practice, Elizabeth (Liz) Stern helps companies establish global compliance and management programs to move their executive and professional work corps to various locations around the world.

When Stern started her practice, she mainly focused on employees entering Western markets. “Today, with corporations expanding in emerging economies, there’s movement in all directions,” she says. Over time it became clear to her that an exclusively inbound practice was not sufficient.

As globalization accelerated, her practice needed to adapt.

Early in her career, Stern utilized her legal and language skills handling immigration issues for burgeoning IT companies in the Washington, D.C. area. As the daughter of an Ecuadorian diplomat, Stern’s first language is Spanish even though she was born in the United States. She also speaks French. “I’d wanted to be a trial lawyer,” she recalls. “But I quickly learned that moving people was a huge part of business planning, and I found that I liked business planning much more than fighting disputes in court.”

In 2005, she joined Baker & McKenzie. She stresses the importance of having an engaged, service-oriented team. "We manage risk,” she says.

PARTNER, SEDGWICK LLP Los Angeles, CA YEARS PR ACTICING: 25 PRACTICE AREA: Media and Entertainment

JAMES J.S. HOLMES RAINMAKING ENTERTAINMENT AND MEDIA LAWYER JAMES (JIM) HOLMES REMEMBERS early in his career offering his services to a movie studio with a strong commitment to diversity. He recalls, “I told them ‘If you want to hire me because I’m gay that’s fine, but I’d rather you hire me because I’m good. And by the way, I’m both.’” He was hired.

“I’ve always been out. I was out in law school, and out in my practice,” he adds. An entertainment and media partner at Sedgwick in Los Angeles, Holmes is active in national and local bar associations, both general and those specific to LGBT. “I’m there to improve the bar and not to develop business; however over the years these groups have offered me leadership opportunities that have given me confidence, knowledge, and compassion.

Both existing and potential clients like these things a lot. There’s no seminar, cocktail party, or golf outing that’s going to do that.”

Holmes has been with Sedgwick for twenty years, and credits the firm with providing him with a platform which allows him to be successful: “The firm is a national practice, so I’m not just the guy in Los Angeles. Being able to staff a file anywhere in the country has been fundamental to the expansion of my practice.”

MCCA.COM

COURINGTON, KIEFER & SOMMERS, L.L.C. New Orleans, L A YEARS PR ACTICING: 25 PRACTICE AREA: Toxic Tort, Longshore, Workers Compensation, General Casualty, Admiralty

KAYE N. COURINGTON BEFORE ATTENDING TULANE UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL, Kaye Courington was a director of college admissions. But after four years she was ready to explore other career options.

Courington, a member at the 14-attorney firm Courington, Kiefer & Sommers in New Orleans and Ocean Springs, Miss., says, “The rainmaking piece of my career came very naturally to me. I’m lucky that way. I’m

PARTNER, WATKINS & EAGER PLLC

PARTNER, MCGUIREWOODS

Jackson, MS

Baltimore, MD

YEARS PR ACTICING: 23

YEARS PR ACTICING: 27

PRACTICE AREA: Product Liability; Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Litigation

PRACTICE AREA: Commercial Litigation

WALTER T. JOHNSON “I AM FROM A SMALL TOWN IN MISSISSIPPI. My first exposure to lawyers was in the 1960s when the civil rights movement brought lawyers from outside of the Deep South to rural Mississippi,” says Walter Johnson, a rainmaking litigator at Watkins & Eager PLLC in Jackson. “I remember being impressed by the courage they demonstrated and thought about becoming a lawyer myself.”

But the law was not Johnson’s first career. In his previous professional life, he was an X-ray technologist, and later a nuclear medicine technologist and clinical instructor in Jackson. “I grew bored doing the same thing each and every day,” he says. “An early mentor of mine told me that ‘a litigator never drinks from the same stream twice. No two cases are the same. There are always different stories and different damages.’ That was just what I was looking for.”

Trying cases has made Johnson a rainmaker. He started off doing medical malpractice defense, which allowed him to try a lot of cases early in his career. “And this was before tort reform in Mississippi,” he explains. “A lot of companies were being sued here. The state became sort of a dumping ground for litigation. Eventually I expanded my practice from defending doctors to also defending pharmaceutical companies and other product manufacturers.

“A lot is expected with each piece of litigation, but the more you have the more you want,” adds Johnson.

MCCA.COM

outgoing and curious, always have been. My interest in clients is very genuine, so for me business development is never a chore. It includes getting to know people, learning about their businesses, and letting them know how we can help them. This is something I do every day without really thinking about it. A rainmaker never takes a break from business development. Even if I’m traveling to do something like looking at colleges with my kids, I try to meet with an existing or potential client.”

The firm also promotes a “nonprofit of the month” program. Clients and employees nominate a charity that is particularly meaningful to them. The selected cause receives a donation, and firm employees are encouraged to volunteer, if applicable and local. “The program creates bonds and furthers relationships. Plus it’s good for the world and good business. So it’s a win-win situation.”

AVA E. LIAS-BOOKER “THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT HAVE NOT CHANGED MUCH,” says Ava Lias-Booker, who was featured in Diversity & the Bar’s rainmaker article in 2010. “It’s still important for me to meet my clients’ strategic objectives in the litigation we’re working on, to develop relationships with clients so I understand their industries, and to nurture relationships with key decision makers within the client’s corporate or institutional structures.”

The managing partner of McGuireWoods’ Baltimore office, Lias-Booker says while there is no substitute for hard work, engagement, or focus, she does credit much of her rainmaking success to being active in organizations whose missions are wholly or in part dedicated to supporting lawyers of color and women attorneys, such as the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, the ClientFocus’ Women Rainmakers Roundtables, and Corporate Counsel Women of Color.

She adds “There were some, but not a lot of these groups when I entered the profession. It’s refreshing to walk into rooms where women are gathered talking about their careers and building networks. Becoming actively engaged can cut in half the time spent developing comfort and expertise around business development.” And then she says with a laugh, “It’s these groups that allowed me not to have to learn to play to golf. I could take a spa day with women colleagues and clients instead.”

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

DIVERSIT Y & THE BAR®

39

40

PARTNER, SIDLEY AUSTIN LLP

PARTNER, FOX ROTHSCHILD LLP

Los Angeles, CA

Los Angeles, CA

YEARS PR ACTICING: 23

YEARS PR ACTICING: 23

PRACTICE AREA: Patent and IP Litigation

PRACTICE AREA: Entertainment

PETER H. KANG

DARRELL D. MILLER

WHILE A STUDENT AT STANFORD UNIVERSITY, rainmaking patent and IP litigator Peter Kang double majored in Industrial Engineering and Classics (Latin).

Following graduation, he spent a year prior to law school programming by day and tending bar at night. “I’ve always liked to use both sides of my brain,” he says. “And the intersection of technology and law requires two different sets of thinking, culture, and language. To sit comfortably at that crossroad and communicate with the engineers, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, and technologists on one side, and the lawyers, judges, and juries on the other, is challenging and stimulating.”

Senior IP partner in Sidley’s Palo Alto office, Kang is lead trial counsel and team leader for patent lawsuits in the United States International Trade Commission and federal courts nationwide, including appeals to the Federal Circuit.

He represents clients in high-tech commercial litigation (mostly electronics and software), as well as in trade secret disputes and copyright/trademark suits. He also advises clients in IP licensing and IP diligence for corporate deals.

He also represents clients in the recently enacted Inter Partes Review proceedings in the U.S. Patent Office.

Over time, his rainmaking techniques have evolved.

“When I was a young lawyer, partners said doing good work is a great way to get more work. Trite, but true.

Speaking and writing helps, too,” says Kang, who wrote the top-ranked legal treatise "Intellectual Property Litigation in the United States International Trade Commission.”

He adds, “I’m not short-sighted or mercenary about getting litigation. Relationships make a fulfilling career. I’ve learned that an understanding of clients’ needs goes far.”

SHAREHOLDER, BINGHAM MCCUTCHEON Washington, D.C. YEARS PR ACTICING: 20 PRACTICE AREA: Tax Litigation

RAJ MADAN “THERE’S A DEFINITE CORRELATION BETWEEN NEUROSIS AND RAINMAKING,” says Raj Madan, a partner in Bingham’s D.C. office.

“From what I’ve observed, rainmakers don’t rest on their laurels. After some really great years, I’m already obsessing that our pipeline is growing thin and that we should branch out to another industry. Business development is always on our minds.”

DIVERSIT Y & THE BAR®

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

BEING A RAINMAKING ATTORNEY IN THE ENTERTAINMENT BUSINESS is not as glamorous or easy as it may seem. “Entertainment law is not all premieres and fancy lunches. Sometimes we don’t get the invite,” says Darrell D. Miller, chair of the entertainment law department and managing partner of Fox Rothschild’s Los Angeles offices.

Miller’s practice took off in the 1990s when television networks, led by the emergence of the Fox Broadcast Network, began to widely broadcast shows about African American culture, and hip hop artists were snatching the popular culture limelight from rock stars. Miller initially rode that wave by promoting the crossover careers of high-profile music artists DMX, Outkast, Master P, Missy Elliot, and Ludacris, to name a few.

Today, Miller’s practice focuses on film, TV, music, new media, and licensing. Its core is transactional deal making around development, production, distribution, and marketing.

Miller never planned to be a lawyer. A classically trained singer, he travelled the world performing. Then one day, standing on the shore of Chowpatty Beach in India before an evening performance, Miller had an epiphany: He realized he could possibly build on his success as an international performing artist and achieve even more success in the arts from the business side. With that in mind, he went to Georgetown University Law Center.

“I spent the last four years at Fox proving the concept that an entertainment-based, strictly transactional practice can exist within a national firm. The next phase will include growing our business model and expanding our practice scope within the department to include areas like video gaming and digital technology.”

A former trial attorney for the Internal Revenue Service, Manhattan District, Madan defends businesses in disputes with the tax agency. Madan, who was born in India but grew up on New York’s Long Island, describes rainmaking as a team effort: “A lot of our clients say they could get good people at the senior level but as a team we’re stronger than others. The notion of rainmaker sounds singular in focus. In my practice that’s untrue. The fourth-year associate is significant in making sure we keep the business and get new business.”

Successful rainmaking, says Madan, is the result of great work and word-of-mouth buzz, writing and speaking about the kind of work you do and tailored to those who are most likely to hire you. He adds, “But without a little luck, the right mentor, things breaking your way, and being at the right firm, you may never land in the position to rain make. It’s not something you can totally control—a lot of it is serendipitous.”

MCCA.COM

PARTNER, KENYON & KENYON

PARTNER, KATTEN MUCHEN ROSENMAN LLP

New York, NY YEARS PR ACTICING: 25 PRACTICE AREA: Pharmaceutical Litigation

Washington, D.C.

ELIZABETH J. HOLLAND “AS A TRIAL LAWYER, ONE OF THE BEST PLACES TO GENERATE NEW BUSINESS IS IN THE COURTROOM,” says Elizabeth Holland, a pharmaceutical patent litigator at Kenyon & Kenyon’s New York office. “In the courtroom, both current and potential clients get to see the quality of your work. Of course, a big part of business development is maintaining relationships with existing clients. Clients need to want to work with you on a personal as well as a professional level.”

Prior to joining Kenyon & Kenyon in 1997, Holland was at a large New York general practice firm where she did some patent work. At Kenyon she has litigated patents in numerous technical areas and industries, including pharmaceutical, chemical, medical device, and consumer products, and has extensive experience with Hatch-Waxman litigation (lawsuits between generic and branded drug companies).

The native New Yorker was a chemical engineering major in college, but unable to imagine donning a hard hat for daily trips to chemical plants she opted to pursue a career in law instead. For Holland, combining her background in science with litigation seemed an obvious fit: “It’s been a tremendous advantage in patent infringement litigation. The technical issues in patent cases can be very complex. It’s important to not only understand the technology but also to be able to explain it in terms that are understandable.”

PARTNER, WEIL, GOTSHAL & MANGES LLP Dallas, TX YEARS PR ACTICING: 22 PRACTICE AREA: Commercial Litigation, Investigations, Class Actions, and Employment

YVETTE OSTOLAZA YVETTE OSTOLAZA BEGAN HER CAREER AS A SUMMER ASSOCIATE IN Weil’s Dallas office and never left. Today she is co-head of the firm’s complex commercial litigation practice and a member of its national management committee. Ostolaza represents boards, companies, and special committees on internal investigations, and because she is fluent in Spanish, advises many Latin American companies on litigation and arbitration matters.

In describing her style of business development, Ostolaza says “I won’t sugarcoat things with clients. My advice is based on a foundation of trust.

I take seriously the view of being counselor as well as chief litigator. I view relationships as lifelong and treat them accordingly.”

The daughter of Cuban immigrants, Yvette Ostolaza grew up in Miami, Fla., unsure if she would go to college much less law school. But through perseverance and scholarships she obtained an education. After graduating from the University of Miami, she went to work in the airline industry and did well in marketing and sales. There, she first dealt with lawyers and began to think a legal career might be for her. “At law school, I found my calling.

Problem solving and thinking far ahead came very naturally to me.”

MCCA.COM

YEARS PRACTICING: 14 PRACTICE AREA: Trademark and Internet Law

BRIAN WINTERFELDT IN RAINMAKER BRIAN WINTERFELDT'S LIFE, excellent client service is a top priority. “You’ll never find anyone who will care about your clients the way you do,” he says. “In a global landscape, it’s important to be available to your clients as much as possible, and to take the time to invest in building longterm relationships.”

As a trademark partner and head of Katten’s Internet practice, Winterfeldt helps clients create their global trademark and branding strategies, enforce their intellectual property rights, and protect against infringement of their trademarks and other IP assets in the United States and internationally.

Being overly aggressive can be counterproductive in the business development space, says Winterfeldt, but he stresses “it’s very important to get out there.” Winterfeldt speaks at conferences (trademark, IP, and diversity) and before industry groups. He also hosts webinars where he and one or more featured inhouse counsel speak to members of the trademark community about cutting-edge issues, such as social media and the expansion of the Internet domain name space.

He also frequently writes for prominent legal publications, such as the World Trademark Review, and holds volunteer leadership positions with the International Trademark Association (INTA) and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

Winterfeldt credits his measurable success to early mentor Mary Denison, currently deputy commissioner for trademark operations at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. “She’d seen senior-level attorneys without their own clients end up in difficult situations, and warned me against being vulnerable in that way. Without her, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

DIVERSIT Y & THE BAR®

41

ASSOCIATION FOCUS

BY BRIAN DABBS

JUSTICE AT STAKE AFTER SERVING AS UNITED STATES ATTORNEY FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA FOR NEARLY THREE YEARS until

42

“It’s a first step toward hopefully a more systematic inclusion [in the judiciary of ] diverse communities, including Native Americans,” said Brandenburg. “Zero to one is a mid-2009, Diane Humetewa is poised to take a seat on the huge moment.”

Arizona federal bench following her Sept. 19 nomination Since 2000, Justice at Stake has participated in litigation,

by President Barack Obama. But Humetewa’s candidacy filing briefs and working to reduce special interest pressure is not a standard reflection of the federal judicial field. Her on the judiciary, protect courts and judges from partisan judgeship would mark the first time in the nation’s history attacks, educate the American public about the judiciary, a Native American female has reached the federal judiciary. and improve court funding. Among its victories is Caperton Humetewa would also be the sole Native American female v. Massey (2009), in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled federal judge to actively serve full time. Only two other it unconstitutional for a West Virginia state justice to hear Native Americans have reached that level. Both served in a case that involved one of his primary campaign backers.

Oklahoma. One is deceased and the other on senior status.

The group partners with over 50 organizations and receives As a non-partisan group pushing for equal justice in U.S. funding from donors such as The Bill & Melinda Gates courts, Justice at Stake is hailing Humetewa’s nomination as Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation. a step in the right direction for more impartiality, objectivity, According to Justice at Stake, the 2010 Citizens United and fairness in the U.S. judiciary. The group does not endorse Supreme Court decision has allowed special interests to particular candidates, but it does endorse the increased divererode the integrity of the U.S. justice system through sity in the American judiciary that Humetewa’s bid symbolpolitical intimidation and election funding. While trying to izes. Justice at Stake has embraced the promotion of judicial combat those threats, Justice at Stake is also actively workdiversity and the need to combat increased money in judicial ing for a more diverse state and federal judiciary through elections as two platform pillars. state pipeline programs and educational outreach programs.

“It’s long overdue. The federal bench has never had a Native “Diverse benches increase public confidence in the fairAmerican female judge. And it’s long past time to address that,” ness and impartiality of the courts,” says Praveen Fernandes, says Justice at Stake Executive Director Bert Brandenburg.

Justice at Stake’s director of federal affairs and diversity And Humetewa boasts a wealth of experience and initiatives. “There is evidence to suggest that diversity on the praise. The American Bar Association Standing Committee bench strengthens judicial decision-making, as it helps avoid on the Federal Judiciary rated Humetewa “qualified” to group-think and helps to ensure that thorny legal issues are serve at the federal level. She has garnered the support of approached with rigor and thoroughness from all angles.” the state’s political leadership represented in Washington, The crux of the Justice at Stake’s work to engage and D.C., including the endorsement of Republican Sen. John empower diverse communities are three state pipeline pilot McCain. That nomination is currently pending before the programs that offer law students and lawyers opportunities Senate Judiciary Committee. The Senate would prospecto develop political and leadership skills, build a network tively deliver her confirmation in roughly seven months, of professional mentors, and navigate the judicial selection according to precedent. process. From 2011 to 2012, the Washington pilot included a series of five-hour, in-depth “How to Become a Judge” training programs held throughout the state and open to all. LGBT community members, racial minorities, and women were among those who sought training to prepare for judicial appointments and electoral campaigns.

—PRAVEEN FERNANDES

“DIVERSE BENCHES INCREASE PUBLIC CONFIDENCE IN THE FAIRNESS AND IMPARTIALITY OF THE COURTS.” DIVERSIT Y & THE BAR® NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

MCCA.COM

The Maryland program, According to the which began in late 2012, Brennan Center, Arizona’s includes a statewide judicial population is 40 percent selection symposium series non-white but the state and “Path to the Bench” has no minority Supreme career panels for law stuCourt justices. The Arizona dents. Smaller outreach sesCourt of Appeals seats only sions helped inform Justice 18 percent minorities and at Stake’s Path to the State the Superior Court seats Bench Guidebook, which only 16 percent minoriis intended to be released ties. That complexion, and in late 2013. In Arizona, similar judicial complexions, Justice at Stake is partnering favors homogenous thinkwith the Arizona Advocacy ing, says Justice at Stake’s Network, Lambda Legal, Brandenburg. Therefore, Praveen Fernandez, Elizabeth Fujii, and Bert Brandenburg are Los Abogados Hispanic Bar Humetewa’s bid brings at working to diversify the bench.

Association, and other least a semblance of impargroups for a pilot program that will include similar pipeline tiality and some improvement to the U.S. court system. work such as a “Path to the Bench” video series.

“A lack of diversity on the bench is a threat to equal justice Diverse representation in the judiciary is equally imporand protection of our rights and can even be a barrier to tant at both the federal and state level, says Elizabeth Fujii, access justice,” says Brandenburg. “We view this as critical to Justice at Stake’s deputy director for federal affairs and our mission.” But even with greater diversity, Justice at Stake diversity initiatives, “The vast majority of litigants appear fears money has infiltrated judicial elections to a catastrophic in state court, so diversity on the state bench impacts the point. As the group’s national spokesperson, former Supreme experiences and perceptions of justice at a very direct level Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is sounding warning for more people. When a typical person faces legal matters calls over the increased growth of money in the judiciary. of life, death, family, livelihood, etc., they are usually in The Citizens United Supreme Court decision effectively said state court,” Fujii says. “The pilot projects are very much the First Amendment prohibits the government from restrictabout leadership and community. Outreach and training ing political independent expenditures by corporations, assoare the primary components of the work.” ciations, or labor unions. That decision, according to Mirken Although the Supreme Court has grown more diverse and other critics, allows private interests’ money to influence during the Obama administration, diversity lags throughout elections and in turn the judges. According to Justice at Stake the rest of the judiciary. State appellate benches are occupied at research, 85 percent of all state judges have to seek election at a rate of nearly 2-to-1 by white males, according to data from some point in their careers. Fundraising makes judges subservithe Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School ent to donors, says Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law of Law, while diverse communities are underrepresented across professor who specializes in federal judicial selection. the board. Justice at Stake is not alone in its quest. Other “Money and Citizens United just exacerbate the problem. organizations, such as The Greenlining Institute, are pushing If you think money in politics is bad for electing politicians for greater representation in all spheres of governance. in Congress, it’s worse among judges,” says Tobias. “With “As an organization representing communities of color, judges, their responsibility is to render justice. When justice those communities that are not the most wealthy or poweris polluted by money that’s a problem. Do you really want ful, we know those communities are the first to get the shaft,” judges with their hats in hand asking for money?” D&B says Bruce Mirken, The Greenlining Institute media relations director. “Judicial independence is the target and diversity Brian Dabbs is a freelance writer and editor based in in the judiciary is of critical value, particularly important for Washington, D.C. underserved communities.”

MCCA.COM

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 DIVERSIT Y & THE BAR®

43

DIVERSITY NEWS

BY JOANNA HORSNAIL

QUESTIONS WOMEN SHOULD ASK DURING A LARGE LAW FIRM CAREER THE ROAD TO BECOMING A LAWYER IS STRAIGHTFORWARD AND THE GOALS ARE CLEAR: get into law school; graduate from law school; pass

44

the bar; get a job. And there are rules of the road. Admissions officers can offer information about admission criteria. In law school, professors tell students what they expect. To pass the bar, law school graduates can take bar preparation classes.

And while getting a job isn’t always easy, there are career services offices and plenty of other resources to understand the opportunities and the interviewing process.

Once you get the job at a large law firm, the path to success is less apparent. Doing great work isn’t the only measure of success, but the other measures aren’t always clearly identified.

Women tend to be more hesitant than men to inquire about the unspoken rules for career success. And they are not in the “old boys network” where this information may be informally shared. So it’s all about asking the right questions.

Understanding what is required and rewarded at each stage of a law firm career can be critical to success and fulfillment. These things are not always intuitive—outside guidance and information are critical to understanding what is expected and valued. In the first half of your career, it is important to ask questions to secure your success. In the second half of your career, it is important to ask questions to ensure you create the legacy you desire. In “lean in” style, the following are questions women (and men) should consider asking at each stage of their law firm careers: FIRST AND SECOND YEAR ASSOCIATES: How do you feel I performed on the matter that just concluded? How can I improve and better serve our clients?

You need feedback to improve your performance and excel.

Supervising attorneys are usually smart and driven, but they are not always effective personnel managers. Ideally, you will receive detailed and constructive feedback about your work product, but if that doesn’t happen ask for it. Ask after something important or challenging has come to a close. Come prepared with your own views about what went smoothly and what can be improved the next time, and some specific quesDIVERSIT Y & THE BAR® NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

tions about the substance of the deal or decisions the partner made. This will help you become a better lawyer, and show that you care about how you are doing and how you are being perceived in the workplace. Also, by linking your discussion to the client demands and desires, you are showing that you understand the importance of client services. Another benefit of these discussions: They may naturally lead to mentoring relationships with your supervisors. Potential mentors are likely to be most interested in helping young attorneys who are engaged and thoughtful about their work and career.

THIRD AND FOURTH YEAR ASSOCIATES: Can I work with that client or be staffed on that matter?

At this point in your career, you should have a feel for what you like to do, and what your professional niche and specialty may be for the future. Critically analyze the opportunities that may be available to you if you work with certain clients or on certain types of matters, identify potential growth areas, and discuss your thoughts with one or more mentors or trusted advisers. Then, when you hear of opportunities that match your skill set or professional development needs, ask to be on the team. Alternatively, if you know which partners may get those projects, tell him or her in advance that you would love to work on such a client or matter and have an opportunity to learn from the partner (everyone likes flattery). One of my partners says that an associate in our firm regularly searched our conflicts bulletins identifying potential new matters and asked to be staffed on the critical projects for a large client with challenging deals. Now, she is a partner and great at coaching younger associates to get what they want out of their careers.

Remember this is a question that you will need to keep asking for many years to come, even as a junior partner.

FIFTH AND SIXTH YEAR ASSOCIATES: Am I on track for promotion to partnership? Can we discuss the process?

If you are getting regular feedback, you already know at least some of the answers to these questions. However, it never hurts to make sure you have all the facts and express what you want.

MCCA.COM

You are your own best advocate. Have regular conversations with mentors, sponsors, and your supervising attorneys and practice group leaders at all levels. By asking these questions, you can begin to learn if you have a good chance of making it (to partner, or counsel, or whatever promotion you desire), and what you need to do to get there. Ask how the firm measures partnership candidates, request assistance with your business plan, seek additional experience, and make needed contacts.

Invest time getting to know people you haven’t worked with regularly or who are outside of your practice group but influence the partnership decision. Most importantly, if you want to be made a partner, say that. Simple as it sounds, many women don’t make their goals clear to their colleagues and supervisors.

Ask key people if they will support you, and then do what they ask of you in order to get yourself there.

NEW PARTNERS: Can I meet that client or help with that pitch? Can I get billing credit for that matter?

The key to success as a partner is business generation, and it is important that you bring work into the firm and get credit for your efforts. When you believe you can offer a valuable service to an existing or potential new client, ask the relevant partners if you can deliver the pitch. Expanding the existing pie is still business generation, of course. And once you expand the pie, be sure that you get the appropriate credit. Firms differ in how they award and calculate billing credit, and some don’t even have tangible billing credit. But most firms reward and compensate partners based on some measure of profitability. When you become a partner, sit down with a few trusted partners and ask for the scoop on what matters and how credit is given for business origination, generation, servicing, etc. There may be a number of times you can get credit—at the outset of the matter, after the matter is closed, at the end of your billing year. Asking for credit can be a delicate discussion if you are not in control of the matter. But if you don’t ask, other, more vocal attorneys may get the credit you deserve.

ESTABLISHED PARTNERS: How can I promote diversity within the firm?

Now that you have an established work flow and client base, you have a lot of control over who gets the opportunities for advancement in your firm. Are you considering diversity every time you staff your projects and cases? Are you giving everyone a fair chance to work on your deals? Junior attorneys can’t gain experience without being given an opportunity, and you are in the best position to influence their future at your firm. It can be frightening for a new partner to suddenly find they are not being fed work anymore—let these women take over your deals so you can focus on bigger-picture business development.

Give female associates “stretch assignments” to allow them to shine. Explain that you are giving them the opportunity to try MCCA.COM

something new outside of their comfort zone. And give that feedback! Another way to promote diversity in your firm is to be a role model. Seek leadership positions within and outside of the firm and advocate for diversity. Simply by serving in those roles, you will inspire other women.

SENIOR PARTNERS: How can I mentor junior women?

How can I transition my business in a way that gives women an opportunity?

As you start to slow down on your billable work, try and ramp up on “firm welfare” activities that give you a chance to meet and talk with female attorneys who are junior to you. What more can you be doing to support the women at your firm? Of course, staffing women on your matters is important, but you also have the most experience and perspective of anyone in the firm. Junior women don’t have the benefit of that experience or perspective. Ask them what they feel they are missing in their careers, help them find resources, make introductions to clients and colleagues, assist with business plans, and help them understand the culture of the firm. Integrate them into your networks and client relationships. And then when they have earned the opportunity, transition business to them. You will leave a legacy to future generations of female lawyers.

Knowledge and information are the building blocks for developing a rewarding strategy and career path. Asking the questions alone won’t guarantee success, but the answers will provide you with the knowledge necessary to make informed decisions about your career and how you can assist others with their careers. D&B Joanna Horsnail is a partner in Mayer Brown’s Government & Global Trade group in the firm’s Chicago office. She serves as chair of the firm’s global Women’s Leadership Committee.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 DIVERSIT Y & THE BAR®

45

IN CLOSING...

Elaine Johnson James is a partner in Berger Singerman’s Boca Raton, Florida office. She spoke to Diversity & the Bar about her career.

Q 46

You represented a governmental entity in an action to validate $1.8 billion in bonds for restoring the Everglades. That is an amazing amount of money.

Can you walk me through the process; how you got involved, what was at stake, why you took the case?

Two of my law partners structured a $1.8 billion bond program to finance the Everglades’ restoration for the South Florida Water Management District. Having worked for the district on a significant evident domain matter, I asked the general counsel to retain me to represent the district in validation proceedings.

My public finance partners and I collaborated to ensure that every word and punctuation mark in the resolutions to establish the bond program were consistent with the criteria for validating the bonds. Immediately after serving the validation complaint on my opponents, i.e., the state attorneys in every county under the district’s jurisdiction, I sent each state attorney a binder of information relative to the validation proceedings and an offer to provide any other information he or she might need to determine whether to

DIVERSIT Y & THE BAR® NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

oppose or support validation. Two of the state attorneys opposed the validation at trial, at the conclusion of which the court said it would rule within a week or two. Time was of the essence so I presented a proposed final judgment. The court reviewed it, and then identified the sections that he thought the district had failed to prove. After I explained what evidence supported each of the provisions about which the court was concerned, to the surprise of everyone in the courtroom, he said “Oh, I think I can sign this now.”

As the judge signed the final judgment, the executive director of the district emailed the U.S. president and the governor of Florida to say that the Everglades would be restored.

Your team of attorneys drafted a motion for rehearing, in only four days, that eventually reinstated 50 years of legal precedent in public finance law which the court had overturned. The Florida Supreme Court decision invalidated the tax financing that was used to redevelop blighted areas. You argued the case. How were you so persuasive?

Our effort to persuade the Florida Supreme Court in Strand began long before the oral argument.

Local counsel and five lawyers from my firm col-

MCCA.COM

“AS THE JUDGE SIGNED THE FINAL JUDGMENT, THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE DISTRICT EMAILED THE U.S. PRESIDENT AND FLORIDA GOVERNOR TO SAY THE EVERGLADES WOULD BE RESTORED.”—ELAINE JOHNSON JAMES laborated on the motion for rehearing. Typically, a party files a motion then awaits an order granting it before filing a brief and record excerpts in support of the motion. In Strand, the Supreme Court’s initial opinion overturned 50 years of public finance law on which municipalities and counties relied to develop blighted urban areas. The opinion roiled the financial markets in Florida, causing Standard & Poor’s and Moody to put billions of dollars of municipal bonds “on watch with a negative outlook.” In order to advise the court of the impact of its opinion, I departed from tradition by filing the motion, brief, and record excerpts simultaneously and including in the excerpts publications from Standard & Poor’s and Moody (which admittedly were not in the record). Obviously, by including in the appendix information that was not in the record, I was inviting a motion to strike. I reasoned, however, that the court could not strike the appendix without reading it. Our strategy worked; before our opponent’s brief in opposition was served, the court issued a provisional opinion making clear that its opinion in Strand applied only prospectively and had no impact on bonds that already had been issued. That provisional ruling temporarily calmed the financial markets.

I read the court’s opinion about 20 times and eventually found an internal inconsistency in the court’s reasoning. As I began to argue, the chief justice noted that the court never previously had granted oral argument on a motion for rehearing. Then, one justice paused to write down the

MCCA.COM

pages that were inconsistent. That was a “gotcha” moment as I felt assured that the justice closely followed my argument.

Subsequently, the court reversed the opinion that had invalidated the case precedent concerning tax increment financing and completely quieted the financial markets.

You are an arbitrator who happens to be a female African American, something that is rare in the world of arbitrators. How long have you been active?

How did you get involved?

The American and National Bar Associations began initiatives to increase the number of women and minority arbitrators about ten years ago. In 2009, I decided to become certified as an arbitrator to expand my practice. A diversity of experiences and perspectives among presiding officials is useful in arbitration, as in other forums. The efforts of the National and American Bar Associations to provide that diversity are beginning to bear fruit.

You worked with MCCA’s first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award recipient—Vernon Jordan—at the National Urban League. What was that like?

At the National Urban League, I was blessed to work closely not only with Vernon Jordan but also with two other extraordinarily gifted African American lawyers, the late Hon. Ronald Brown, former Secretary of Commerce, and Maudine Cooper, who, like Ron, was a vice president of the NUL. The experience of working with these gifted lawyers cemented my desire to attend law school.

I vividly remember three things about Vernon. First, he was strategic in every encounter. Second, he was as comfortable in a corporate boardroom as in a greasy spoon diner in Harlem. Third,

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 DIVERSIT Y & THE BAR®

47

“MY MOST MEMORABLE TRIAL IS A LOSS. ... MY FEMALE LAW PARTNER AND I GOT HOMETOWNED. AT THE END OF THE TRIAL, THE JUDGE WINKED AT OUR OLDER, MALE COUNTERPART WHILE OPENING HIS FINAL JUDGMENT, AND RULED WITHOUT READING OURS.”—ELAINE JOHNSON JAMES he treated his chauffeur, Vinny, with the same respect as the chairman of a Fortune 100 company. I learned the third lesson from my parents, and I strive to emulate the strategic thinking and ease of movement between environments that Vernon demonstrates.

You have an M.A. in educational psychology.

That’s unusual for a lawyer. Why did you decide to study that?

48

Between college and law school I taught socially maladjusted and learning disabled children in the South Bronx. I returned to Columbia to obtain a master’s degree in educational psychology to improve my teaching skills so I could better serve my very needy students. Among other things, I learned how to analyze standardized test results and prepare students to take such tests. That skill set benefited me mightily years later when I took the law school admission test and also was very helpful as I prepared my children, the children of friends, and young people in my church to take the SATs. This is an excellent example of the personal harvest that results from trying to do something good for others.

What is your most memorable trial?

My most memorable trial is a loss. About 16 years ago I tried a case in south Florida before a senior judge who was very chummy with many of the male attorneys. My female law partner and I got hometowned. At the end of the trial, the judge winked at our older, male opponent while opening his final judgment, and ruled without ever reading ours.

What about the most meaningful?

My most meaningful trial never occurred. Twenty years ago, a Jewish woman who had become a Christian missionary adopted a Belizean toddler with a very serious heart condition. Years later, a Belizean government official convinced the child’s biological parents to file an ex parte petition to overturn the adoption. Armed with the order reversing the

DIVERSIT Y & THE BAR® NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

adoption, a sheriff in Florida seized the missionary’s son from her home. Early the next day, she came to my law office, sat in the foyer until I returned from court and then told me “God said you should represent me”—pro bono of course.

I believed her, so working with an attorney in the United Kingdom, I appealed the order reversing the adoption on due process grounds. The night before the trial at which the court would have decided whether to send the child back to Belize—where he surely would have died from lack of medical attention—the UK appellate court overturned the order reversing the adoption. The next morning, opposing counsel withdrew his petition because, under the Hague Convention, he no longer had grounds for opposing the adoption. That child now is a healthy, happy and well-adjusted young man.

What is your most unusual case?

Procedurally, my most unusual case involved a federal statute, the Interstate Land Sales Full Disclosure Act (“ILSA”), under which many disgruntled condominium buyers tried to void their purchase contracts when the real estate bubble burst in 2006–07. Representing two nationwide developers, I had handled about 50 ILSA cases, winning appeals in state and federal court. The appellate court in the district where my ten remaining cases were pending issued an opinion that was just flat-out wrong and inconsistent with those of the federal appellate court and its sister appellate court. If not withdrawn, that opinion would have cost my client millions of dollars.

I contacted the losing appellate counsel only to learn he had withdrawn from the appeal, and his client was bankrupt and out of business. So I convinced one of my clients to file a motion for rehearing as an amicus curiae. (I had to represent the client pro bono because the chief litigation counsel did not have time to obtain approval for the new matter). The court granted rehearing, withdrew its original opinion, and copied large sections of our motion for rehearing in the revised opinion. My clients were saved tens of millions of dollars, and our perfect winning record in ILSA cases was preserved. D&B

MCCA.COM

Save the Date MCCA’s CLE Expo delivers cutting edge legal education programs by diverse speakers that help you meet the challenges of your practice. The conference provides opportunities to sharpen your legal skills, connect with diverse lawyers, and fine tune your abilities to keep pace in an increasingly demanding workplace.

March 12-14, 2014

The Westin Bonaventure Los Angeles, California To learn more contact: Aracely Muñoz Petrich Vice President of Strategic Development, MCCA 202-739-5841 aracelymuñozpetrich@mcca.com

MOVERS & SHAKERS

JEREMIAH DEBERRY Director of Diversity & Inclusion Mayer Brown

50

Jeremiah DeBerry has been named the director of diversity and inclusion in the United States and is based in the firm’s New York office. He will plan and implement diversity initiatives that will help recruit, develop, and promote individuals at all levels of the Mayor Brown organization. Previously, DeBerry was the director of diversity at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft and spent 14 years practicing law in private practice, most recently as an equity partner at Thelen LLP, where he chaired the diversity committee. He also served as president of the National Attorney of Color Network from 2005-2007.

He holds a B.A. degree from Tufts University and a J.D. degree from the University of Virginia School of Law.

KIMBERLY LEACH JOHNSON Chairperson Quarles & Brady

Kimberly Leach Johnson has been selected as Quarles & Brady’s next chairperson.

Her term began on October 1, 2013. Johnson will focus on creating value for the firm’s clients. She was most recently chair of the firm’s finance committee and managing partner of the firm’s Naples and Tampa, Florida offices. She continues to serve as a member of the firm’s elected executive committee. She is the first woman to serve as Quarles & Brady’s firm chair.

Johnson has extensive experience representing families in the planning of their estates and the handling of affairs after individuals pass away. She earned her law degree from the University of Florida Levin College of Law, her LL.M. degree from the University of Miami and her B.S. degree from Anderson College.

COMPILED BY JOSHUA H. SHIELDS

SUSAN SPAETH

SUSAN SHULTZ

Managing Partner Kilpatrick Townsend

Board Practice BarkerGilmore

Susan Spaeth is now the managing partner of Kilpatrick Townsend.

Located in Silicon Valley, she focuses her legal practice on intellectual property and complex/technical litigation, particularly patent litigation, licensing, and counseling.

Spaeth has represented biotechnology, medical device, and high-technology companies in various federal district courts, the United States International Trade Commission, and European patent litigation. Prior to the merger between Kilpatrick Stockton and Townsend and Townsend and Crew LLP, she served as firm managing partner of Townsend and Townsend and Crew between 2001 and 2007.

Spaeth graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and earned a B.S. in chemistry from Valparaiso University.

Susan Shultz will head up BarkerGilmore’s enhanced board practice. She will build legal and compliance teams throughout corporate America. Shultz founded SSA Executive Search International, Ltd. In the early 1980s. She has conducted senior level searches, nationally and internationally, including assignments in China, Europe, and Mexico, and is recognized as a leading expert in corporate governance. In 2002, she founded The Board Institute, Inc. to improve boards of directors through a suite of web-based, independent, and educational tools to help directors evaluate, educated, and improve their boards, committees, and individual directors. Shultz is a graduate of George Washington University.

Please send your submissions to our Movers & Shakers feature to joshshields@mcca.com Please include a high-resolution photo (300 dpi or greater), along with an electronic version of the applicable announcement.

DIVERSIT Y & THE BAR® NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013

MCCA.COM

D I VE RS I T Y a k e y i n g r e d i e n t >>

At Perkins Coie, diversity is an essential ingredient that helps us create the best

solutions for our clients. We value and encourage diverse viewpoints and draw upon them to resolve our clients’ most complex business and legal challenges. Diversity adds perspective and creativity to what we do. It’s a key ingredient to success.

ANCHOR AGE · BEIJING · BELLEVUE · BOISE · CHICAGO · DALL AS · DENVER · LOS ANGELES · MADISON · NEW YORK PA L O A LTO · P H O E N I X · P O R T L A N D · S A N D I E G O · S A N F R A N C I S CO · S E AT T L E · S H A N G H A I · TA I P E I · WA S H I N G TO N , D. C .

Contact: 800.586.8441 Perkins Coie

LLP

ATTORNEY ADVERTISING

PerkinsCoie.com/Diversity