2019 Fall - Diversity & The Bar Magazine

Disability: The Last Frontier?

Those with disabilities are often missed in the world of Diversity and Inclusion.

How can we make sure lawyers with disabilities are supported?

MCCA Rising Stars 2019 | Community Viewpoint: How Did I End up Here? | Paying it Forward

CONTENTS

FALL 2019

FEATURES

STAPLES

22 RISING STARS: A ROAD LESS TRAVELED

05 | NOTES FROM THE CEO

Their journeys to success have been different: some sought out law from the beginning while others redirected into law but all are achieving success through the alchemy of ambition and dedication.

08 | LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

By Jodi Bartle

10 | ACROSS CULTURES

We speak to David Braff about his life and career and his work at the forefront of many significant civil rights cases for LGBTQ+ equality.

14 | PAYING IT FORWARD

44 DISABILITY: THE LAST FRONTIER?

We speak to Rodney Pratt, General Counsel at iconic sneaker brand Converse.

As we mark 50 years since the Stonewall riots, we celebrate Pride by featuring images from MCCA members’ events and celebrations.

40 | INTERNATIONAL FOCUS

53 PROFILE: VICTORIA SULERZYSKI

76 | OUR DIVERSITY STORY

By Jodi Bartle

Victoria certainly does not take the easy route - her story is inspiring on a number of fronts. She shows how coping with challenges can teach important skills that are eminently transferable to business.

This time we focus on the growing market of Latin America.

Anand Sharma, about how Finnegan’s culture helps promote inclusion and diversity.

By Catherine McGregor

64 CULTURE CHANGE: EVERYTHING,

CONTRIBUTE TO D&B

EVERYWHERE, EVERYONE A collaboration with Paul Hastings on case studies into culture change and inclusion. We discuss the importance of allyship in driving culture change forward with Intel’s legal team.

Be featured in the premier magazine for diversity and inclusion! To discuss getting involved in any of these initiatives, please email Editor in Chief, Catherine McGregor at catherine.mcgregor@mcca.com

By Catherine McGregor

ALSO

COMMUNITY VIEWPOINTS

10 | MAKING THE CASE FOR

17 | NERVOUS CONDITIONS

How ADR can play in advancing

explores the troubling rise of

GREATER DIVERSITY IN ADR inclusion in the legal profession.

Bendita Cynthia Malakia

56 | BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT TRAINING: ANOTHER

mental health issues in law.

By Deborah Farone

ARROW IN THE QUIVER

58 | HOW DID I END UP HERE?

On the importance of building a diverse compliance team

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MCCA BOARD OF DIRECTORS JEAN LEE MCCA President & CEO STUART ALDEROTY RIPPLE & MCCA CHAIR General Counsel

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RICARDO ANZALDUA FREDDIE MAC Executive Vice President, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary DAMIEN ATKINS THE HERSHEY COMPANY Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary CRAIG B. GLIDDEN GENERAL MOTORS COMPANY Executive Vice President & General Counsel

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KIRKLAND L. HICKS Former Executive Vice President & General Counsel, Lincoln Financial Group DUANE HOLLOWAY UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer & Corporate Secretary

SANDRA LEUNG BRISTOL-MYERS SQUIBB Executive Vice President & General Counsel LINDA LU TRANSUNION Senior Vice President & Deputy General Counsel – Litigation, Enforcement & Strategy SUZAN A. MILLER Former Corporate Vice President, Deputy General Counsel & Corporate Secretary, Intel Corporation LANESHA MINNIX FLOWSERVE Senior Vice President, Chief Legal Officer & Corporate Secretary SAMUEL M. REEVES WALMART, INC. Senior Vice President & General Counsel Walmart International Legal ROBIN H. SANGSTON COX COMMUNICATIONS, INC. Vice President & Chief Compliance & Privacy Officer

DAWN SMITH COLOGIX President, Chief Operating Officer RICHARD J. WALLIS Former Vice President & Deputy General Counsel, Microsoft Corporation NEIL H. WILCOX USAA Senior Vice President & General Counsel, Enterprise Services SIMONE WU CHOICE HOTELS INTERNATIONAL Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary & External Affairs

MCCA BOARD OF ADVISORS

A.B. CRUZ, III Former Senior Vice President, Enterprise Shared Services, Chief Legal Office, USAA

D&B MAGAZINE PUBLICATION STAFF

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EDITOR-IN CHIEF Catherine McGregor

DESIGN/ART DIRECTION Elfatrany Design

PRESIDENT, MCCA ADVISORY PRACTICE Sophia M. Piliouras

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Jodi Bartle

MCCA® STAFF Sherla Allen Felipe Braga Lang Chen

Lauren Hossfeld Tieara Jones Sophia M. Piliouras

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

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

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

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Copyright® 2019 by the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, Diversity & the Bar is published four times a year and is distributed to supporters and subscribers, 1111 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20004. The information contained in this publication has been provided to the Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA®) by a variety of independent sources. While MCCA makes every effort to present accurate and reliable information, MCCA does not endorse, approve or certify such information, nor does MCCA guarantee the accuracy, completeness, efficacy or chronological sequence of any such information. Use of such information on the readers’ part is entirely voluntary, and reliance upon it should be undertaken only upon independent review and due diligence. References to any commercial product, process or service by trade name, trademark, service mark, manufacturer or otherwise shall not constitute or imply endorsement, preference, recommendation or the favor of MCCA. MCCA (including its employees and agents) assumes no responsibility for consequence resulting from the use of the information herein, or in any respect for the content of such information, including (but not limited to) errors or omissions; the accuracy or reasonableness of factual or other data, including statistical or scientific assumptions, studies or conclusions; the defamatory nature of statements; ownership of copyright or other intellectual property rights; and the violation of property, privacy or personal rights of others. MCCA is not responsible for, and expressly disclaims and denies liability for, damages of any kind arising out of use, reference to or reliance upon such information. No guarantees or warranties, including (but not limited to) any express or implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular use or purpose, are made by MCCA with respect to such information. Copyright in this publication, including all articles and editorial information contained herein, is exclusively owned by MCCA, and MCCA reserves all rights to such information. MCCA is a tax-exempt corporation organized in accordance with section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Its tax ID number is 13-3920905.

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NOTES

FROM THE CEO

ELCOME TO OUR FALL ISSUE OF DIVERSITY & THE BAR. ONCE AGAIN WE ARE PROUD TO RECOGNIZE AND SHINE A SPOTLIGHT ON OUR 2019 RISING STAR HONOREES. Recognition like this is important at any stage of an attorney’s career but as attorneys begin to transition to leadership roles, visibility and acknowledgment of their ambition, talent and tenacity is crucial to their advancement and their ability to reach their full potential.

Enabling diverse attorneys to achieve their full potential is also a key driver behind our Creating Pathways to Diversity Conference which was once again held in New York from October 14-16. We were thrilled to have our biggest turnout at Pathways and this year fostered discussions on inclusive leadership, the millennial majority, business development and origination credit for diverse attorneys, myth of meritocracy, challenges black women attorneys face in the legal profession and much more. While there has been continual growth in substantiating the importance of promoting diversity, inclusion and equity, real movement within the legal profession has been frustratingly slow, given the process is both time-consuming and expensive to implement as there is no one-size-fits-all solution. We hope the discussions started at Pathways continue in legal departments and law firms across the country as we continue to disrupt the status quo and push for accountability, transparency and sustainable change.

We capped off Pathways with our annual Diversity Gala on October 16 at the American Museum of Natural History. I would like to thank our board, host committee, sponsors, members and allies for their passion and generous support. It’s important to remember that the Gala is our biggest fundraiser.

All profits raised at Gala are channeled into creating lasting change in the profession. We do this by making a fundamental difference to diverse attorneys’ lives, for example with our Lloyd M. Johnson Scholarships named after D & B M A G A Z I N E FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 9 | W W W. M C C A . C O M

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Come build the future of Legal Come build the future of Legal

To keep up with Amazon’s growing list of exciting business opportunities, we are looking for legal professionals who thrive on big challenges, think creatively and analytically to problems, andgrowing consistently Tosolve keep hard up with Amazon’s list ofdeliver great results despite the odds.weWe people exciting business opportunities, arewant looking excited about working innovative forwho legalare professionals who thrive with on big and disruptive to deliver incredible challenges, think businesses creatively and analytically to customer experiences. solve hard problems, and consistently deliver great results despite the odds. We want people who are excited about working with innovative amazon.jobs/legal and disruptive businesses to deliver incredible customer experiences. amazon.jobs/legal

MCCA’s founder. We not only provide scholarships to talented and diverse 1L law students; we invest in their future and introduce them to the MCCA community. These scholarships can literally change the lives of the next generation of attorneys and without your support, the profession’s pipeline of diverse attorneys will be less rich in talent.

Another important diversity issue being covered in this quarter’s magazine is the issue of disability rights. October was National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM) a national campaign raising awareness about employment issues for people with disabilities and celebrating their many and varied contributions to the workforce. In our profession, disability or different abilities are underreported and have often been overlooked as an area of focus in the legal profession. Many attorneys with disabilities, also known as the “invisible minority”, feel they need to mask their true selves or feel they cannot gain access to opportunities in the profession. We hear from these attorneys including some of our own members, and learn more about their stories and what they feel the profession could and should be doing.

We’re also delighted to introduce a new regular feature in our magazine where we hear from an MCCA member based in Europe. Over the last three years, numerous international corporations have reached out to us for assistance, partnership and in support of our mission. At this year’s Gala we were delighted to present our first International Employer of Choice Award to Nokia.

This reminds us that the journey to inclusivity is multifaceted and is changing as we increasingly move into a global workforce. MCCA cannot navigate this journey alone but, with your help, we’ll keep on climbing, keep on fighting, and keep on moving our industry upward. Let us #RISEUNITED starting right now.

Sincerely,

Jean Lee President & CEO

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NOTES

FROM THE EDITOR

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ELCOME TO THE FALL ISSUE OF DIVERSITY & THE BAR. AS IS TRADITIONAL IN THIS ISSUE WE PROVIDE THOSE ATTORNEYS SELECTED BY MCCA AS THIS YEAR’S CROP OF RISING STARS. It’s especially important that these lawyers showcase a range of career paths and skills.

Proofing this next generation of stars in the diverse bar is a shining beacon to all future generations to show what’s possible. It’s much harder to be what you cannot see.

Our cover feature this issue looks at the experience of disabled lawyers in the profession. Disability is still one of the areas of diversity that is underrepresented in professional life, both in the law and beyond. For one of our interviewees, it was predicted he would be lucky to graduate high school; another who became disabled watched as professional colleagues changed the ways they viewed and interacted with her.

We examine some personal stories of success but also consider what best practices can be.

In a related story we also profile the story of Victoria Sulerzyski from Pearson, whose success as a lawyer has occurred against the backdrop of also caring for a profoundly disabled daughter.

In this issue we also share an exclusive extract from our project on culture change and inclusion in legal teams, undertaken in conjunction with our strategic sponsor, Paul Hastings. In the extract from our case study on Intel’s legal team, we consider the importance of white, male, cisgender allies in the process of lasting change.

This issue’s Paying it Forward features Rodney Pratt, the general counsel of Converse. Rodney shares his lifelong passion for the law and how he navigates the responsibility of being general counsel to such an iconic brand.

In Our Diversity Story we profile global IP firm, Finnegan. As they elect their

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first Managing Partner of color Anand Sharma we speak to him about the unique blend that helps to make Finnegan diverse and inclusive and his personal experiences developing as an attorney in the firm.

Next issue we will cover MCCA’s Pathways to Diversity conference and our Gala. These are our two most important events, where we gather together a range of diverse perspectives from across our memberships.

We also strive to represent this range of perspectives in the magazine; if you have an idea please get in touch: catherine.mcgregor@mcca.com.

Until next time.

Sincerly,

Catherine McGregor Editor in Chief

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ACROSS CULTURES A Letter from Europe

By Laura Jeffords Greenberg

IN OUR NEW REGULAR COLUMN, US EXPATRIATE IN-HOUSE LAWYER

LAURA JEFFORDS GREENBERG REFLECTS ON THE EXPERIENCE OF DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION IN THE PROFESSION ACROSS CULTURES. My fascination with Europe began while studying French in middle school. I fell in love with learning about a new culture through their language. At 16, I gave a presentation to my parents about the importance of studying French in Paris. Since spending that summer in Paris, I always have wanted to return to live in Europe.

Then college and law school happened. Four years out of law school, while my husband and I were living in Los Angeles, we discussed the possibility of living abroad. I recall telling my husband that if this was something he agreed to pursue, there was no taking it back.

Being both type A personalities, we researched the best cities in Europe, looking at a variety of factors that affected the quality of life for ex-pats.

Then, we took a vacation to visit the cities that fit our criteria: Amsterdam, Brussels, and Copenhagen. Surprisingly, we fell in love with Copenhagen, despite the cold and darkness of November.

About six months later, my husband was offered a new position within the Red Bull organization based out of Salzburg, Austria. Austria was so far off my radar, I had to check the map to confirm the boarding countries. Since we were both ready for a life and career change, he accepted the offer. My first trip to Austria was the trip to relocate there.

We lived in Salzburg, Austria for two years. We had an amazing time where I developed lifelong friends. I will always consider Austria a home. We moved back to the United States (New York this time, again, for my husband’s job) for two years.

After a short time, we decided we needed to move back, but set our sights on our dream city – 10

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Copenhagen. I hustled and did everything I could think of to open doors to Denmark. I pitched myself to speak at conferences, I volunteered for the Danish and other European Chambers of Commerce events in New York, and made connections through LinkedIn. Then, one night, I found a dream job at an amazing company in Copenhagen. After an extensive interview process, we relocated to Copenhagen in July of last year. When asked how long we plan to stay our response is – as long as Denmark will have us!

As someone who has always been interested in diversity and inclusion, I noticed a significant difference in the way it was approached in Europe to the US. Moving from a work/live loft in downtown Los Angeles to a small Alpine village (80,000 in the city of Salzburg) was a big adjustment on multiple levels. The most obvious was the language and cultural change, but it also included adjusting to life in a small, conservative town of a primarily racially homogenous country.

The biggest difference in Salzburg (which is different than a cosmopolitan city like Vienna) was that there was not enough differences/outsiders/ non-Austrians to consider issues of diversity and inclusion. Those who did not look Austrian were a very small percentage and mostly ex-pats working for Red Bull.

Being an American, emigration by my ancestors into the United States is part of my story and defines who I am. I know the countries from where my families came and identify with these

cultures. This is absent in certain parts of Europe.

There is no consideration or discussion of where your family came from – you are either Austrian or Swedish or French.

For example, I was the only non-Austrian/ German in a legal department of about 20. It was expected that I would assimilate, learn to speak German (required by my visa) buy a dirndl and embrace the Bavarian culture and lifestyle.

Despite lacking an awareness of American corporate concepts of diversity and inclusion, I had amazingly open and enlightening conversations about difficult topics with my Austrian and German friends because we came from a place of respect and desire to discover one another’s cultures and points of view.

But, while we speak of Europe, it is a collection of diverse cultures. The biggest difference between my experiences in Europe (both Austria and Denmark) and the US, is that family and life outside of work are prioritized in Europe. The old adage still seems apt that Americans live to work and Europeans work to live. One striking example in Austria is, although I was salaried, I had to submit time cards each week. This was not to ensure I was working enough hours as would likely be in the case in the US; but to ensure I didn’t work over the legislated maximum amount of hours per week!

Similarly, in Denmark, it is completely acceptable to leave work at 3:00 or 3:30 to ensure you are able to pick-up your child from nursery before it closes at 5:00pm. No one questions your work

ethic or commitment for wanting to spend time with or take care of your family; it is expected.

This is where I feel the US could learn from Europe: a main motivator for returning to Europe is the ability for my husband and I to have successful careers and spend quality time with our family – something we felt we could not do in New York or Los Angeles. I’ve wrestled with what accounts for this difference – is it historical; is it simply that there are less people in small European countries that leads to less competition; it is how society in Europe is structured to take care of its citizens as opposed to the individualism and manifest destiny attitude of Americans? For many of us, our work does not have life and death consequences - we are not emergency room surgeons.

So, that agreement can wait a day or two more to get done. Or if it’s July in Denmark, you might as well take vacation with the rest of the country for 3 weeks because no one else will be around.

We take time off here in Europe, and the work still gets done and businesses are just as successful. I wish that my Americans colleagues felt comfortable to slow down a bit and take more personal and family time.

LAURA J. GREENBERG

LAURAJG@UNITY3D.COM Laura is Senior Legal Counsel at Unity Technologies, where she oversees legal needs in EMEA and advises the Research & Development organization.

She is a California-licensed attorney (and American) based in Copenhagen.

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COMMUNITY VIEWPOINT Making the Case for Greater Diversity in ADR

By Mark Smalls

THERE IS NO DOUBT - WE ARE LIVING IN TURBULENT TIMES. A PERSISTENT QUESTION IS THE DIVERSITY AND INCLUSIVENESS OF OUR SOCIETY. THIS HOTLY DEBATED TOPIC IS BEING DISCUSSED IN ALL CORNERS OF OUR COUNTRY AND THE LEGAL PROFESSION IS NO EXCEPTION. More recently, the legal community has been under the microscope as diversity within firms becomes a priority. As a result, law firms are working to embrace people of all colors, genders and sexual orientations. A great example of this is the Mansfield Rule, an initiative developed by the Diversity Lab, an incubator focused on diversity and inclusion issues in the legal industry, which sets a goal for firms to actively consider diverse candidates for at least 30% of open leadership and governance roles.

Not only is a focus on diversity the “right thing” to do, but it also creates a competitive advantage. More diverse firms are able to capture more large clients, who are increasingly sensitive to the diversity of their outside counsel. Correspondingly, retaining more diverse firms allows those clients to realize their own business goals and leverage diverse perspectives on their legal matters.

A similar advantage can be gained by improving the diversity within the alternative dispute resolution (ADR) field, as this has become an increasingly popular avenue for resolving business disputes. Corporate law departments have an opportunity to consider the diversity of ADR providers in order to further extend the merits and benefits of diversity, which they have already acknowledged through numerous studies. Within the past year, a high profile dispute involving a celebrity put a 12

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spotlight on the value, including risk mitigation, of considering diversity in ADR. The ADR community has responded positively to this increased focus, as more and more providers are working to improve the diversity of their slate of arbitrators and mediators.

While progress has been made, much more needs to be done across the industry and throughout the legal profession - as well as in the corporate world.

ADR CAN PLAY A CRUCIAL ROLE IN CSR Many companies are placing a greater emphasis on corporate social responsibility (CSR) out of a desire to become better corporate citizens and to meet the demands of increasingly vocal customers. These CSR efforts are reaching out across the supply chain to include vendors, suppliers and all manner of business partners.

The diversity of outside counsel is certainly an area where corporations are looking to advance their CSR objectives.

ADR represents an opportunity to take that focus one step further. By utilizing a diverse list of mediators and arbitrators, law firms have an opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to their clients’ CSR principles, which in turn strengthens the value they bring to the relationship. Another invaluable tool is an inclusion rider. Last year, JAMS introduced its inclusion rider, which encourages parties to consider

diversity when choosing an arbitrator or panel of arbitrators. It contains language that parties can include in their arbitration contract that will request administering institutions to include a fair representation of diverse candidates on the list of potential arbitrator appointees.

Law firms can recommend an inclusion rider to corporate clients to further bolster diversity and inclusion programs as part of a larger CSR strategy. “It’s important to note that the lawyers who are drafting arbitration contracts, as well as the litigators and clients, all play a role in who ultimately gets selected for cases,” explained Kimberly Taylor, Senior Vice President, Chief Legal and Operating Officer for JAMS. “These are the folks who have an opportunity to help ensure diversity in the ADR process. By incorporating an inclusion rider, they can further the important goal of having a diverse slate of arbitrators that fully reflect the client community.”

through collective actions that real change will

THE TIME TO DO MORE IS NOW JAMS takes pride in being one of the first ADR providers to take the Equal Representation in Arbitration Pledge. This pledge seeks to increase the number of women appointed as arbitrators, with the ultimate goal of full parity.

JAMS sponsors and partners with diverse national bar associations such as the National LGBT Bar Association, National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, National Bar Association, Hispanic National Bar Association, and National Association of Women Lawyers, as well as numerous diverse local bar associations.

We have an active, cross-functional Diversity Committee who meets regularly to discuss goals, implement strategies that accelerate progress, and increase diversity and inclusion across JAMS and throughout the ADR industry.

Nearly everyone understands the importance of diversity in the legal industry, but it is only

sion is needed. This is not a strictly altruistic call

occur. It’s time for all stakeholders to take bold

steps to make diversity and inclusion a priority.

We know we can do more and we are continuing

to focus on this important area of our business.

We encourage the rest of the legal community

to do the same. But real change needs to be systemic.

“We’ve made progress on the road toward

inclusivity and diversity in the legal profession, but we still have quite a ways to go,” concluded

Chris Poole, President and CEO for JAMS. “Cultural change is never easy, but so long as all stakeholders in the process embrace the im-

portance of diversity in the industry and work

together to encourage qualified individuals from the judiciary and law firms to enter into the ADR field where they can then be selected as a neutral, I think we can achieve our objectives.”

Clearly, greater diversity in the legal profes-

to action. Diversity is also good for business. It

helps to advance firms’ corporate goals, foster a positive working environment, ensure diverse

perspectives and strengthen the values that are the bedrock of our profession. The time to do more is now.

MARK SMALLS msmalls@jamsadr.com

Mark Smalls oversees marketing and communications strategy globally and provides leadership to the managers tasked with business development responsibilities. His extensive marketing background includes advertising, branding, market research, public relations, website development and online marketing. Smalls also currently chairs the JAMS Diversity Committee and serves on the JAMS Foundation board.

The JAMS Foundation is the largest and most long-standing private funder of conflict prevention and dispute resolution initiatives in the U.S. and around the world.

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PAYING IT FORWARD Rodney Pratt, Converse

By Catherine McGreggor

IN THIS REGULAR FEATURE WE PROFILE THE CAREER OF A LEADING DIVERSE ATTORNEY THROUGH THE LENS OF ADVICE THEY WOULD GIVE THEIR YOUNGER

SELF AND HOW THEY WOULD PAY THEIR OWN CAREER LEARNINGS FORWARD

FOR THE NEXT GENERATION. THIS ISSUE WE SPEAK TO RODNEY PRATT, GENERAL COUNSEL AT ICONIC SNEAKER BRAND CONVERSE. Diversity & the Bar (D&tB): Did you always want to be a lawyer or, if not, what led you to study law?

Rodney Pratt: Yes, I was always inspired by the practice of law and the role of lawyers as agents for change; as the great civil rights attorney Charles Hamilton Houston once said, “A lawyer is either a social engineer … or a parasite on society …” When I was first asked as a child, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, “Lawyer” was my first answer. This was because lawyers have always served as change agents in US history and have been at the forefront, side and behind every major social, cultural and corporate movement in America. As an in-house corporate attorney for a major corporation, I want to do my part to serve as a game-changer to elevate the role and impact of the legal function in corporate America, and to amplify the opportunities for success for attorneys of color.

D&tB: You have been General Counsel at Converse for five years now. What have been your biggest learnings and your proudest achievements during that time?

RP: My biggest learnings have been about leadership and its impact, for good or bad, on corporate culture. I’ve learned to appreciate that being a subject matter expert does not make you a great leader, and that great leaders lead without ego or personal agendas. Especially for leaders of enabling corporate functions like Legal, as we 14

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must always put the enterprise’s interest above our own and always remember that our ultimate client is the enterprise, and not any individual or corporate executive. Great leaders lead and manage with courage and are not afraid to do the right thing, even when it is unpopular to do so.

Great leaders are willing to sacrifice their personal capital or interests for the greater good of the enterprise and its culture and people. Great leaders are transparent, vulnerable and visible.

D&tB: Do you have a proudest achievement as a leader?

RP: I would say, my proudest achievements are as follows: 1. Establishing the Converse Legal Fellowship program, which is going on its fifth year. Under the program, we provide up to two recent law school graduates a paid 12-month legal fellowship at Converse. To date, every graduate of the program has or will move on to amazing opportunities as federal judicial clerks, law firm associates, in-house attorneys, compliance professionals, and government lawyers.

2. Being part of a strong and talented legal team at Converse. With this team, we have been able to maintain and amplify the importance of the Legal function as a collection of value-adding business professionals, who happen to know a whole lot about the law. I’m proud to say we are not only viewed as “Legal”, but we

RODNEY PRATT

have inspired others to view us as a “Make It Happen” Center of Excellence and, when necessary, the Department of “Fix It.” 3. Being a Co-Founder and Executive Sponsor of the Converse Diversity Network - one of five employee resource groups at Converse - whose mission is to transform culture by celebrating and promoting diversity through fostering a community of belonging for employees of color. In this capacity, I’ve had the privilege of working with a group of talented and passionate diverse employees who, in addition to their day jobs, have worked tirelessly, on a volunteer basis, to make Converse the best brand and company it can be for all of its present and future employees.

D&tB: Since the take-over by Nike, Converse has moved its brand into a more artistic sphere through collaborations with designers and even artists.

Does that present any unique legal challenges?

RP: Most creatives don’t think like lawyers (and vice versa) when it comes to how they ideate, innovate and create. The unique legal challenges are making sure everyone understands the rules of engagement for the collaboration (i.e., who owns and controls it, who or what inspired it, who can use it, who can claim it, who can stop it, and who can rock it). As a lawyer, it is important for me

to sometimes not let my legal training get in the way of common-sense business approaches to working with creatives. I try to put myself in their shoes and remind myself of Erykah Badu’s famous line: “I’m an Artist, and I’m sensitive about my…”.

D&tB: There’s a long-standing link in association and marketing to young black men of sneakers. Does that affect how you as an African American man approach your role in a key brand in this marketplace?

RP: As a brand at the heart of youth culture, we understand the fine line between exploitation and appropriation versus providing a genuine product proposition that inspires and is inspired by, celebrates, recognizes, and serves young black men and youth of all backgrounds authentically, and respectfully. I’m fortunate to work for a company that includes and embraces the points of view and diverse perspectives, of not only me, but other African American men and women in the C-Suite of the company and throughout our organization.

I bring my whole self, and all of my life experiences as an African American man, to work every day.

Our company has, and will continue to, build and employ diverse leaders who view every aspect of our business from diverse perspectives, including the perspectives of young black men who are at the heart of youth and sneaker culture.

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D&tB: How do you, as a leader, best foster inclusivity in your own team and more widely in Converse?

RP: First, I try to lead by example and make sure every perspective is heard, even those perspectives that may not have a voice at the table or in a meeting. I also challenge myself, and my colleagues, to articulate any hidden assumptions which may underline our behaviors, positions or policies. I try to encourage my team and colleagues to think, create, attack, and address every

whereby the law firm would only get paid if it successfully addressed their diversity issues. I’m not a gambling man, but I would bet a whole lot that we would see the retention, advancement, and elevation of black partners and attorneys of color at law firms improve dramatically!

D&tB: You’re currently vice chair of the MCCA’s N Gen Advisory Board, do you think the focus and approaches for inclusion and diversity initiatives needs to change for future generations and as the workplace itself changes?

IF FUTURE GENERATIONS ARE STILL DEALING WITH THE INCLUSION AND DIVERSITY CHALLENGES WE FACE TODAY, I THINK IT IS SAFE TO SAY WE FAILED THEM. OUR PRIMARY MISSION SHOULD BE TO MAKE OUR CURRENT MISSION OBSOLETE IN THE FUTURE BY MAKING D&I PART OF THE DNA OF EVERY LAW FIRM AND CORPORATE LEGAL DEPARTMENT. I HOPE WE CAN GET TO A PLACE WHERE WE CAN SAY, “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.” work matter from all angles which forces you to have a diverse perspective and mindset.

D&tB: Recent figures from law firms in the US show a deplorable number of black partners.

What do you think law firms should be focusing on to change this?

RP: Law firms need to focus on the root cause of the issue, which may be different for each firm.

Then, they need to be more introspective and ask, “Why are the numbers so low?” and “Do we really care?” and, “What can we do to change this?”. Also, at this point, companies, like mine, must be more assertive and hold law firms to a higher standard with greater accountability, and consequences, for the lack of black partners.

The solution is not complicated: law firms need to recruit, retain, develop and advance black attorneys. Period. In fact, I would challenge every law firm with a “stated” commitment to diversity to treat their diversity issues like a new client engagement with a contingent fee arrangement 16

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RP: If future generations are still dealing with the inclusion and diversity challenges we face today, I think it is safe to say we failed them. Our primary mission should be to make our current mission obsolete in the future by making D&I part of the DNA of every law firm and corporate legal department. I hope we can get to a place where we can say, “Mission Accomplished.” This, however, will take a greater sense of urgency and a form of results-based accountability that is sadly missing in the legal community.

D&tB: Finally, what advice would you give to your younger self?

RP: Be bolder. Act with a greater sense of urgency about finding and pursuing your North Star. When you fail in life, (and you will), fail fast. Always “Win” or “Learn”, losing is not an option. Be a better mentee. Be comfortable being you a lot earlier in life. And, don’t go straight to law school after college, you should live a little.

D&B/TALK

COMMUNITY VIEWPOINT Nervous Conditions

By Bendita Cynthia Malakia

THE PRESSURES MOST LAWYERS FACE ARE SIGNIFICANT. FROM HIGH STAKES MATTERS IN FAST-PACED ENVIRONMENTS WITH HEAVY WORKLOADS; TO THE EXPECTATIONS OF PERFECTION; TO THE RELIANCE ON INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL AS THE NECESSARY DRIVING FORCE OF A LAWYER’S TRADE; IT IS NO WONDER THAT LAWYERS SUFFER FROM MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES AT ASTRONOMICAL RATES THAT ARE LIKELY UNDERREPORTED DUE TO STIGMA. Thankfully, the mental health issues lawyers face are receiving increasing visibility in the media, in large law firms (as evidenced by the increasing programming designated to make sure that legal professionals have support for those issues, e.g. a few years ago at Hogan Lovells we instituted the Ask programs, which consist of onsite counselors available for our lawyers and business services professionals in many of our US offices), and the launch of the American Bar Association’s Well-being Pledge for Legal Employers in 2018 with its seven-point program designed to improve wellness in legal organizations. Given that it is impossible to address a problem that is unacknowledged, all of this attention is a productive step forward.

While diverse lawyers experience the same pressures that other lawyers do, the mental and physical health impacts that diverse lawyers also face as a result of discrimination, explicit and implicit bias, prejudice, racial anxiety, stereotype, and microaggressions (collectively referred to herein as “Inequitable Conditions”) in their workplaces warrants increased attention.

Discrimination on the basis of identity, explicit and implicit bias, and prejudice are all terms that are generally known, so I won’t define them here.

However, microaggressions, or the daily assaults of corrosive explicit and implicit denigrations,

invalidations, insults and exclusions that diverse lawyers face on a daily basis, have been described as “death by a thousand cuts”. The term “microaggressions” is sometimes misconstrued as the acts themselves being negligible or small in impact; rather, the individual and cumulative effects can be monumental on diverse lawyers. Of all the Inequitable Conditions, microaggressions tend to be the most prevalent in our workplaces and particularly insidious because they are deemed too small to drive action and, unfortunately, many of them can be difficult to pin down or explain to others that do not have similar cultural awareness.

NERVOUS CONDITIONS Racial anxiety and stereotype threat are two related phenomena impacting diverse lawyers that can, over extended periods of time or with a significant traumatic event, lead to increased stressors for diverse people.

Racial anxiety refers to the heightened level of stress and emotion that permeates relationships between people of different backgrounds. In legal environments, for younger diverse lawyers who understand that more senior non-diverse lawyers have their futures in their hands, it may mean approaching interactions in a more sensitive, cautious way that could prevent the authentic relationships required to be trusted, developed and invested in.

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social functions that can lead to relationship-build-

about how their behavior may confirm stereo-

career advancement but that can also feel like nav-

they belong. In some sense, it is a self-fulfilling

ing and provide insider knowledge necessary to igating a gauntlet of potential faux pas pitfalls that could reveal that a diverse lawyer doesn’t belong

or “isn’t one of us”. Conversely, it may also mean that non-diverse lawyers, scared of inadvertently being the center of a #MeToo story or being

accused of bias, may opt out of having meaningful interactions with diverse lawyers which might protect them in the short-term but is the essence of

privilege. Another way this may play out is a non-di-

verse lawyer refraining from offering the same level of critical feedback in the moment to diverse

types attributed to the diverse category in which prophecy, where the mental and physical energy diverse lawyers use thinking about stereotypes and attempting to navigate around them can lead

to confirming the very stereotypes the diverse

lawyers were trying to avoid. One way I have seen this present itself is a diverse lawyer worried that

they will be viewed as incompetent or unintelligent spending time reviewing work assignments multiple

times to ensure that it is error free late into the night, and due to working long hours under stress when tired, may make unforced errors, or may cause the

STEREOTYPE THREAT IS THE ANTICIPATORY ANXIETY THAT DIVERSE LAWYERS DEVELOP AS A RESULT OF WORRYING ABOUT HOW THEIR BEHAVIOR MAY CONFIRM STEREOTYPES ATTRIBUTED TO THE DIVERSE CATEGORY IN WHICH THEY BELONG. IN SOME SENSE, IT IS A SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY, WHERE THE MENTAL AND PHYSICAL ENERGY DIVERSE LAWYERS USE THINKING ABOUT STEREOTYPES AND ATTEMPTING TO NAVIGATE AROUND THEM CAN LEAD TO CONFIRMING THE VERY STEREOTYPES THE DIVERSE LAWYERS WERE TRYING TO AVOID. lawyers as non-diverse lawyers due to fear of being

individual to record an abnormally long period of

instances of not being able to correct the inevitable

amount of time that it took to complete the assign-

perceived as discriminatory or biased. In these errors that result from being human and eventu-

ally not being deemed technically or otherwise

competent enough to progress, diverse lawyers lose. Whether experienced by diverse lawyers or non-diverse lawyers, racial anxiety has the effect of adding stress and mental health pressures on

diverse lawyers that they have to deal with on top of the other pressures inherent in lawyering.

Stereotype threat is the anticipatory anxiety that

diverse lawyers develop as a result of worrying 2 18

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time for the work performed, or by self-editing the

ment as to not raise any eyebrows which can lead to questions about what that diverse lawyer is doing during the rest of their time. All of these results can

provide evidence to someone seeking confirmation

of incompetence, lack of intelligence, inability to handle the workload, laziness or any other number

of stereotype affirming behaviors. Stereotype threat is, in short, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Racial anxiety and stereotype threat are am-

plifying externalities that are natural results

of the Inequitable Conditions diverse lawyers

their fate.

when considered with the deleterious effect of

reotype threat, are Inequitable Conditions that

environments that are embedded in most lawyers’

in order to be successful in legal organizations.

experience, that have a compounding effect Inequitable Conditions and the pressure cooker

experiences. Jean Paul Sartre, in the preface to post-colonial theorist Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of

the Earth, wrote that “[t]he condition of a native

Nervous conditions, like racial anxiety and ste-

diverse lawyers need to address or ably navigate INEQUITABLE CONDITIONS LEAD TO NEGATIVE HEALTH IMPACTS ON DIVERSE PEOPLE...

In addition to adding to the burdens and

is a nervous condition”. Sartre was referring to

challenges that diverse people face in our orga-

developed as a result of the various physical and

face, Inequitable Conditions lead to adverse

the interwoven neuroses that colonized people

psychological pressures they experienced in colonial and post-colonial environments. Nervous conditions encompass racial anxiety and ste-

reotype threat, but also refers to the constant

decision-making and thought that diverse lawyers

take into account as they navigate the various cultural, social and other worlds they are a part

of. The culture of legal organizations is laden with rules, mostly unwritten, that are based on

the culture of the individuals that built it: predominately straight cisgender white able-bodied men. Many diverse lawyers don’t have access

to the formal and informal networks that make the unwritten rules that undergird legal organizational culture. The stress of navigating these

environments is an additional physical and

cognitive burden that diverse lawyers face. W.E.B. DuBois, American Pan-Africanist, civil rights

activist and sociologist, expressed the substance of this phenomenon in a different way, as

“double consciousness”: where diverse people are required to look at themselves through their

own eyes and through the eyes of other people that may have contempt for them. It causes a duality of experience that can be illuminating and provide some advantage, but for many causes dissonance, a lack of sure footing, and the instability of recognizing that the world as they see it exists but may not be as important as the world

as perceived or articulated by others that control

nizations on top of the stressors that all others

health outcomes for diverse people. In her article

“How racism and microaggressions lead to worse health” published for the Center for Health Journalism, Gina Torino explores the ways the explicit

and implicit Inequitable Conditions can cause adverse physical health outcomes such as heart

disease and mental health outcomes like “de-

pression, anger, physical reactions, avoidance, intrusion, hypervigilance, and low self-esteem”, the latter of which other studies have validated. In addition to increased trauma, there is a correlation

between microaggressions and suicidal thoughts.

It also has been found that class may also play an

interesting role with respect to the way racial mi-

croaggressions impact mental health. Esthanette

Reid of the University of Massachusetts Boston in her thesis “How Racial Microaggressions Impact

the Mental Health of Black Women of Different

Occupational Prestige” (May 2017) finds that Black

women with higher occupational prestige will experience microaggressions associated with more symptoms of depression, anxiety and trauma

more frequently than Black women with lower occupational prestige. Based on traditional and

current perspectives, the law is a high prestige field, and one might reasonably be able to argue that Black women lawyers (and other similarly

situated intersectional lawyers) face more trauma

from Inequitable Conditions than what might have been assumed or supposed.

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...AND COULD AMOUNT TO A DISABILITY. If Inequitable Conditions are an amalgamation of systemic, pervasive phenomena and a barrage of constant daily intentional and unintentional abuses (re: death by a thousand cuts), in the aggregate, Inequitable Conditions can lead to significant physical and psychological challenges for diverse lawyers. Overtime, depending on the individual’s life experiences, socialization, and other factors, the synergistic impact of these Inequitable Conditions may lead to long-term impacts, including arising to the level of a disability. A “disability” is defined under the Americans with Disabilities Act, 1990 (as amended) (ADA) as a person who has a recorded physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. Major life activities include more obvious tasks like caring for oneself, performing manual tasks and seeing, but also include other activities like learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating and working, which are critical to be able to do as a competent, competitive lawyer. When I talk to diverse people about feeling like the world is “closing in” after hearing a microaggression, or that encounter someone that they know has discriminated or exhibited bias and their mind goes blank, or when I hear them describe the mental energy it takes on a daily basis to review their work six or seven times over to avoid any mistake so their competence goes unquestioned (which for diverse lawyers can be a fatal blow to their careers), it seems reasonable to me that diverse lawyers could easily 4 20

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experience difficulties, or at worst a mental impairment with respect to some of the major life activities covered by the ADA like learning, concentrating, thinking, communicating and working.

From my perspective, a reasonable explanation for diverse lawyers suffering from underreported mental health challenges like anxiety, depression, imposter syndrome, hyper-focused perfectionism, and other conditions is the state of having to constantly experience and be subject to Inequitable Conditions combined with the high stress environment of most legal organizations.

BUT ISN’T THAT PROBLEMATIC? Yes, namely because diverse lawyers have enough problems succeeding despite the Inequitable Conditions they face without having to deal with the stigma and the connotative implications of being a disabled lawyer. Whether conscious or unconscious, intentional or unintentional, many think lawyers that have disabilities, regardless of what those disabilities are, are incapable of performing at the level of lawyers without disabilities.

There is a sense that lawyers that have any kind of mental health issue or cognitive disability do not have the intellectual fortitude or capacity to be able to perform at the level that a competent lawyer should be able to. Most of these perceptions are generally invalid, especially given that disclosure rates of mental health issues and disabilities are so low that it is unlikely that individuals even have a large enough sample size to draw a valid or legitimate conclusion.

As a general rule, individuals that have multiple

diversity characteristics experience exponential

discrimination that is more than the sum of its parts.

Giving non-diverse people additional ammunition by implying that diverse lawyers experience

It essentially lays the responsibility (and as some infer, the blame) on the individual that is experiencing mental health challenges or stress rather

such hardships due to Inequitable Conditions on

than looking at the interlocking structural systems

ment feels problematic. The strongest rebuttal to

challenges. Devoting more resources to diversity

top of the stressful legal organizational environthis challenge is that it is a response that perpet-

uates and reinforces an ableist narrative without

that support law firms that is at the root of those and inclusion initiatives, which should aim to con-

refuting or confronting the underlying stereo-

temporaneously create and improve systems

PUTTING THAT ASIDE, WHAT SHOULD WE DO?

lawyers acutely, while providing the diverse

types associated with that narrative.

We need to have more robust initiatives sup-

porting both diversity and inclusion initiatives in

adversely impacting all lawyers, but diverse lawyers at the organization with the strategies and

the legal profession but also wellness and mental

tools they need to do the best they can to success-

legal organizations are on the path to devoting

to make sure that all of our policies, practices,

health initiatives. Fortunately, as noted, some

increased resources to supporting lawyers and

business services professionals. As organizations

fully navigate the environment, is key. Continuing processes and programs, including our mental

institute, continue to build out and refresh mental

health initiatives reflect the unique experiences

individuals with disabilities, it is critical that

way to providing holistic support that can lead to

health programming and programs that support

those programs ensure that the unique mental health challenges that may be faced by diverse lawyers as a result of Inequitable Conditions are

of diverse lawyers will ensure that we are on our increased retention, advancement and wellbeing of diverse lawyers.

addressed. This will be a challenge. While there

are some organizations that do not affirmatively offer robust metal health programs, those that do often do not try to deal with the root cause of the problem even for all lawyers.

Perhaps changing the fundamental nature

of firms is just too ambitious and costly. The programs tend to address extremely necessary topics like resilience and grit, rather than re-think-

ing the billable hour model that incentivizes working as much as possible on complex matters

under extreme deadlines. Unfortunately, topics

like resilience and grit, while incredibly important, often do not signal to diverse lawyers that the organization understands the pressures that they

BENDITA CYNTHIA MALAKIA Hogan Lovells

bendita.malakia@hoganlovells.com http://www.linkedin.com/in/bendita

Bendita Cynthia Malakia is Senior Inclusion Manager at Hogan Lovells. In her role, Bendita focuses on integrating diversity and inclusion into the architecture of the firm, investing in high potential diverse lawyers, creating a culture of inclusion, and advancing the business case for inclusion by engaging clients. Prior to joining Hogan Lovells, Bendita was a diversity and inclusion consultant, a private lending lawyer at Goldman Sachs Bank, a development finance lawyer at International Finance Corporation and Norton Rose Fulbright. A graduate of Barnard College and Harvard Law School, Bendita is Secretary of the Board of the National LGBT Bar Association.

are resilient and gritty through on a daily basis.

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A Road Less Traveled Emerging leaders who stop at nothing for excellence

By Jodi Bartle

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MCCA’s annual Rising Stars list gathers together the best of diverse legal talent, spanning the country and touching on multiple practice areas and industry sectors. The thirteen attorneys profiled here are ones to watch, certainly; pushing through the demanding and unrelenting pathways of legal practice, their individual journeys are so far testament to that. Some have sought out the law from their earliest beginnings, others have redirected their route and found themselves here through the specific alchemy of chance and dogged ambition.

What sets them apart, aside from a deeply woven drive for excellence and love of the law, is compassion and an awareness of their own indebtedness to others for helping them break through. The lawyers awarded here exemplify the opposite of entitlement; signaling values of kindness, authenticity and gratitude through volunteering, pro bono projects, mentoring and sponsorship and engagement in affinity groups and Bar Associations. In a world that feels increasingly polarized, our 2019 Rising Stars seek to bridge gaps in their communities both inside and outside of the office. These attorneys give back, and the law is a richer practice for having them in it.

Angela Gomes

Partner Sullivan & Worcester - Boston Boston native Angela Gomes, Partner in the Boston office of Sullivan & Worcester LLP, says that the most useful advice ever given to her has been to take ownership of her career, both early and often. “No one will care about your success more than you and so you must seek out opportunities to showcase your skills, be vocal about your goals, say yes to opportunities that may scare you, but will contribute to your growth. These opportunities help you develop new skills or push you outside your comfort zone, and have the courage to say no to anything that does not align with the attainment of your goals,” she explains. Less helpful to her career progression has been the advice that in order to succeed, you have to conform to society’s expectations for what an attorney in a large law firm should look and act like. “Bringing my authentic self to work has contributed to my success,” she affirms.

Angela joined Sullivan from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, and her practice encompasses a broad range of corporate and securities matters, including securities law compliance, disclosure and periodic reporting, and corporate governance matters. She also focuses on mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance, in addition to handling general corporate matters. She advises a number of nonprofit organizations on general corporate law matters, as well as state and federal tax-exempt status. In addition, she serves on the board of directors of a number of non-profit legal organizations.

Angela always thought she would become a pediatric surgeon when she grew up. “I wanted to make everyone, including my family, proud by becoming a doctor who helped make sick children better,” she remembers. But after being awarded a full-tuition scholarship to attend Boston University and while pursuing a degree in chemistry she became familiar with the legal side of business transactions and, was intrigued with D & B M A G A Z I N E FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 9 | W W W. M C C A . C O M

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how deals of all types were made. This led to her decision to switch majors and later attend law school.

She counts her promotion to counsel at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP as a highlight of her career and the recent move to Sullivan & Worcester LLP as a partner in their Corporate practice as another highlight. As the first person in her immediate family to attend college and the only person in her large, extended family to attend law school, she notes she had very few role models in that regard and says it should come as no surprise that she did not grow up wanting to be an attorney. I am most proud that, although it represented a change from what I (and my family) expected I would become, I pursued my passion and successfully completed law school and went on to begin my career at Skadden, one of the premier law firms in the country, as one of two black attorneys in the Boston office at the time. That I worked my way to being promoted to counsel in the corporate group and then to become one of six black female law firm partners in the city of Boston is beyond anything I could have imagined,” she notes.

Angela acknowledges she has been fortunate to have many mentors and sponsors, each of which have provided valuable advice and support over her career at various times. She says: “My mentors have been both internal and external and have guided me to through the bumps in my career, provided friendship and have opened doors which likely would not have been possible without them. My sponsors have represented me in rooms where I did not have the access and supported my promotion and leadership opportunities both within the firm and in the broader legal community.”

...I pursued my passion and successfully completed law school and went on to begin my career at Skadden, one of the premier law firms in the country, as one of two black attorneys in the Boston office at the time. That I worked my way to being promoted to counsel in the corporate group and then to become one of six black female law firm partners in the city of Boston is beyond anything I could have imagined...

As a young attorney setting out on her professional journey, she says she wishes she had known that hard work is necessary, but not the only ingredient, to have a successful career. She adds: “In my view, the key to a successful and meaningful career is to be well rounded, work hard, yes, but also take the time to develop personal and professional relationships, contribute to the culture of your workplace and lift as you climb.”

As a woman of color who grew up in Boston, she has taken as her personal charge to give back to the community. “Throughout my career I have committed to, and encouraged participation in, many legal and non-profit organizations, including the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, National Bar Association, Boston Lawyers Group, Boston Bar Association, Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association and the Greater 24

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Boston Chamber of Commerce, among others.” She believes her participation in these organizations have helped develop her skills as a lawyer and a leader as well as enabled her to develop and maintain relationships with attorneys and others, which, she says, has undoubtedly contributed to her success. “I also believe that growing up as the oldest child in a Cape Verdean household instilled in me values and traits, including self-sufficiency, perseverance and grit, which I believe have been integral to my professional success thus far.”

Adam Banks

Partner Weil, Gotshal & Manges - New York Adam Banks, partner in Weil’s New York Appellate Litigation practice group, decided upon a career in law when he realized it was one way to really make an impact “both in the world and in our communities”.

“The lawyers I knew and that had been role models had used their legal careers, whether in government, private practice, public interest or academia, to advocate for clients and causes that were meaningful to them,” he says. Adam also saw a career in the law “offered tremendous variety, and that lawyers could continue to mold a career as their interests and expertise took shape over time.”

Adam litigates appeals in the state and federal appellate courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court and the New York Court of Appeals. His appellate resume covers a variety of high-stakes cases and reflects pivotal events of our age: from bringing closure to financial crisis-era disputes, including one relating to one of the largest REIT buyouts of all time, to saving a death row inmate, resolving litigation arising from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and helping to define the contours of the False Claims Act. Prior to joining Weil, Adam clerked for Judge Marsha S. Berzon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Adam says the most valuable piece of advice he has been given is not to sweat the small stuff. “It’s easy to get bogged down or distracted by minor roadblocks or setbacks,” he says. “It’s even harder sometimes as lawyers because we’re trained to concentrate on and even obsess over the details. Finding a way to power through minor headaches and focus on the big picture is vital in making progress and achieving an end goal and it has been helpful to remind myself of that to get there.” On the flipside, Adam says advice to memorize rules of thumb has been the least useful “because they never seem to turn out right in practice”.

His active pro bono practice led to the most meaningful moment of his career so far - successfully vacating a capital defendant’s death sentence after an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

Adam’s team won the victory after proving their client had suffered from woefully deficient representation during his initial trial. Adam recalls: “I will never forget our phone call and subsequent meeting with our client telling him that, against all odds, the court had vacated his sentence and spared him from the death penalty.

Although I have been fortunate to have had several “wins” over my career so far, this stands out.” He has also represented another death row inmate in post-conviction appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, in certiorari petitions to the U.S. Supreme Court and in the Supreme Court of Florida.

He is quick to acknowledge the positive influence that sponsors and mentors have made on his career, particularly in terms of professional development, professional opportunities and advancement. Adam singles out Jonathan Polkes, the co-head of our Litigation Department, and Gregory Silbert, the head of the firm’s Appellate Litigation practice, as “instrumental” in giving him opportunities on matters and with clients that expanded his professional skills and helping him advance within the firm.

When asked what he wished he had known before embarking upon a legal career, Adam says that life as a lawyer can be unpredictable. “It’s hard to know at the beginning of a matter what it might turn into, what you D & B M A G A Z I N E FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 9 | W W W. M C C A . C O M

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might learn, and where you might go – both professionally and physically.” This is also true from the beginning of a career, he says. “When I started at my firm nearly ten years ago, I didn’t really think – and certainly didn’t plan – that I would still be here today, as a partner. But what you learn over time, and how your interests and professional development evolve, can change your path in exciting ways.”

Outside of the office, Adam says he tries to stay engaged with what’s happening in the world and with organizations with missions that are important to him. “I’ve joined the board of a civil rights organization that does really important work and keeps me engaged with issues affecting our communities. Beyond that, spending time with my family – I became a new father last year – keeps me grounded and focused on what’s important in all the things we do, including in professional life.”

Alvin F. Benton

Director and Assistant General Counsel Capital One - Dallas Reflecting on his role as Director and Assistant General Counsel at Capital One, Alvin F. Benton says, “I am surrounded by insanely gifted lawyers, talented leaders across our business who are visionaries. I’ve been given the opportunity to work on very complex matters that have a substantial effect on our customers, and I have enjoyed our ever-evolving commitment to improvements in technology.”

Alvin came to Capital One after an eight year stint as an associate attorney at Holland & Knight practicing in the areas of bankruptcy litigation and general business litigation. He calls this move, which sees him responsible for supporting Capital One’s Auto Finance, U.S. Card, Retail and Direct Bank and Commercial Bank bankruptcy businesses, an “amazing experience,” and considers it a highlight of his career so far.

He namechecks Cleo Belmonte, who serves as Vice President in Capital One’s Legal Department supporting the Securities and Global Finance group, as a mentor and sponsor who has made a significant impact on his career. “I am honored that Cleo carves out the time to meet with me, given the nature of her responsibilities, and second, Cleo consistently gives me great advice on how best to further my career. In terms of her influence, after my conversations with Cleo, I always feel great clarity on how to best extend myself as a lawyer, colleague and advocate while truly understanding my value. I am thankful for her insight and investment in my career.”

Pragmatic and analytical, Alvin says his first love was architecture, while his mentors suggested a career in academia - but the law won out. “I honestly can’t remember what day I woke up and decided I wanted to be a lawyer, but along the journey I fell in love with the law.” Over his career, Alvin has represented creditors in a variety of commercial settings, including sophisticated Chapter 11 reorganizations, Chapter 13 cases and Chapter 7 liquidations. In addition, he has represented creditors in receiverships, debt restructurings, complex commercial foreclosures; complex corporate restructurings in Chapter 11 cases and under consensual, out-of-court “workout” agreements. Most recently, Alvin has been tasked with serving as primary legal support to Capital One Auto Finance business’s Loss Mitigation Operations.

The work has been varied; alongside his day to day commitments, Alvin serves as the co-chair of the Capital One Plano Office’s Pro Bono Committee and is a member of the Legal Diversity & Inclusion Committee for Capital One. He was recently accepted into Capital One’s Emerging Leader Development Program, a fast26

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paced, high-impact development program, where Capital One high potential associates will be given the opportunity to enhance and transform their leadership skills.

As both a mentor/mentee, associate/partner, then thinking of all the other relationships I have had over the course of my career, development of those relationships requires an investment. The more you invest, the more you get out of it. It took me much longer in my career to truly understand that, and I am continuing to learn how these investments require vulnerability, candor and transparency.

He has served as an Inaugural Fellow of the Florida Bar Leadership Academy and as a member of 2015 Leadership Class of the Dallas Association of Young Lawyers. Alvin was a panelist during the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges addressing many topics, including trends and issues in bankruptcy law and the importance of diversity in the legal field and is a member of the American Bankruptcy Institute and the Association of Corporate Counsel.

He also volunteers with the Boys and Girls Club of Collin County as a mentor, and says that mentoring has contributed to his professional success by allowing him to give more of himself to others without expecting anything in return.

In fact, Alvin says he wishes he had begun his professional journey with a better understanding of the value of investing in people. “As both a mentor/mentee, associate/partner, then thinking of all the other relationships I have had over the course of my career, development of those relationships requires an investment.

The more you invest, the more you get out of it. It took me much longer in my career to truly understand that, and I am continuing to learn how these investments require vulnerability, candor and transparency.”

As to the most valuable piece of advice he’s been given? “‘Commit, respect the process and the universe will take care of the rest.’ I’ve tried to apply this advice to literally everything I do - sometimes, the universe shakes out your way, sometimes it doesn’t, but you do your best and move on. There is a lesson in everything.”

Susan L. Gutierrez

Partner Proskauer - Los Angeles Susan L. Gutierrez, litigation partner in the Los Angeles office of Proskauer, says that the most valuable piece of advice given over her career is two-pronged. “Either do something or be civil with your adversary - these go hand in hand,” she says.

“The idea of ‘do something’ sounds easy and obvious, but in a real-time or complex situation, it is anything but.” For trial lawyers, Susan says it is critical to develop a heightened awareness of what is happening (or about to happen) in time to find the best solution and execute on your feet.

Susan specializes in high-stakes trials and complex disputes across industries, focusing on litigating and shaping trial strategy for pharmaceutical and consumer product actions. She has significant trial, motion, and oral argument experience in high-profile matters in state and federal courts, and

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has served as litigator and advisor for many Fortune 500 companies, including in media, technology, pharmaceutical, music and entertainment, and sports industries. Susan is an asset on bet-the-company matters, and has served as trial counsel on numerous highly-publicized cases, including for Johnson & Johnson, Creative Artists Agency and the National Basketball Association.

Her legal career was kickstarted by an early interest in creative writing and debate although her professional Plan B involved a very different application of the law. “I wanted to be a police officer or other law enforcement agent,” she says, “and had thought about the military, but at the time, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was in effect so that wasn’t a realistic option. Ultimately I am very happy that Plan A worked out.”

Susan says she has always enjoyed breaking down difficult concepts into simple ones and thrives in settings that require a healthy balance of maintaining order but also encouraging creativity. She notes that the law is the perfect job for that particular mix. Career peaks have seen Susan represent world-renowned recording artists, celebrities, and corporate executives individually in significant commercial and personal matters ranging from prosecuting and defending copyright infringement claims, and advising on management and personal service contracts, and litigating privacy, publicity and computer fraud claims.

She credits a specific professional highlight as being “promoted to partner and second-chairing a multi week jury trial with one of my mentors and friends, Manuel Cachan,” and lists Proskauer’s litigation partner Bart Williams (and recipient of MCCA’s 2018 Rainmaker award) as one of the most influential mentors over her career. “Bart has taught and continues to teach me, both through words and example, how to be a better trial lawyer, a better leader and overall a better person. He is patient, sees around corners, and genuinely cares about every member of the team,” she says.

When asked what she wished she had known at the beginning of her career, she struggles to find an answer. “This one is tough because I feel like my firm gave me a realistic impression of what I’d be doing, and nine years in I still love doing it,” she says. Outside of the office, a contributing factor to her professional success sees Susan doing her homework on how best to foster a legal team: “I’ve really come to enjoy and benefit from reading books on professional leadership and team building. I don’t subscribe to everything in the books, but the pieces that speak to me the most have really changed my outlook on how to approach my mentality and relationships at work.”

As for the least valuable career advice given to her, she says it has been to suggest in prep that a witness should not say something (“whatever you do, please don’t say XYZ”). “A witness is going to say what they say.

Our job is to make them confident and keep them honest - if they say something we need to clarify or correct, that’s on us as lawyers, not them.”

Yodi Hailemariam

Associate General Counsel Facebook - Washington D.C. When Yodi Hailemariam began her legal career, her current practice area didn’t even exist. This, she says, is an example of the ways in which your professional life, in law or otherwise, is really a journey. “Your legal career is (hopefully) long, and you don’t have to have everything figured out right at the outset,” she says. “Sometimes, the best and most important developments can be the twists and turns that you didn’t plan.” Formerly, a senior associate in Drinker Biddle’s Information Privacy, 28

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Security, and Governance group, Yodi is now Associate General Counsel at Facebook. Yodi says she can’t imagine working in any other area of law. “I love what I do!”

A frequent author, speaker and panelist on “all things data,” Yodi advises multinational clients on U.S. and global data privacy, security and regulatory compliance; information governance and records management policies and programs; and electronic discovery in complex civil litigations, white-collar defense, and corporate investigations. Yodi also advises the firm and its clients on the development and implementation of analytics models that enable insight, data storytelling, and economic value generation. She is experienced in leveraging artificial intelligence and data analytics to achieve better, more efficient, and more cost-effective results.

Yodi has extensive experience counseling multinational companies on cross-border data issues, particularly with respect to Asia and the European Union, and says she relishes the international aspects of her job.

“I worked at Nishimura & Asahi (one of the “Big Four” Japanese law firms in Tokyo) early on in my career, and that experience shaped a lot of my eventual focus. Over the years, I have helped to build a data center in Shanghai; advocated for data privacy, legal analytics, and artificial intelligence issues at venues throughout Asia. I regularly counsel multinational companies on cross-border e-discovery, data privacy, and regulatory

...make a name for yourself wherever you are. Essentially, ‘bloom where you are planted.’ You don’t always get to choose the situation, but you can choose to look for and find the opportunities to succeed... compliance issues throughout the world.” She says that now is a fascinating and fast-developing time in the global data space, and she loves being part of this intersection of the law, data, and technology.

Law wasn’t a first choice; although Yodi says her family always thought it would be a good career path for her: “probably because of my “natural affinity” for talking,” she admits. In fact, the law was her plan B. “I was preparing to attend medical school, but I was ultimately drawn to the advocacy, problem-solving, and analytical aspects of the practice of law. Lawyers are in a unique position to serve, to influence, and to impact others in a very real way. And, yes, we do generally get to talk a lot!” she laughs. Not just in English either; Yodi is also an speaker of Amharic (the working language of Ethiopia) and Japanese.

One of the most valuable pieces of advice Yodi has received “is make a name for yourself wherever you are.

Essentially, ‘bloom where you are planted.’ You don’t always get to choose the situation, but you can choose to look for and find the opportunities to succeed,” Yodi notes. “Cream always rises to the top.”

She says she has been very fortunate to have had several mentors that have guided and supported her during the course of her career. “Specifically, Bennett Borden and Jay Brudz (my partners at DBR) have been terrific champions for me and have taken a direct and enthusiastic role in my development and advancement.”

Yodi is an active member of Drinker Biddle’s Diversity Committee, spearheading the D.C. office’s annual Diversity and Inclusion Summit and co-leading the D.C. office’s 1L Diverse Summer Intern program. Outside of the office and work, Yodi lists motherhood as something in her personal life that contributes in some way to your professional success. “Becoming a mother has been the greatest gift and grandest adventure of my life. My daughter grounds me, fulfills me, and gives me joy and purpose beyond my career. That can be inD & B M A G A Z I N E FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 9 | W W W. M C C A . C O M

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credibly helpful in balancing out the rigor and demands of practicing law.” She adds that her faith is also very important to her, and is very active with her local church and faith-based organizations in the D.C. area and around the world.

Allen Jun

Vice President and Senior Counsel Marriot International Inc. - Maryland Allen Jun started as a first-year corporate associate on September 15, 2008, the same day that Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. His takeaway from that turbulent time is that he wishes he had fully grasped how any project can build practical lawyering skills that can be applied in the future, “Even if it is outside of your practice area or background.”

Allen currently serves as a Vice President and Senior Counsel with Marriott International, Inc., based at Marriott’s headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland. Since joining Marriott in 2014, Allen has worked on a variety of matters including negotiating management and franchise agreements for Marriott’s hotels in the US and Canada, supporting the integration of Marriott’s acquisitions of Starwood Hotels and Resorts and Delta Hotels & Resorts, advising Marriott’s global sales organization with sales arrangements for global corporate accounts and solving everyday issues impacting Marriott’s US and Canadian hotel owners, franchisees and guests.

Prior to joining the hotel chain, Allen was a Senior Associate at WilmerHale in Washington D.C. and an Associate at Ropes & Gray in Boston where his practice focused on capital markets transactions, securities law compliance and mergers and acquisitions. Allen previously served on the Boards of Directors of the Asian-Pacific American Bar Association of the Greater Washington D.C. Area and the Asian-American Lawyers Association of Massachusetts and earned his J.D. and B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.

He says he first became interested in a legal career in the 10th grade after serving as a juror for a local law school’s mock trial competition. “I only signed up because it offered extra credit for my government class and a free pizza lunch! In any event, it was exciting and eye-opening to see each side arguing for their clients and thinking on the fly in a ‘real life’ courtroom setting.” After college, Allen settled on a self-described steady and predictable job at a government contractor, but decided to take a risk and apply to law school. He says that he did not know any attorneys growing up and this gave him added motivation to try something new and different.

Allen’s highlight of his career so far happened early on when he was working on a pro bono case while at Ropes & Gray. Alongside the Political Asylum / Immigration Representation Project in Boston, Allen represented a journalist from Nepal who sought and ultimately received asylum in the U.S. “He was fleeing government forces who kidnapped and tortured him and his family. As we navigated numerous ups and downs in his proceedings, I grew so grateful for the opportunity to be entrusted to advocate on his (and anyone else’s) behalf.”

He credits the value of sponsors and mentors over the course of his career. “My mentors have helped me recognize the value of kindness. They’ve shown me how an attorney that remains respectful, pleasant and thoughtful during a contentious negotiation stands out as someone that is representing their client well and moving all parties towards closure.”

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Alongside these essential soft skills, his professional success has been enhanced by his life outside of the office. Allen says he spends as much time as he can with his wife and their three children. “My hope is that we start our kids down the right path at an early age. I am humbled by how they pay no attention to credentials or accomplishments and just want to spend time as a family, no matter how mundane it is. Their perspective motivates me to be as efficient and practical as possible in the office so I can “leave work at work” and go home to just be Dad,” he notes.

As for the most valuable advice Allen has received so far in his legal career, he says is thankful to have been reminded to “always doublecheck your redlines to ensure you are comparing the right documents”, while the least useful advice has been to “speak with the loudest voice on a conference call because it portrays confidence.”

Sebastian Kurian

Corporate Counsel Google - San Francisco Baltimore native Sebastian Kurian originally aimed for a career in Wall Street, but after a quick and painful realization that numbers weren’t really his thing, did what many Political Science majors who have no clear idea what to do with themselves: he went to law school. Although he pictured several other possible professional directions than the practice of law (“like working on Capitol Hill, becoming a sports agent, joining the FBI, or pursuing some other national security career”), after a successful summer associate experience at Miles & Stockbridge, he started down a traditional legal path.

In 2012, all this was almost derailed. “I was diagnosed with major depression, felt completely lost with respect to my career, and was absolutely miserable working at a law firm in Washington, D.C.,” he says.

Sebastian was close to quitting his job, joining his wife on a job opportunity in Africa and trying something completely different. But Amazon, then a growing company, reached out about a role in their Seattle headquarters. “I felt like I had nothing to lose and decided to pursue the opportunity, which really instilled a sense of purpose and happiness in my legal career and allowed me to become a leader and expert in a niche space.”

Sebastian became a Corporate Counsel at Amazon where he was the lead global utilities lawyer for Amazon Web Services, and is now a Corporate Counsel at Google focusing primarily on energy infrastructure and supply transactions, including maintaining Google’s 100% renewable energy goal and pursuing its ambitious, new initiative to power its data centers on a 24/7 basis with carbon-free energy. At Google, Sebastian has closed renewable energy deals across four continents. He is a regular speaker on energy and law topics.

Sebastian was a recipient of the Miles & Stockbridge Pro-Bono Advocate Award and his pro bono work with Wayfind’s Microenterprise Legal Clinic , which supports low income micro enterprises in and around Seattle, has been featured in Corporate Counsel magazine. His diversity efforts include assisting with the Legal Summer Institute – Google’s summer internship program for underrepresented law school students, and serving as a mentor for Google’s Sage Guru Program - a career development coaching program targeted to junior minority Googlers.

Sebastian credits the value of being respectful and kind to everyone you meet in a professional setting because you never know how your path will cross with a subordinate, intern or colleague in the future. A case in point - while in college, he spent one summer interning for the then-Solicitor General at the Department of Labor (later becoming Deputy Secretary and Acting Secretary): “one of the brightest and most impressive D & B M A G A Z I N E FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 9 | W W W. M C C A . C O M

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people I have ever met,” says Sebastian. “More importantly, despite being a high-level political appointee, he was incredibly humble. I never forgot the attention and respect he gave me. Years later at my first in-house job, we needed a labor lawyer to help us with an issue involving the Department of Labor. At the time, he was a partner at a large labor and employment firm and I immediately suggested that we engage him. He probably never expected an intern would one day be a client! While he obviously had the expertise to help

Sebastian credits the value of being respectful and kind to everyone you meet in a professional setting because you never know how your path will cross with a subordinate, intern or colleague in the future. us, it was the fond memories I had of my experiences with him that led to the engagement.”

Growing up in a conservative, insulated immigrant community, Sebastian says he was taught to play it safe, to take no risks and to take the comfortable route. “While that may be acceptable for some people, knowing who I am now, I would have been unfulfilled if I had heeded that advice. I certainly wouldn’t have taken a risk on moving across the country to join Amazon, yet that decision ended up being an incredible professional, personal, and financial move that ultimately led me to Google.”

He acknowledges that working at a large multinational household name company that is intensely scrutinized by the media can be stressful and demanding. “We need to keep up with internal client demands in a highly competitive space and protect the legal interests of the company, be sensitive to the PR ramifications of our advice and decisions, and there is also the constant cloud of regulatory scrutiny hanging over our heads. Given that pressure, self-care for a healthy and stable mind, body and soul is critically important, especially for someone like me who has a history of depression,” he comments. He lists fitness, clean eating and meditation as helpful personal tools. “I spend a lot of time hiking and connecting with nature, which helps to unplug and recharge and luckily, I have colleagues and a leadership chain who respect that “me” time. I am at a company that is intensely focused on employee happiness and wellbeing, providing time and resources to focus on mental, emotional, and physical health, which helps me have more energy, focus and drive to be a highly productive professional.”

Michele C. Lee

Director & Associate General Counsel, Head of Global Litigation, Regulatory & Competition Twitter, Inc. - San Francisco As a child of immigrant parents, Michele C. Lee, Associate General Counsel at Twitter, was very aware of the challenges of not understanding “the system”, and this was a major factor in her decision to follow a career in the law. “The system,” she explains, “governed how everyday decisions were made and guided very basic questions of what people did when they felt like they had received an unfair parking 32

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ticket or faced a rent increase. I grew up focused on becoming an attorney to understand this system of rights – for me, there wasn’t ever a career plan B.” Now Michele is responsible for Litigation, Competition, and Regulatory matters at Twitter, she routinely handles high stakes global disputes involving free speech rights and intermediary liability. Prior to joining Twitter, Michele worked at Visa providing advice about laws and regulations relating to payment networks and managed various cases, including the company’s patent litigation docket, as well as a class action dispute relating to all merchants in the United States. Prior to this Michele was a Trial Attorney with the United States Department of Justice where she prosecuted cases of civil fraud committed against the government, after initial roles as an antitrust associate at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and at White & Case LLP. When asked what has been the most valuable piece of advice ever given to her, she says it was to “leave it better than you found it.” Michele comments: “It’s easy to maintain the status quo, or continue doing things a certain way, because ‘it’s always been done that way,’ but I do think that attorneys have a better chance of succeeding if they resist the urge to side-step problems, and instead face problems directly with creative solutions.” As for the least useful advice given to her over her career, Michele remembers a time at The American University’s Washington College of Law “when a 3L student told me, a 1L student, that after getting a C in my first year of law school, it would be impossible to get a job. Luckily, that turned out not to be true.”

She highlights the importance of female mentors and sponsors over her professional life, women who have provided very helpful advice about how to succeed in the legal profession. “My most influential sponsor was Amy Keating, now the Chief Legal Officer at Mozilla, who has consistently provided me with very practical advice on how to thrive in a corporate office environment, and how to navigate the tricky intersection between making effective legal arguments and public perception.” She mentions that, as a young minority lawyer, she wishes she knew that there is no reason to be intimidated by experience, wealth, or career stature. “At the end of the day, people are people, no matter how successful they are, and most people are always willing to chat over a cup of coffee,” Michele adds.

In her free time, she is a fundraiser and volunteer for Raphael House, a San Francisco shelter for homeless families, and can be found witnessing the “indescribable adorableness and chaos” of her three kids who are ages three and under. Meeting the demands of a busy family life is something that Michele sees as a contributing factor towards her professional success. “Before I had kids, I thought I was a decent multi-tasker, but becoming a mom has really refined and taken that skill set to a different level,” she says.

As a career highlight, Michele pinpoints the simple fact of being a Department of Justice attorney, where she says: “I had the opportunity to stand up in court, and say, “I represent the United States of America.” I can think of no greater honor or privilege.”

Jamila Mensah

Partner Norton Rose Fulbright - Houston Jamila Mensah, employment law partner in Norton Rose Fulbright’s Houston office, recalls a time over her legal career that has so far exceeded all else. “Last November I represented a client in a complex sex discrimination and retaliation trial in federal court. We resolved the case just before the verdict, but polled the jury afterwards and found out they were on our side the whole time. My client, a friend and fellow woman of color, wrote a glowing thank you letter to me and sent it to lots of key decision-makers within my firm. Less than a month later, I was selected to join the partnership in my firm. It is going to be hard to top that time in my life!”, D & B M A G A Z I N E FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 9 | W W W. M C C A . C O M

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...remember that everyone else is always going to do what’s best for them, so you should always do what’s best for you. If you don’t make your own growth and success a priority, no one else will do it for you... she cheerfully admits.

After college, Jamila initially worked in undergraduate admission, which she says she loved but ultimately felt like she needed to do something different. “My husband suggested law school, which I’d previously considered but not seriously. I did some research and decided I thought it would be a great fit. I haven’t looked back,” she admits. Jamila attended the University of Texas School of Law and she graduated with honors in 2006.

Her practice at Norton Rose Fulbright covers all areas of employment law, including extensive experience in discrimination, retaliation and wage and hour issues. In particular, Jamila litigates on behalf of her clients in federal and state court and before administrative bodies, such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Jamila also counsels and trains employers on a wide range of employment issues, including hiring, termination, wage and hour compliance, disability accommodation, employment discrimination, and drafting of employee handbooks and personnel policies. Additionally, Jamila conducts internal investigations for clients on sensitive employment-related issues.

Counting several people who have acted as both mentors and sponsors to her over her career, she singles out as most “consistent and influential by far” as Shauna Johnson Clark, Head of Employment and Labor for Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP. Jamila comments that Shauna has selflessly shared her time, guidance, and relationships, and says that Shauna’s impact, both personally and professionally, has been invaluable. “Without a doubt, her guidance and influence have changed the trajectory of my career, and I am forever grateful to her,” notes Jamila.

A Houston native, Jamila credits time spent with her family as a contributing factor toward her professional success, and says it shapes the way she thinks about work and her career. “On days when I have trouble finding meaning in what I do, I talk to my husband and my two girls, and they remind me how my work contributes to my success as a wife and mother. They’re proud of me, and that helps keep me going, especially on the rough days,” she explains.

The most valuable piece of advice given to her is also the advice she tries to give others as often as she can. “That is, to remember that everyone else is always going to do what’s best for them, so you should always do what’s best for you. If you don’t make your own growth and success a priority, no one else will do it for you,” she says. Additionally, she wishes she had known earlier in her career that she shouldn’t wait around for people to do things for her or to give her opportunities. “Once I started seeking out experience and opportunities for myself, my career began to move faster in the right direction,” Jamilla recalls.

In a nod to the value of diverse thought and experience, Jamila adds that the least useful advice she has received (and continues to receive) is that she should try to be more like other attorneys at her firm or in her field. She says: “I made it this far by being myself, no matter what, and that’s what works for me.”

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Ashley Page

Senior Vice President and General Counsel Learfield IMG College - Plano, Texas Ashley Page, Senior Vice President and General Counsel for Learfield IMG College, says that the most valuable piece of advice given to her was to be authentic.

“I try my best to bring my authentic self to everything that I do because I believe that authenticity is at the core of great leadership. In fact, I have found that some of the most impactful moments in my career began with me not being afraid to speak my truth,” she says. As to the least valuable advice? Ashley dismisses the idea that there really is such a thing. “You know, I honestly don’t think of any particular piece of advice as not being valuable because you can learn even from following bad advice. It’s all about what you learn on the journey.”

Her own journey has been firmly mired in the tech and IP-space: prior to joining IMG College in April 2016, Ashley was the lead commercial attorney for Google’s shopping products and services, including Google Express, Google Product Listing Ads, and Google Trusted Stores. Before becoming a corporate attorney, Ashley practiced in the Intellectual Property Transactions Group at Alston & Bird LLP in Atlanta and the Intellectual Property and Corporate Practice Groups at Arnold & Porter LLP in Washington D.C. Ashley then served as Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Learfield IMG College, managing legal affairs for the multimedia rights and licensing divisions. Currently she oversees all legal issues for the Revenue Solutions division. Ashley heads a team focused on legal matters ranging from business agreements, IP portfolio management, risk management and compliance to brand enforcement and corporate responsibility and labor code issues for the licensing business.

She was initially attracted to the law because she had a keen interest in logical reasoning (“super nerdy, I know”) and went to law school with the hope that she would encounter “Higher level critical thinking, which I consider to be a life skill”. She says that once she got there, she realized that a law degree affords that and so much more. “It has given me a platform to have an impact on the issues and industries that are most important and interesting to me which is incredibly powerful. I took the LSAT my sophomore year of college and never looked back, so there was no career plan B,” she recalls.

In 2018 Ashley brought the first ever diversity and inclusion based programming to IMG College, which she says has been a career highlight. “Our first session was a panel discussion with top D&I experts in the sports industry and we followed that up with unconscious bias training. Both programs were incredibly well received and it was truly rewarding to see the impact these sessions had on my colleagues and our company.”

Ashley currently serves on the board of directors of the South Fulton Tennis Center and Sisters Code, a non-profit organization established to help bridge the technology gender gap by providing women with the tools they need to successfully prepare women for new careers in the field of technology and provide corporations with a greater pipeline of diverse talent to address the gender equity balance within their organizations. Outside of the office, Ashley says that parenting has contributed to her professional success: “I have two bold and brilliant children who challenge me daily and remind me of the importance of finding balance between my career and my home life.”

She says she has been blessed with “amazing” mentors and sponsors throughout her career. Specifically, Ashley credits her mentors with helping her better define what it is she wants to get out of her career and helping her to devise a plan to get it, while her sponsors have been critical teachers and advocates for her and her advancement in the workplace.

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on the importance of a network. “Not unlike many industries, getting to where you want to go in the legal world often requires a solid network. I wish I had known going in that networking is a skill. For some it is a talent that comes naturally, but for introverts like me it needs to be practiced and cultivated.”

Dameon Rivers

Partner Ballard Spahr - Washington D.C. Dameon Rivers, partner at Washington D.C.’s real estate practice at Ballard Spahr, says the highlight of his career came only a short while ago. “A couple of months back, after what has been a particularly busy year, I decided to take my team out for an impromptu happy hour,” he says. “Half way though, I looked around at the table and saw that each member of the team that I work with on a daily basis was diverse. There is nothing more rewarding than being a small part of the solution to the diversity problem in our profession.”

This recollection is in line with Dameon’s team-centered approach to his career journey. He says that, among the best career advice he has been given, two pieces stand out. “Firstly, pronouns matter. The legal profession is too difficult a discipline to talk about in terms of ‘I’ and ‘me’,” he says, suggesting a better way is to adopt a mentality of “we” and “us”. “That way, opportunities will grow exponentially.

Secondly, take an hour each week to reconnect with your personal and team goals and outline the vision for the days, weeks and months ahead.” Too often, Dameon says attorneys get tunnel vision and focus on their personal needs and the here and now to the detriment of both the larger team and the future. “By always staying tethered to the goals that are established for the team, we have a better perspective through which to view success and challenges,” he offers.

Dameon’s national real estate finance practice concentrates on the representation of commercial banks, community development financial institution (CDFIs), and other mortgage banking institutions in connection with construction and permanent loan transactions. His team routinely represents clients in affordable housing, senior housing, charter school finance, and revolving credit facilities.

He is best known for his work on both balance-sheet and agency loan executions for projects benefited by 4% or 9% Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) and his experience includes the representation of both construction and permanent lenders on taxable and tax-exempt loan structures. Dameon assists his clients in navigating the legal issues that are routinely encountered on LIHTC transactions, including subordinate debt and inter-creditor agreements, ground leases, tax exemptions/abatements, tri-party agreements, regulatory agreements, and navigating HUD’s regulatory framework. He routinely represents CDFIs in connection with construction and permanent loans extended to the operators of charter school facilities across the country.

...pronouns matter. The legal profession is too difficult a discipline to talk about in terms of ‘I’ and ‘me’,” he [Dameon] says, suggesting a better way is to adopt a mentality of “we” and “us”...

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Another substantial portion of Dameon’s practice is devoted to the representation of lenders in connection with bridge, revolving, and permanent financing for senior housing projects. Dameon is well versed in the licensing and compliance issues that are unique to senior housing and is able to provide practical solutions to issues that arise in connection with licensing deficiencies, change of ownership procedures, and Medicaid provider agreements. Dameon and his team concentrate on the closing, negotiation, and review of due diligence for large, multi-state mortgage pool transactions.

Dameon’s path to the legal profession wasn’t a result of a firmly held vision - in fact, he says that law was really his plan B after effectively lacking a plan A. “I wish I could say that where I am today was part of a grand plan but it just wasn’t. Life has a way of pointing you in directions that you need but don’t fully understand at the time,” he acknowledges.

He says that finding a mentor that can help with all areas has been difficult because people are so complex.

“As a result, I have had several mentors throughout my career, each that has influenced my life in different ways. One common theme amongst all my prior mentors is the lesson that success requires a certain level of hustle. Each of my mentors were and are tireless in their pursuits and I try to embody this in my daily life,” he reflects. Outside of work and the office, he credits his wife and two small children for both inspiration and motivation each day.

Sheea Sybblis

Senior Counsel Boeringher Ingelheim - New York “To whom much is given much is required. This has been said time and time again, and I believe it is a fundamental tenant for everyone, particularly for professionals in relation to their place in our communities,” says Sheea Sybblis, in-house Senior Counsel at Boeringher Ingelheim (“BI”). Previously in-house counsel at Bristol Myers Squibb, Sheea has served as the lead legal support for various functions and advised on issues including price transparency, Market Access and FDA regulation for both multinational companies. At BI, her responsibilities include being lead legal support to therapeutic areas such as Oncology, Immunoscience, and Diabetes, as well as health economic outcomes research.

It was while working in healthcare administration and earning an MBA that she took a course on health law which, she says, changed the course of her life. “I developed a deep interest in the law and how it could directly impact the lives of the patients I saw every day. It was not long before I concluded that my calling was to advocate for my clients as an attorney and facilitate meaningful change in the health law arena.” As in-house counsel in the pharmaceutical industry, supporting areas like health economics outcomes research, real-world evidence, and market access, Sheea focuses on many of the same issues that lead her to the healthcare industry. Partnering with dynamic internal clients and subject matter experts, she has assisted in launching lifesaving oncology, immunoscience, and diabetes medicines, and has had the opportunity to impact the healthcare of many patients.

Outside of the office Sheea is an active volunteer, ranging from helping high school students interested in practicing the law, pro bono work, and serving on nonprofit boards. “I try to serve my community and help those who are unable to help themselves, and this includes helping the youth and next generation succeed and fulfill their dreams,” she comments. An active member of her legal community, Sheea is part of the In-House Planning Committee for the American Health Lawyers Association and for the National Association of Women Lawyers; Co-Director of Diversity for the New Jersey Women Lawyers Association; and a former President of D & B M A G A Z I N E FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 9 | W W W. M C C A . C O M

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the Association of Black Women Attorneys. She has published multiple articles and taught as a visiting lecturer and adjunct professor of business and law at universities and law schools where she had “the opportunity to work with undergraduate and graduate students and stress for them not only the value of an education, but also the importance or always striving to learn and being curious.”

The highlight of her career thus far has been the opportunity to influence law and policy in ways that have far-reaching impact on the lives of the poor and underserved - and she notes both her clerkship and work and the pharmaceutical industry have afforded her this opportunity. “ As a law clerk to a brilliant United States District Judge, I was able to help glean and apply the law to a variety of fact patterns in ways that ensured that justice and fairness was served. My current position working for a global, dynamic multi-national company, has allowed me to continue to serve others in innovative ways and develop key leadership skills.”

The most valuable advice she has been given is that you should always stay curious and open minded.

“You do not know where your next opportunity is going to come from and you should always be willing to learn. The beauty of the law is that there is always more to learn or different ways it can apply in life.

As the legal landscape and business innovation continues to evolve, there are ample learning opportunities to help us succeed and serve our clients and customers,” she adds.

Like many others, Sheea says that she did not have early role models who were attorneys or access to resources she could rely on to better understand what the practice of law involved. “I wish I had had the opportunity to connect with and speak to more attorneys in various different practice areas prior to going to law school: the exposure would have been essential to contextualize what I was learning in an academic setting, as well as understand that the relationships you have that will carry you throughout your career actually start well before you have even sit down in for your first class,” she reflects. “These relationships may be with members of your community, your support group or network, and this will also include individuals such as your classmates, friends, leaders at Bar Associations, and others that you will meet during the course of your career – and you will learn so much from each of them. I wish that I had known how to maximize my opportunities to gain this exposure and knowledge early on. With the knowledge that I have today, I endeavor to share my experiences and insights with the next generation of young attorneys, interns, and students.”

Shayon T. Smith

Assistant General Counsel, Global Litigation The Hershey Company - Baltimore Shayon T. Smith, head of global litigation at The Hershey Company, credits the impact of several mentors who have offered advice, perspective, encouragement and constructive criticism, throughout her career. “One of my mentors, Cheryl Zak Lardieri, now partner at Goodell DeVries, counseled me when I was an associate to take chances, encouraged me as a partner not to be complacent, and supported me taking a leap of faith to join Hershey. Another mentor Damien Atkins has, since becoming Hershey’s General Counsel, taken an interest in my personal and professional development and long-term career objectives and has been one of my biggest supporters. His support has provided for greater exposure within the company at the leadership level and exposure outside the company fostering connections and relationship building. I can honestly say that without my mentors’ insights and guidance, I would not be where I am now.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve.” Participating in service activities impacting the community around me contributes to my success,” At Hershey, Shayon is responsible for managing the company’s global litigation portfolio and claims including intellectual property, class action and employment litigation and commercial disputes. She is also responsible for providing commercial legal support to the Hershey’s Chocolate World retail business. She joined Hershey from the Baltimore office of Goodell DeVries where she was a partner, focusing on the representation of pharmaceutical and medical device companies facing products liability litigation in both state and federal jurisdictions. Prior to that role, she served as in-house counsel with Steelcase Inc., managing disputes, claims and litigation matters both domestically and abroad. While at Steelcase, Shayon led the minority law student summer intern program.

Originally she set her sights on a career in teaching following her mother’s path as an assistant principal and expected to major in elementary education with a focus on children with special needs. During her freshman year, however, Shayon enrolled in a political science course and found it both challenging and intellectually stimulating and continued to take related courses. It was then that she knew a career in the law was her real calling.

On her work outside of the office, Shayon is thoughtful and circumspect. “Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve.” Participating in service activities impacting the community around me contributes to my success,” she notes. “For example, as a member and Second Vice President of Psi Phi Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha, Sorority Inc. in Baltimore City, I help raise scholarship money for students going to college, participate in free SAT/ACT preparation classes for high school juniors, and collect and distribute school supply donations for hundreds of elementary school students in the city.”

Shayon says the best career advice ever received by her has been to be genuine and true, and notes that this advice applies to every aspect of her personal and professional life. “Authenticity is critical to leading a fulfilling life with integrity and to developing meaningful relationships built on trust and understanding,” she adds. “The least useful advice I received was to play it safe when uncertain of the outcome and not take risks. It is within these moments, when I go outside of my comfort zone, when I am comfortable with being uncomfortable, that I’ve grown the most.” She also credits the importance of networking and developing relationships - both early and often - and says she wishes she had known this before she started her career. “As a younger lawyer, I simply focused on working hard and doing good work but building and fostering relationships is just as important to career advancement,” she acknowledges.

The highlight of her career, she says, has been joining The Hershey Company. “In one form or another, Hershey has always been a part of my life. From sharing Hershey’s milk chocolate bars with my father as a child, to putting Hershey’s Kisses in my niece’s Easter baskets, to passing out Reese’s peanut butter cups to trick or treaters at Halloween, Hershey has been there. I get to do something I love for a company with iconic brands and amazing products that make people happy, has a global footprint, and a demonstrated commitment to giving back. I also am fortunate to work with amazing colleagues and business partners led by a supportive and inclusive general counsel.”

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D&B/TALK

INTERNATIONAL FOCUS Latin America

By Jodi Bartle

THE REGION OF LATIN AMERICA, WHICH IS OFTEN VIEWED AS A WHOLE, DIFFERS SIGNIFICANTLY BETWEEN ITS COUNTRIES REGARDING

DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION EFFORTS; BUT THEY ARE AS IMPORTANT FOR LATIN AMERICAN LAWYERS, FIRMS AND CORPORATE CLIENTS AS MUCH AS THEY ARE AROUND THE WORLD.

While much of the work and progress on diversity and inclusion has been in the gender space, here we look at how LGBTQ+ lawyers fare generally in El Salvador and Brazil.

Herman Duarte, founder of Costa Rican/El Salvadorian law firm Duarte and Foundation Fundación Igualitxs and a vocal advocate for Equal Marriage in El Salvador, is unequivocal when he reflects on the state of LGBTQ+ persons in his region of the world.

“Do you remember the dragon in the movie Lord Of The Rings? You never get to see the big dragon; you only get to see the big claw. That’s like homophobia in El Salvador,” he says. “And if you saw the big dragon in its entirety, you would be scared off. That’s how big the homophobia is in this country.”

Herman has been on a mission to revolutionize the Latin American workplace by proving equal treatment of LGBTQ+ individuals since he came out at age 23. He remembers one unexpected consequence of coming out which was not being able to get hired by any major law firm in El Salvador. “I felt I was a bad lawyer for being gay, so that’s why I opened up the first and only law firm in Latin America that has the express purpose of eradicating LGBTQ+ discrimination,” he says. Same-sex marriage in El Salvador is not recognized, and Herman began a campaign to challenge the prohibition of same sex marriage with the support of his office.

He says he became an activist “by accident”, after writing articles for a newspaper about sexual orientation topics “because there are a bunch of people 40

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who, in El Salvador, think the way to deal LGBTQ+ issues lies in abstinence and the punishment of homosexuality,” he recalls. “In 2014 I wrote an article for the largest public newspaper in the country, because there were people who were saying homosexuality was the same as paedophilia.” The fallout, he said, was like throwing a match into a can of gasoline.

At that point he had been out of the closet for six years. “I didn’t think there would be issues about my own sexual orientation but it was very different when I took things into a public context and filed the claim against the prohibition of same-sex marriage.

People were offended because it went against their most intimate religious convictions. For some people it felt like a personal and direct attack on them.” He says it was like coming out again but on a larger scale: “Maybe 100x bigger where you feel maybe I made a mistake. There is the law and the cultural aspect behind the law - and you shouldn’t underestimate that,” he cautions.

“Certain forms of Evangelical Christianity had been getting stronger and stronger and found a political niche which is very profitable, talking about gender ideology, protecting the family. You see this in Paraguay, Brazil, Honduras, Mexico; they have unlimited funds, the capacity in Brazil is large as they have billions of dollars while gay activists have small grants. It is hard to become an activist with public funding in El Salvador,” he comments. But the fight is worth having, because people should not fear about who they love, he says.

He decided litigation was the best route, “because it has a democratic aspect in making sure minorities have the same rights. Homosexuals and transgendered people are kicked out of society just because they are who they are,” he says, explaining that in the family court in El Salvador, you have to be either “sons or daughters” or married in order to be included.

As to other Latin American countries, Herman notes that things are very complicated in Costa Rica, even though many people are out of the closet. Costa Rica is more forward thinking on LGBTQ+ rights which are well advanced in the corporate sector, but some people still have a hard time.” he says. Generally in Latin America, Herman notes, “If you are white, blonde, blue-eyed and from money, you won’t have the same workplace issues as if you were brown, or black, disabled or gay.”

Things are changing and improving, but some countries are moving faster than others.

No matter how much people say that you have to go to the best law school, it doesn’t matter status is one thing but attitude is something else,” Herman reflects.

“The legal profession is a beautiful one, which allows you to change peoples lives; to help, to carry their weight, to be a shoulder for them - sometimes the only one. It’s also a machine that creates hope that something will change, that things will be better. It gives the opportunity to dream, to see other people’s dreams.

a boy. I learned in the worst way: I faced bullying, shaming and exclusion,” he says. While he says his family always supported him for being gay “(a real privilege in Brazil)”, he knew from experience that this would likely not be the reality of the workplace.

“Because of that, I hid my sexual orientation at work, until one day my manager found out I was gay and

BRAZIL - WORKPLACE D&I Filipe Roloff, D&I expert and strategic designer, SAP Labs Enterprise Support Advisor, PRIDE leader and TEDx Talker, is one of the 50 future LGBTQ+ Leaders in 2017 and 2018 as elected by the Financial Times. Filipe has been involved with the Brazilian Lawyer Association - Sexual Diversity Commission since 2015 as an external consultant, helping them connect with the corporate world. He says their work in Brazil regarding the LGBTQ+ population is “extraordinary, and a fundamental cornerstone to human rights evolution”.

Filipe grew up in Brazil as a very happy child until the beginning of his adolescence. “This is when I found out I was too feminine and too sensitive for

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I BELIEVE WE ARE MORE THAN EVER TALKING ABOUT LGBTQ+ DIVERSITY AND THIS DIFFICULT MOMENT WILL WORK AS A CATHARSIS FOR THE NEXT YEARS. THE NEW GENERATIONS HAVE ALREADY NATURALIZED IT AND I BELIEVE EVERYTHING WILL GET BETTER WITH TIME... started to systematically exclude me from projects.

The day I realized what was happening, I quit my job,” he remembers. He began work at SAP and it was there he learned about the power of inclusion and diversity and the difference it makes. “It became my strength - understanding that I had an organizational system that supported and protected diversity, I turned shame into pride and became an ambassador for it,” adding that he decided to come out at every opportunity, so people would know that it was ok. “I took it as a responsibility, so less people would have the same experience as I had before.”

When asked how important it is to be able to bring your whole self to work, he says that when you don’t have to lie about yourself and neglect what you are, you spend less time on things that hurt you and more time in productive work. “As you are happier, you are more innovative also. When you get to understand that what you are is good, you understand that what you think can also be good, so you participate and contribute more. The opposite is also true: if you are made to feel what you are is a problem, so are your ideas. There is no innovation from people that don’t feel that belonging,” he notes.

Filipe explains that in Brazil it is still difficult to be a diverse or minority person in many companies, especially since the 2018 elections.

“Diversity, mainly sexual and gender diversity, are still taboos. Most people still believe in the binary conservative theory that says there is only cisgender straight man and woman and the rest is unnatural, a sin. There is a growing conservative movement defining gender and sexual orientation discussions as “gender ideology”, which is just a term made up to cause confusion and manipulate people,” he comments. At the same time, he says that D&I discussion and practices have highly 42

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increased in the workplace, “As every company is at least starting to talk about it.”

He sees visibility of diverse people like himself as a growing responsibility: not just in the corporate world, but also as new ways of tackling D&I are created in universities and schools and for families to learn to embrace their children and to reset how children perceive themselves as LGBTQ+ people. “This kind of work overflows the borders of the companies and get to the homes,” he acknowledges.

Filipe sees the outlook for D&I in Brazil is a positive one. “I believe we are more than ever talking about LGBTQ+ diversity and this difficult moment will work as a catharsis for the next years. The new generations have already naturalized it and I believe everything will get better with time, as long as we keep working systematically connecting companies, government and schools/universities in the discussion,” he suggests.

AFFINITY GROUPS Where do law firms fit into all this? Luis Felipe Centeno Ferraz, Tax Partner in the Sao Paulo office of Mattos Filho, coordinates the firm’s LGBTQ+ group.

It was founded in 2016 by the lawyers and associates of the firm who got together and saw there was a window to have something clear, formal and explicit. The firm already had a women’s group, and later created a minority group for race, a disability group, and one for religion.

Luiz says that one of the LGBTQ+ group’s strengths is that, because it was sponsored by associates, “It is very spread out within the culture of the firm, which is a very good thing - it was not a top-down decision. The partners embraced the discussion and I became the coordinator of the group and started spreading the word here. We needed formal support and we got that,” he says.

Mattos Filho already had a very strong pro bono discipline with partners and associates, and when the LGBTQ+ group was born, Luiz says they created two routes for the group to flourish by. “We have an external route and internal route; the external route involved setting up a formal policy for the behavior of the lawyers in the firm. This helped us reaffirm our ideas and we invited lecturers and people from abroad to speak at our events. Our clients came to talk about what they have within their companies and that created a virtuous circle: when you learn about and install things that work. We have now been invited by other law firms to share what we have been doing,” he says. “The internal route involved doing some pro bono work on name and gender rectification in official transgender documents, along with a pro bono partner. In addition, this year we also participated in the second annual Brazilian Trans March, where we provide information on how trans people can rectify their identifications. The market sees us as doing something effective, both internally and externally, and one thing helps the other - people see that we are serious and this is not just words on the paper.”

Luiz notes that there are now a few more large Brazilian firms that have created affinity groups for the LGBTQ+ community and says they are working together across these firms to increase awareness.

While some lawyers at Mattos Filho had come out already before the group was assembled, Luiz says others had chosen to stay closeted. “The creation of the group itself made a real difference for some of our people here,” Luiz notes. “One of our lawyers and a founder of the group was in the closet and said it was exhausting to come to the office on a Monday to talk about the boyfriend that she didn’t have, changing names, not showing photos. When she came out, she changed so much, as well as the quality of her work. She gave a speech when we formally opened the group and everybody cried,” he remembers.

When Mattos Filho made the group formal, Luiz says many of the firm’s clients already had LGBTQ+ groups themselves. Other clients who don’t have

the same LBGTQ+ open culture might have an issue with open lawyers in the workplace, he acknowl-

edges. “I’m at the top of the pyramid, so I don’t see

much discrimination but I know it might happen.

At the end of last year, we had one client who was

very homophobic and it was a very hard situation to find yourself in. He was an important person, but we

had to reaffirm our values. I’m a partner, I can get on

board with it as an institutional issue but if I was an associate - I can’t imagine how you are supposed to deal with this type of situation,” Luiz says.

Luiz’ goal for the LGBTQ+ group is that it will

cease to be necessary at all. “The idea is for it to be destroyed: to finish, to become unnecessary. The

only way we can do that is for the culture to change at a deep level. So if I have a suggestion, it is to practice a

change of behavior every single day. Change should be more than just words on paper,” he says.

He is extremely positive for the future of workplace

D&I in Latin America. “First of all, you can’t be one

person at home and another at work - you have to be the same person throughout. We have come a long way in a short time; the environment has become better, the trend for the future is that it will keep getting better as time goes by,” he hopes. His optimism can

be attested in a video made by Mattos Filho’s affinity

group for a campaign called It Gets Better that had a huge percussion in the internet (https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=d3VKub6413k). At last, he

says: “The new generation care less about difference and feel free to talk about it. They feel good about coming into an office that is welcoming to them.”

JODI BARTLE

JBARTLE@MCCA.COM Jodi Bartle is a New Zealander who has been working in legal publishing and feature writing since arriving into the UK over 15 years ago. Previously she has worked for the Chambers and Partners directories, The Lawyer, GC Magazine and has written for Vice, i-D, the Luxury Law Alliance and legal recruitment company Taylor Root.

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Disabil The Last Frontier? By Jodi Bartle

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In the Diversity and Inclusion roll call, disability is often left out of the conversation - being both difficult to categorize and chronically underreported. How do we make sure lawyers with disabilities are seen, heard and supported throughout their careers?

ty:

By its very nature, the concept of “diversity & inclusion” covers a lot of ground. There are the usual headline categories: gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, which are largely visible or binary terms of difference able to be recognized, understood, measured and mapped. But as the D&I list goes on, categories become a little less robust. What started as a shout can end as little more than a whisper.

What of disability, then? The term is so broad that it includes one fifth of the population - 20% of us are disabled in some way, whether that be physical or mental (and all that which exists in between); short-term, intermittent or chronic; from birth or due to a development in later life.

Not everyone who is disabled looks as if they are so, and workplace self-identification of disability is historically underrepresented due to both stigma and lack of support.

The practice of law is a tough discipline, and the sector, while improving, hasn’t always been open to those who embody difference. In what ways are people with disabilities still left out from career opportunities in the legal sector, and, in a profession as relentless as law, how do lawyers with disabilities not only manage but excel? How can law firms and companies work to recruit and retain lawyers with disabilities until their retirement, ensuring lawyers are D & B M A G A Z I N E FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 9 | W W W. M C C A . C O M

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supported and enabled to be the best they can be? How can the legal profession help bring disability finally out into the open?

ACKNOWLEDGE DISABILITY

The starting point is to ensure disability becomes much more a part of the D&I conversation than it currently is. Kareem Dale, Director and Senior Counsel at Discover Financial Services and former Special Assistant to the President and Associate Director of Office of Public Engagement in the White House of the Obama administration, agrees that discussion of disability needs to be improved.

“My firm belief is that disability should be a part of the conversation around diversity, and if everybody made an effort to do this, we could engage with the vast under tapped workforce of people with disabilities. All sorts of studies show that more diverse companies tend to do better and employees with disabilities tend to be more loyal and stay for longer at companies, so it behooves companies to diversify their workforce with people with disabilities,” he says.

Nick Carden, legal counsel at a Silicon Valley technology company (and keen Ironman participant who has represented Team USA in duathlon and raced in the US Paracycling National Championships) had a brachial plexus injury at birth, resulting in the near complete paralysis of his left arm. He charts a change from his time at law school where diversity & inclusion was focused mainly on gender and racial diversity to “an expansion” over the last few years into persons with disability. “That’s a good thing,” he says, “because there has not been a genuine commitment to these underrepresented groups in the profession. The needle is moving but we still have a fairly constrained definition of diversity & inclusion. We must continue to pri46

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oritize these efforts to ensure colleagues can openly converse about having a mental illness or a physical disability, what the person is going through and what they have dealt with in the past, and bring this full circle to the person’s competencies.”

HIDDEN

Disability is often considered a “hidden” minority category, partly because so much of it is not necessarily recognizable or physically obvious. For those with a hidden disability, there is often a tendency not to self-disclose owing to stigma or awkwardness; and without lawyers with disabilities identifying as such, systems of support have not been readily established. For many law firms and companies, even those with good D&I track records, dealing openly with disability is new ground.

Disability, Nick notes, comes in many shapes and forms. “Physical disabilities can be more apparent than other less visible disabilities and that’s something we need to acknowledge. As a result, not everyone is inclined to categorize themselves as such,” he notes. “My recommendation is, let’s focus less on what is visible and more on what people bring to the table. Diversity & inclusion across industries is about having different perspectives and different ideas, and the resulting social and financial benefits. The legal profession needs to be actively engaged, not just supportive, in building the talent pipeline of diverse candidates. Including individuals with disabilities in this pipeline, and creating an environment where they feel open to be their authentic selves, will help reduce the stigma associated with disability.”

Nick’s disability is a visible thing, but he acknowledges that he doesn’t talk about it or address it unless prompted. “I am happy to talk about it if engaged to do so. For others to

Disability is often considered a “hidden” minority category, partly because so MUCH OF IT IS NOT NECESSARILY RECOGNIZABLE or physically obvious. For those with a hidden disability, there is often a tendency not to self-disclose owing to stigma or awkwardness; and without lawyers with disabilities identifying as such, systems of support have not been readily established. feel able to ask me about it would be a positive step,” he says.

SELF IDENTIFICATION

Self-disclosure is an important aspect to bringing disability out into the open. Yasmin Sheikh, a UK-based lawyer who founded Diverse Matters, a specialist training consultancy regarding diversity and disability after she sustained a spinal cord injury following a spinal stroke at age 29, notes a trend on this point. “There is a gap between college students asking for the help they need and then suddenly fearing being judged and not talking about it on their CV and in interviews, perhaps not even knowing how to address it,” she says.

“At university or college, disability disclosure is pretty high at around 60%, similar to the disclosure levels of the LGBTQ+ community.

But when applying for jobs, disabled students tend to go back into the closet because there is a fear of being judged on what they can’t do, and having to prove themselves first,” she says.

“People make all sorts of assumptions so there is a fear of disclosure because you might not be seen as fit for the job. People with disabilities self-disqualify because they think they won’t even be shortlisted for an interview, or worry that they won’t be able to be themselves, or that they might not feel comfortable asking for the

accommodations they need or even that they will have to hide their disability,” she adds.

She remembers working with a partner in a big law firm who had a hearing impairment and cystic fibrosis. “He said for years he was at pains to not be seen to be disabled. You almost need to not be disabled in order to progress; to do everything that everyone else can do, and the rest. You often overcompensate when you are disabled because you don’t want anyone saying you are just not up to the job,” she says. “Denial comes at a cost; you probably shouldn’t work that extra hour or two because your health may deteriorate, but there is so much that lawyers with disabilities do to conform.”

Nick says that firms in particular need to be called upon to commit to recruit people with disabilities.“ Few firms are leading recruitment efforts of persons with disabilities, but I don’t believe most firms focus their diversity and inclusion recruitment efforts to normalize this pipeline,” he says. “Because one of the most underrepresented groups in the legal profession is people with disabilities, I would love to see law firms take steps as simple as asking people if they identify as someone with a disability. The opportunity to identify as a member of any underrepresented group is a small step towards developing a more diverse and inclusive talent pipeline. In-house departments, government organizations and law D & B M A G A Z I N E FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 9 | W W W. M C C A . C O M

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schools have this responsibility too.”

When a lawyer with disability gets into the workplace, Yasmin notes that he or she has to consider how much information to share with colleagues, such as on issues as to why they may leave the office earlier than everyone else. “If you do not have a visible disability, colleagues may make all sorts of assumptions regarding perceived “special treatment”. How do you communicate this issue and who to? How will you be perceived by people who just see you as someone who is getting an easier ride?”.

AFFINITY GROUPS

Once in the workplace, like other minority groups, lawyers with disabilities should have access to an affinity group even if the nature of the disability is different for members. Yasmin says: “For me as a wheelchair user, I may not have anything in common with someone with autism or arthritis but there are common threads which do bind us - we know what it is like to experience the world differently, to feel isolated or as an outsider when people are talking about disability in a mainstream way. There is a commonality there; there is not one universal experience but we can relate.”

She says affinity groups have a place and considers three important functions they serve.

“Firstly, as a support where people can discuss issues where they can understand and relate to one another more than the non-disabled community; secondly, they can act as a consultation forum for HR looking at policies, language, and wording, and they can feed back and say whether it works or not; and thirdly to look at the culture in an organization, to look at how it views disability and how we can have an open conversation to challenge the culture that might take place in a firm or company,” she comments.

Nick says while he has only recently started 48

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to feel more comfortable speaking about his disability and speaking out on the call for the legal profession to be more inclusive of persons with disability, he remains reluctant to get too involved in affinity groups, if they’ve been offered for persons with disabilities. “I believe I’m no

presented themselves,” he notes.

“There are many resources out there, websites and organizations, but you should look at how you post your material - it is not as easy as putting a job up on your website,” Kareem says.

“When you hire, you need to be proactive as a

The public sector tends to hire more people with disabilities than does the private sector. It is not because people with disabilities can’t do the job in the private sector - THEY HAVE THE ABILITY, INTELLIGENCE AND CAPABILITIES TO DO THE JOB WELL - but because the opportunities haven’t presented themselves... different than anyone else. Of course, I am and I face different physical limitations but this profession allows me to be challenged without regard for the constraints of my physical ability. Though, I remain conflicted with whether to join a disability-related affinity group. Will my participation invite an unwanted perception of my abilities as a lawyer? The risk of professional stagnation is real and lawyers with disabilities will continue to find ways to suppress opportunities for misperceptions to avoid this risk,” he acknowledges.

BARRIERS

What are other barriers to inclusivity in the legal sector for lawyers with disabilities? Kareem, who is mostly blind, suggests that companies need to be proactive in finding candidates with disabilities. “The public sector tends to hire more people with disabilities than does the private sector. It is not because people with disabilities can’t do the job in the private sector - they have the ability, intelligence and capabilities to do the job well - but because the opportunities haven’t

company, ensuring people are provided with the right accommodations, complying with the law, and making an effort to retain them. Make sure your company culture is very open about its support of people with disabilities. Say it and make sure employees understand that. I think companies also need to make sure their tech (both from an internal and an external perspective) is accessible. When you start a company, is the intranet accessible? Can employees utilize the internal resources? For people applying for a job, is your website accessible? Ensuring your tech works is a great way companies can recruit and retain,” he advises.

TECH

For Kareem, technology has helped level the playing field, which has led to having a successful legal career. “Being a lawyer and working at a large law firm, you have to read a lot of documents, and so I had to figure out how to do the reading and the researching. At the start of my career, the tech boom began, which led D & B M A G A Z I N E FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 9 | W W W. M C C A . C O M

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Q&A

with Reed Smith

Luke Debevec, partner; Kevin O’Hara, associate

Luke Debevec and Kevin Hara are board members of Reed Smith’s Business Inclusion Group LEADRS - Looking for the Excellence & Advancement of Persons with Disabilities at Reed Smith. They spoke to Diversity & the Bar on how LEADRS is crucial for their lawyers and clients, and why the message of disability diversity needs to become widespread throughout the profession.

Diversity & the Bar: Can you tell me in what ways your disability has been both an obstacle and an advantage in your journey to becoming an attorney at a major law firm?

Kevin Hara: It has been a bit of both. I have a spinal cord injury and am paralyzed from the mid chest down, and use a motorized wheelchair.

There are obvious challenges and day-to-day issues that arise that I wouldn’t otherwise have to deal with. As a full-time attorney, I have to accommodate these issues because my work requires significant focus and anything that detracts from that can be a problem.

However, having a disability means I have been able to connect with people like Luke and Carolyn Pepper (partner and LEADRS member at Reed Smith), and many others, including attorneys, support personnel and management in offices across the firm. Being part of LEADRS, I have had opportunities to help others that I otherwise would never have had. My disability has been a double-edged sword. Having overcome numerous challenges that come 50

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with having a disability has also helped me in my work. I know I can persevere and overcome things that might otherwise have inhibited me. I think of the word ‘gritty’ - my injury has instilled me with some of that bite, by necessity.

Luke Debevec: I have epilepsy which hit me in the middle years of my practice. It is a non-visible disability, which impacts me beyond the seizures. But this is who I am now and, as a lawyer, I’ve had to practice the law in different ways.

Kevin is one of those people whose positive attitude has had a great impact on me, and that’s infectious. I’ve gained more empathy and an appreciation for other people’s journeys through life. The work Kevin and I have been doing has been very positive for me and for others in the profession.

D&tB: As a co-founder of LEADRS, the Reed Smith Business Inclusion Group for lawyers with disabilities, can you tell me about the genesis of the group and why the group is important for lawyers with disabilities and their allies?

LD: LEADRS started in our London office around the time of the Paralympic Games in 2012. That raised the profile of disabled people and a couple of our London partners started a group to increase representation of people with disabilities in the firm. This led to the formation of a series of affinity groups, later renamed Business Inclusion Groups. Senior management team members observed that a formal group was

to much more useable, accessible tech.” As an undergraduate in 1991, Kareem remembers recording his classes on a tape recorder and then he would go and write out the notes on a large braille manual machine, but when he got to law school there were note takers - small braille computers - which meant “I could just take notes like everybody else and not spend double the time like I used to do, which significantly improved my ability to perform at law school,” he says. By the time he joined a law firm, Winston & Strawn, he had talking technology for computers that was much more advanced.

“While there are certainly still barriers, the advancement of tech has made it a lot easier.”

Kareem thinks that some of the stigma attached to lawyers with disabilities is that non-disabled people simply don’t know how

explaining how you will get your work done. It is always what I try to do, to give people as much information as possible, because if people don’t know, it leads to more questions in their mind,” he says.

OPEN UP THE DISCUSSION

One answer is to just open up the discussion around disability in law firms and workplaces through training, webinars, workshops, and events where people talk about their experiences. But it can be difficult to start the conversation if you don’t feel confident around the language of disability. Yasmin agrees: “If you see someone with a physical disability, there can be an awkwardness at times where you worry about doing or saying the wrong thing, but the main thing about language is that you need to be willing to

If you see someone with a physical disability, there can be an awkwardness at times where you worry about doing or saying the wrong thing, but THE MAIN THING ABOUT LANGUAGE IS THAT YOU NEED TO BE WILLING TO LISTEN. If people with disabilities find something offensive or they don’t like particular terminology, then learn from that... they will do their work. “When I was at a law firm, people must have wondered how I was going to read 10,000 documents. Because others don’t know how that’s going to happen, it leads sometimes to shying away from having a person with a disability on your team or on the case.” Kareem says that lack of knowledge is problematic, “But that being said, the law firm and other places I have worked have allowed me to excel, so you can overcome anything with your work ethic, by doing excellent work and by

listen. If people with disabilities find something offensive or they don’t like particular terminology, then learn from that,” she says.

Yasmin also notes that not everyone who is disabled has the same opinion about things, just like not all women think about feminism or that word in the same way. I don’t represent the disabled community; in fact, I don’t think there is such a thing,” she comments. “Generally, like a lot of wheelchair users, we tend not to use language like “confined to your chair”, “wheelchair bound”, or “suffering from a disability” D & B M A G A Z I N E FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 9 | W W W. M C C A . C O M

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needed to keep the good ideas flowing up the chain. Kevin and I answered that call, met each other, built a little support network among those who joined, and started putting together projects – that was the birth of LEADRS. LEADRS expanded beyond lawyers to include all staff as well. We have an incredibly broad and open definition of disability and we operate with different levels of confidentially so people can exercise control over how much information they volunteer and to whom. People can get involved and never tell anyone that they have a disability. They can also go a step further and identify themselves to HR and be counted publicly on the LEADRS webpage. There’s no “one size fits all”.

A big part of LEADRS is the opportunity for people to find each other when you wouldn’t otherwise be able to do that. Once people get together, we can start talking, and once we start talking, we can find ways to improve an organization.

Some firms may say they don’t have persons with disabilities, but in fact, they may have many and they just may not be aware of it. Some may be hiding and haven’t disclosed. Maybe they are fearful of asking for an accommodation, some may not know how to ask. When you start having the discussion, folks can start revealing themselves little by little when they have the opportunity and know that the organization will support them. It has been great to be part of that supportive experience, and we are helping to build it outwards into the legal profession, beyond LEADRS. D&tB: How has LEADRS been beneficial to the firm as a whole?

KH: Luke once termed it a “virtuous cycle”. By doing the right thing, by including more people with disability, then good things will naturally happen both on a human and a business level.

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and disability diversity in particular. It’s a self-rewarding process, because in helping people with disability become part of Reed Smith, those persons feel more included and part of the community, and both the firm and those individuals benefit greatly. We have extremely talented people here, so they represent the firm well professionally and the firm gains respect.

People are looking to us to lead the way for disability diversity. This is an opportunity that we embrace, and take very seriously, inspiring us to expand our mission beyond Reed Smith.

D&tB: In what ways are disabled lawyers a hidden minority group?

LD: Some people with disabilities are inherently hidden just because you don’t see them as disabled. More generally, when you are talking about the D&I discussion, it is easy to conceive of what fairness is for some people. It is easy to use the language of equality, but when you get to disability it can be harder to conceptualize.

KH: I think one of the factors contributing to attrition among employees with disabilities is that they haven’t been given enough support, and no one is fully aware of their challenges.

This is something that leadership, management and organizations need to remedy because it impacts every step of employing people with disabilities.

LD: There remains in society a stigma around the concept of being able to do a task despite being different, or having to do a task in a different way. This stigma makes it harder for people to want to identify themselves as disabled. As an organization, and as a society, we need to make it more comfortable to self-identify and to make the consequences benign. We want people to know that if you are a person who identifies as disabled and who needs accommodation, the firm will help you and that accommodation will be available.

A STORY OF INSPIRATION

VICTORIA SULERZYSKI

By Catherine McGregor ictoria Sulerzyski, North America Counsel for Data Privacy at Pearson, certainly does not take the easy route: her story is an inspiring one on a number of fronts.

She shows how coping with challenges can teach important skills which are eminently transferable to business.

Victoria worked for many years as a paralegal for law firms in Baltimore and she has three daughters who are her pride and joy. Abigail, her youngest daughter, is medically fragile and multi disabled: she is deaf, blind, severely autistic and profoundly intellectually disabled. She requires 24-hour nursing and has two feeding tubes and a colostomy.

Abigail’s story is also one of inspiration. “She has a great personality and a smile that will melt your heart,” her proud mother told me. “She has for the last 19 years been attending the Maryland School for the Blind which is a day and residential school. Abigail is a residential student who lives in a small peer group setting so she can be interdependent.” Abigail will graduate next year at the age of 21 but when she started school she was in a wheelchair not communicating or acknowledging people. Now she can walk, do laundry and can help with the dishes.

Abigail’s attendance at school also opened up a chance for her mother to pursue her own dreams as Victoria explains. “When Abigail was two years old I realized there was a window of opportunity to go to law school and I decided to take it. For most of my time at law school, I attended classes at night and worked for an appellate Judge during the day.”

VICTORIA SULERZYSKI That might seem like more than enough but once Victoria had decided to put herself through the law school experience, she wanted to experience all of it. This included being an editor on one of the journals; debating in moot court; working as a law scholar and a teaching assistant at the law school.

All while raising three children one of whom has diverse needs and holding down a full time job.

Move aside Gal Gadot; this is Wonder Woman.

But how did Victoria manage it? Victoria says, “I put my mind to what I wanted to do and did it. My message is that you can do anything you put your mind to if you seek out the support.” Day to day, the key was time management. Victoria would plan every aspect of her schedule including when she had to run errands or spend time with her family. “It was four very long years,” Victoria recalls.

“I remember the last day of class. It was 10:30 at night, I got home and sat on the front porch and literally screamed, “I’m done!’”

Victoria believes many of the skills this period taught her are invaluable in both law and business and have aided her in her success. It’s also an important note for many law firms and in-house teams that in their hiring practices, some of the key business skills that produce resilient leaders aren’t being taught in colleges; rather, they are to be learned only in the school of life.

Utilizing time effectively in the evening was one skill that was shared by her fellow students, the maD & B M A G A Z I N E FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 9 | W W W. M C C A . C O M

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jority of whom were working full time. In her first semester Victoria took day release from her law firm job and attended law school part time during the day. But then she got a job with the appellate judge, switched to the night time classes and noticed a big difference. “The students at night were much more focused - actually laser-focused on ac-

effectively. “Networking is incredibly important as is mentoring - both getting a mentor or sponsor and also offering that back to others.” Networking, particularly outside of one’s obvious peer group, can be an important stimulus for making different connections intellectually and being agile in one’s thinking. Victoria feels a really important skill

complishment because most of us were working during the day. And we also knew the importance of what we were doing,” she explains. Victoria followed this lead in how she mapped her own time.

“What I did was took out my planner and literally scheduled when I would study and integrated my kids’ timelines into that and stuck to it. My middle daughter was in a nationally ranked soccer team so I was taking her to games and I would sit on the sidelines with my laptop.”

So multitasking alongside precise time management were key skills. “As long as I stuck to my schedule it worked fine but what I also learned was that if there was something that blew it up or was unaccounted for, I would figure it out.” That skill of being able to pivot at any given time has proven very useful in Victoria’s career as she can change subject matter and improvise when needed. “That’s a skill you learn pretty quickly with having a disabled daughter,” she adds. “Thinking fast on your feet; taking something that is presented to you and figuring it out very quickly. All those skills translated to helping me get through law school and have been fundamental in my legal career, particularly in-house.”

Another key skill she feels all non traditional candidates really need is being able to network

in business today is being open to different views and “not being siloed. You have to be able to have the ability to embrace different ideas and cultures and understand that the United States is not the only culture as today’s economy is very definitely global.”

But a significant factor, outside from these eminently transferable skills, has been the support she receives from her family in making it work. She discussed the decision to go back to law school with her husband who was very supportive. Victoria laughs when she recounts: “ We often say he might as well have a law degree too as he has had to sit through so much of it with me!” Their mother’s decision to retrain also had a significant impact on her other daughters. “My older girls were at an age when it made a big impression on them, seeing that it’s never to late for education and that if you want something you will find a way to make it happen.”

But it was her youngest daughter, Abigail, that was at the heart of her choice. “Having Abigail was a big factor; making sure I understood and could practice in an area of law which could help her was also a driving force.”

Victoria graduated from law school with honors, passed the Bar and then worked for major

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“Our approach with Abigail has been to include her in all family activities. I also see that at school, by including her in a program which includes people with all sorts of disability and giving them all opportunities, she has surpassed all sorts of “oh no, you cannot do that,” attitudes and biases. That makes me proud both as a mother and someone who is trying to extend diversity and inclusion.” law firms in Baltimore in different areas of law from trust and estate law to ERISA. She was also able to build a practice helping individuals with special needs, particularly around estate planning and educational needs and she then received a unique opportunity to become the first Chief of Staff for the Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals in Maryland.

After a short stint in this role she found out about Connections Education (now known as Pearson Online & Blended Learning (“OBL”)) which was acquired by Pearson in 2011. OBL contracts with public schools throughout the United States to provide educational management support to the school to assist in providing a virtual public school experience to students and families. Victoria joined Pearson’s in-house team focusing on special education law and data privacy and now focuses on data privacy full time because, as she explains, “In 2015, the need for a data privacy lawyer presented itself and when asked, I was up for the challenge.” Another example of her ability to pivot. She fell in love with data privacy and when the opportunity last August to move full-time into the Data Privacy Office presented itself, she was delighted to join the team.

Victoria is also co-chair of Pearson’s Legal D&I committee. She feels that her experiences as a parent to a child with a disability gives her a very special perspective on the issue of diversity and inclusion: “Our approach with Abigail has been to include her in all family activities. I also see that at school, by including her in a program which

includes people with all sorts of disability and giving them all opportunities, she has surpassed all sorts of “oh no, you cannot do that,” attitudes and biases. That makes me proud both as a mother and someone who is trying to extend diversity and inclusion.”

Victoria agrees that the legal profession is still far behind in dealing with disability. “I think we have improved in our space but it is very slow.”

In many ways physical disability remains one of the last areas of diversity and inclusion that many organizations think about. Victoria’s story also shows us that organizations need to consider the impact of caring for those with different needs on employees and that, unlike some other caring responsibilities, it can literally last a lifetime.

Victoria has been active in Pearson’s disability mentoring program and has worked with General Counsel and Chief Legal Officer, Bjarne Tellmann, and others on developing in-depth training for the disability mentoring program. Her experiences with Abigail have been fundamental here. “I had a mentee that was blind and I was able to understand many of their concerns because of my daughter’s experiences. I’m very pleased to be in a company that understands it, but our profession does need to progress more. However, as the legal field is rooted in the rule of law and tradition, it takes time to move that needle.”

One key message from Victoria’s story is the road is not always straight and you have to take opportunities whenever they present themselves.

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D&B/TALK

COMMUNITY VIEWPOINT Business Development Training: Another Arrow in the Quiver

By Deborah Farone

A FRIEND OF MINE, A YOUNG AFRICAN AMERICAN LAWYER, RECENTLY TOLD ME ABOUT HER EXPERIENCE WITH THE NEW BUSINESS EFFORTS AT HER LAW FIRM. AS SHE POINTED OUT, SHE WANTS TO FEEL GRATEFUL WHEN ASKED BY THE FIRM’S PARTNERS TO ATTEND A NEW BUSINESS MEETING; BUT IN ACTUALITY, THE REQUEST DEPRESSES HER. MOST OF THE TIME, SHE SAYS, WHEN SHE IS ASKED TO BE AT A MEETING WITH A POTENTIAL CLIENT, SHE IS DISCOURAGED FROM HAVING A SPEAKING ROLE. And she says, if her firm wins the particular piece of business, she generally doesn’t get the chance to work on the matter. She is starting to see that while the color of her skin is an asset to the pitch team, it may work against her once the work comes through the door.

Both involvement in new business efforts and staffing on significant assignments can make an enormous difference in any associate’s career.

Staffing decisions impact how a new lawyer is evaluated, which partners provide them with guidance and on which client’s matters they will be staffed. Subsequently, these decisions may have an enormous impact on the trajectory of their career.

Mastery of new business skills can be a valuable asset when a lawyer carves out their future. My hope is that more law firms will see business development ability as a “must” rather than a “nice to have” when developing their lawyers’ training curriculum. Being a rainmaker or at a minimum, a well-trained lawyer who can foster relationships with current clients and develop one’s own book of business, can serve as an insurance policy against other factors that may impede a career. While we need to continue to work on the factors of unconscious 56

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bias and other impediments, at the same time, we should provide people with valuable skills to help them achieve.

WHY IS BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT A SKILL THAT IS ESPECIALLY HELPFUL FOR MINORITIES? Good business developers generally have more control over which clients they are working for, as they often established these relationships for themselves. Having these skills in one’s quiver gives all associates an additional shot at this type of control.

Lawyers with proven rainmaking ability are more likely to be considered for leadership roles at law firms. If you look at the women leading major law firms, most if not all of them are commendable rainmakers with significant key client responsibilities.

Rainmakers, particularly ones with significant clients, generally earn additional credibility from their partners. They are viewed as assets (and less replaceable) to their firm and are more likely to be seen as role models for other lawyers.

The ability to develop business provides a sense of job security. The confidence and know-how that come with being a business

developer puts rainmakers in a unique position.

Most law firms are only starting to make investments in this type of training.

Savvy law firms should develop training for all lawyers, but particularly at the associate level. Associates of various ranks in their career should receive training that is appropriate for them. For example, new associates may be encouraged to stay in touch with their college, law school and clerkship friends, and to get to know their contemporaries at the firm’s clients.

Mid-level associates might be taught how to think about development strategies and close on new business matters. More senior associates, in preparation for partnership, may be guided to create annual plans, and be provided with budgets to spend entertaining clients and cultivating business. The appropriate program should be based on the firm’s culture and aspirations.

The naysayers may believe that if you teach associates these skills, and they leave the firm, it will have been a waste of money. But it’s less

likely for a lawyer to depart a firm if the culture is a strong one, and one where leadership invests in its people. If the lawyers who have been trained do leave, they’ll be grateful for the experience. As alumni are one of the great untapped sources of business development for any firm, having someone move on who has been treated well by their alma mater, is a good result for the firm.

Providing people with the skills to develop business is not only a way to even out the playing field, it is a great way of ensuring a firm’s success.

DEBORAH FARONE deborahfarone@gmail.com

Deborah Farone is the author of “Best Practices in Law Firm Business Development and Marketing” (PLI 2019), a book based on more than 60 interviews with leading law firm leaders and marketers, general counsel, and innovators in the profession.

Deborah has served as chief marketing officer at two of the world’s most successful law firms, Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP and Debevoise & Plimpton LLP. www.deborahfarone.com D & B M A G A Z I N E FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 9 | W W W. M C C A . C O M

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D&B/TALK

COMMUNITY VIEWPOINT How did I end up here?

By Julia Bergman Lee and Sarah D. McCabe

COMPLIANCE DOESN’T ALWAYS FOLLOW A TYPICAL CAREER PATH. IT IS A RELATIVELY RECENTLY RECOGNIZED PROFESSION, WITH VERY FEW FORMAL EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS IN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES. IN OTHER WORDS, VERY FEW PEOPLE GROW UP SAYING THEY WANT TO BE A COMPLIANCE PROFESSIONAL. INDEED, THE STORIES OF WHAT HAS LED PEOPLE TO A JOB IN THE PROFESSION CAN BE AS VARIED AS THE REGULATORY STANDARDS THEY ARE ASKED TO UPHOLD. Whether coming from the business (with functions as diverse as finance, audit and operations), a regulatory agency, or a legal role, compliance may not have been the destination in mind, but the opportunity can be ripe for applying experience and insights in meaningful ways.

“Lawyers tell you where the boundaries are, and compliance helps you stay within those boundaries,” Nationwide’s Chief Compliance Officer Sandy Rich said when explaining the difference between legal and compliance. “To better understand this distinction, think of the legal/compliance relationship in the simple terms of a coloring book. The lawyers draw the images on the page – the lines. The compliance professionals are the ones helping those doing the coloring – the business operations – stay within those lines.”

A diversity of skillset is important for an effective compliance program. Anyone considering a career in compliance should think about what unique lens their experience provides.

We sat down with several leaders in the industry to learn more about their stories and what brought them to the compliance profession.

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KIM BROWN USED HER BACKGROUND IN THE BUSINESS TO BUILD A COMPLIANCE PROGRAM AT NATIONWIDE. Kim Brown’s interest in compliance was piqued when leading a team that had testing and monitoring responsibilities for sales. After attending the Society of Corporate Compliance & Ethics bootcamp, she connected with the company’s Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) at the time and was later asked to develop a formal property and casualty compliance program.

Kim, who serves as Vice President, Property and Casualty Corporate Compliance at Nationwide, credits her prior business roles in property and casualty insurance claims, as well as sales and operations, for giving her valuable transferable skills for compliance. “No doubt, the analytical, investigative and decision-making skills developed in those prior jobs helped greatly,” Kim said.

Kim believes compliance plays an important role in helping business partners navigate new and existing regulations while maintaining professional standards and ethical business practices. Compliance associates help manage risk, design compliant processes, and support good decision making.

Interested in compliance? Depending on your industry, a role in operations can provide a great opportunity to gain knowledge and practical experience in the business. “Having a solid understanding of how the business and processes work helped me build credibility with my business partners and regulators, and is invaluable in assessing risks,” Kim said.

BARBARA MCINERNEY’S LEGAL BACKGROUND HELPS THE BUSINESS SUCCEED WHILE STAYING WITHIN THE REALM OF THE LAW AND REGULATIONS. Barbara McInerney started her legal career as a staff attorney for the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) New York Regional Office.

During her next role in the legal department of an asset manager, she noticed no formal compliance department existed. Lawyers and paralegals did all the work that was considered “compliance” in nature.

“While serving as General Counsel at a broker-dealer firm,” Barbara said, “I saw the fusion

of legal and compliance and would often perform both functions.” When she got the call to build and lead the compliance department at New York Life, she knew she could handle the responsibilities of a compliance officer.

After transitioning fully to compliance, she was appointed Senior Vice President for New York Life Insurance Company in charge of Corporate Compliance and is currently the Chief Compliance Officer of the Company.

“My experience as an SEC attorney and General Counsel afforded me the opportunity to understand both what the business needs to succeed and how those needs can be fulfilled, while staying within the realm of what’s allowed under the legal and regulatory framework,” Barbara said.

Often, she’s found, the law is written by lawyers for lawyers, but needs a compliance officer to turn the material into a plain English procedure manual. She’s also learned that it’s particularly important to have diversity in thought among compliance officers – diversity makes the whole D & B M A G A Z I N E FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 9 | W W W. M C C A . C O M

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THANK YOU

FOR YOUR SUPPORT

THE MINORITY CORPORATE COUNSEL ASSOCIATION (MCCA) ACKNOWLEDGES THE SUPPORT of the following law departments and law firms whose financial contributions have helped our mission to advance the hiring, retention and promotion of diverse lawyers in the legal profession.

MCCA 2019 STRATEGIC MEMBERS

CORPORATE MEMBERS

Eaton Corporation

International Paper Company

AARP

Entegris, Inc.

Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc.

3M Company AbbVie Inc.

Allstate Insurance Company Altria Client Services, Inc. Amazon.com, Inc.

Ameriprise Financial Autodesk, Inc.

BIC International

BNY Mellon Corporation

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company Cantor Fitzgerald Capital One

CBS Corporation Ceannate Corp

Chevron Corporation

Choice Hotels International, Inc.

Church Mutual Insurance Company CIGNA Corporation

Citigroup Global Markets Inc. Comcast NBCUniversal Converse Inc.

Cox Communications, Inc. Darden Restaurants Dell Inc.

Discover Financial Services 60

eBay Inc.

Entergy Corporation Exelon Corporation

Exxon Mobil Corporation Facebook, Inc.

Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh Fiserv, Inc.

Flowserve Corporation

Football Northwest LLC (Seattle Seahawks)

Freddie Mac

Fujitec America, Inc. Gap Inc.

Genentech, Inc.

General Electric Company General Motors

GlaxoSmithKline plc Google LLC

Honda North America, Inc.

Honeywell International Inc. HP Inc.

Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. IBM Corporation

Ingersoll-Rand PLC Intel Corporation

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JAMS

JM Family Enterprises

JPMorgan Chase & Co. Kaiser Permanente KeyCorp

Liberty Mutual Insurance LPL Financial LLC

Marriott International, Inc. MassMutual Mastercard

Merck & Co., Inc. MetLife, Inc.

Microsoft Corporation

Mondelez International Morgan Stanley

MRO Corporation Nationwide

New York Life Insurance Company NFM Lending, Inc.

Nokia Corporation

Northrop Grumman Corporation

Nuclear Electric Insurance Limited Pearson Education, Inc. PepsiCo, Inc.

Porzio Life Sciences, LLC

IT’S IMPORTANT TO BUILD A COMPLIANCE TEAM WITH DIFFERENT BACKGROUNDS. LAWYERS

BRING ANALYTICAL SKILLS, AUDITORS

HAVE

METICULOUS ATTENTION TO DETAIL, BUSINESS FOLK HELP BRIDGE THE GAP BETWEEN WHAT A RULE SAYS AND HOW IT CAN BE IMPLEMENTED. group stronger because it leads to less groupthink. Barbara said, “It’s important to build a compliance team with different backgrounds.

Lawyers bring analytical skills, auditors have meticulous attention to detail, business folk help bridge the gap between what a rule says and how it can be implemented. It’s also great to have former regulators on your team!”

As the CCO of a company that provides both insurance and investment products that are heavily regulated, Barbara feels that compliance serves as a bridge between the legal and operational aspects of the company. Compliance takes what the business needs to do (from a legal and regulatory perspective) and makes sure it actually gets done (from a policy and procedure perspective).

Barbara’s advice to those interested in compliance? “Do you like to get your hands dirty?

Because that’s what you need to do to be a good Compliance Officer,” Barbara said. “Good compliance officers not only know the law, but also the operational aspect of the business well enough to know how to follow the law while getting the work done.”

AS A FORMER REGULATOR, ROBERT EASTON KNOWS COMPLIANCE IS MORE THAN JUST REGULATORY EXPERTISE. For many years Robert Easton worked as a lawyer -- first as a commercial litigator in private practice, and then as an appellate specialist in government. As it happens, he was assigned to cases where he represented a specific govD & B M A G A Z I N E FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 9 | W W W. M C C A . C O M

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Premier Media Inc.

Cooley LLP

Miller Law Group, P.C.

QBE North America

Crowell & Moring LLP

Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP

Prudential Financial, Inc. ReSources USA, Inc. Ripple

Salesforce.com, Inc. Sempra Energy

ServiceSource International, Inc. Shell Oil Company

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company

Summit Materials, Inc.

The Hershey Company

The Vanguard Group, Inc. Thermo Fisher Scientific Twitter, Inc.

UnitedHealth Group

United Services Automobile Association, Inc. (USAA)

Verizon Communications Visa Inc.

VMware, Inc.

Walmart, Inc.

Waste Management, Inc. Wells Fargo & Company Xerox Corporation

Yazaki North America, Inc. LAW FIRM MEMBERS

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP Anderson Kill P.C. Arent Fox LLP

Axinn Veltrop & Harkrider LLP Baker McKenzie

Barta, Jones & Foley, P.C.

Begum Pelaez-Prada, PLLC Beveridge & Diamond P.C. Blank Rome LLP

Boies Schiller Flexner LLP Brown Law Group

Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney, PC Buckley LLP

Burns White LLC Butler Snow LLP

Carlton Fields Jorden Burt, P.A. Chen Malin LLP 62

Cozen O’Connor

Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP

Davis Wright Tremaine LLP Dechert LLP

Dentons US LLP

Dorsey & Whitney LLP

Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP Duane Morris LLP

Epstein, Becker & Green, PC

Eversheds Sutherland (US) LLP Faegre Baker Daniels LLP

Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP

Fish & Richardson P.C. Fisher Phillips

Forman Watkins & Krutz, LLP

Friedman Kaplan Seiler & Adelman LLP Goodwin Procter LLP Groom Law Group

Hamilton, Miller & Birthisel, LLP Harrity & Harrity, LLP

Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd, P.A. Hogan Lovells US LLP Husch Blackwell LLP

Imperium Patent Works LLP Innis Law Group LLC

Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP

Kaufman Dolowich & Voluck, LLP Keller and Heckman LLP Kobre & Kim LLP

Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP Murphy & McGonigle, P.C. Nixon Peabody LLP

Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP Nossaman LLP

Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP Parker Poe

Paul Hastings LLP

Pearne & Gordon LLP Pirkey Barber PLLC

Proskauer Rose LLP

Quarles & Brady LLP Reed Smith LLP

Richards, Layton & Finger, P.A.

Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr LLP Schiff Hardin, LLP

Seyfarth Shaw LLP

Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP

Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP

Stevens & Lee, P.C. Stinson LLP

Sullivan & Cromwell LLP

Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP Thompson Coburn LLP Venable LLP

Vinson & Elkins LLP

Kopka Pinkus Dolin

Willenken LLP

Lindow Stephens Treat LLP

WilmerHale

Loeb & Loeb LLP

Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor, LLP

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ernmental agency and its officers in a regulated industry, which led to his becoming general counsel of that agency. After serving in a senior role that sat at the intersection of politics and policy, he was approached about a global chief compliance officer position at a financial services Fortune 500 company.

“My time in government afforded me insight into regulated industry, and I developed substantive expertise in a number of subject areas that are relevant to the work I do today,” Robert said. “But just as importantly, working in government taught me about the importance of engaging stakeholders at all levels of an organization, and often outside the organization, to ensure our program is effective.”

Robert, who serves as Deputy General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer at Marsh LLC, doesn’t regard compliance as standing apart from the business; it is part and parcel of the business. To be effective, compliance must understand the business strategy and be a trusted advisor. “In order to be credible when sharing advice, others must have confidence you know what you’re talking about when it comes to both the business and compliance,” Robert said.

Interested in compliance? Robert said the qualities he looks for in team members include curiosity, high energy, a can-do spirit, good judgment, and an easy ability to get on with other people. Those attributes strike him as equally if not more important than subject matter expertise, which he believes can be developed if the other intangibles are there.

“The aim of compliance is to identify and mitigate risk while partnering with colleagues to achieve business goals,” Robert said. “It’s important to have a diverse team with a range of experience who can help protect the integrity of the company and uphold ethical decision-making.”

PROMOTING DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION IN COMPLIANCE AND ETHICS

Employees in diverse work environments are

more engaged and feel more included. This is especially important in the compliance profes-

sion. When people feel more included, they

are not only more likely to do the right thing, but also to speak up when they see something that’s not right and most importantly, feel com-

fortable speaking their minds and meaningfully challenging those around them.

The National Association for Diversity in

Compliance (NADC) is committed to nurturing

diverse peer networks and development op-

portunities for those involved with, or interested

in, the compliance and ethics profession. Your unique background and experience can be an

asset that enhances the profession. If you’re interested in exploring a Chief Compliance Officer

role - an integral position within a company that can be challenging and rewarding – you may find it is, indeed, a very good place to end up.

JULIA BERGMAN LEE bergmanj@nationwide.com

Julia joined Nationwide in 2013 and has held a variety of communication roles within the organization including Corporate Communications, Compliance and most recently the Office of the Chief Legal Officer. Prior to joining Nationwide, Julia delivered internal communications in other corporate environments. Past experience also includes roles in public policy and administration.

SARAH McCABE mccabes@nationwide.com

Sarah McCabe is Senior Director, Corporate Operations Compliance at Nationwide. In this position, Sarah is responsible for leading a second line of defense regulatory compliance program for certain corporate functions, preparing and consulting on Nationwide Board of Directors reporting, and is a member of the Compliance & Ethics Senior Leadership Team.

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rutluCC Culture Change:

Everything, Everywhere, Everyone Inclusion every day - Intel

By Catherine McGregor

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Chang MCCA has partnered with leading law firm Paul Hastings to examine how culture change regarding inclusion and diversity can practically be achieved. In the second of our case study reports into culture change and inclusion and

diversity in leading legal teams we examine the work being undertaken at Intel.

There have been many surveys and reports which show in clear hard numbers the fact that diverse organizations are proportionately much more successful than non- diverse ones.

Yet it can also seem that this maxim of diversity and inclusion making business sense is becoming bandied about all too easily; often without any real depth or action to back that pronouncement up.

The story of creating a diverse and inclusive culture in Intel’s legal department is of two strands; one which leads to greater effectiveness through the other. The first is allies and the importance of having truly committed, white, cisgender men in leadership to affect change - in other words, the importance of having inclusive leaders. The second is to weave inclusion and diversity into all your

processes and practices. Diversity and inclusion is not a “nice to have” or the icing on the cake: it has to be the bedrock of your organization.

Both of these together are key to really changing culture and the two are inextricably intertwined as Su Suh, who is Chief of Staff for the Legal Team and oversees its diversity and inclusion efforts, explains: “I think the most important factor in our journey to change has been having allies such as Allon Stabinsky, our Chief Deputy General Counsel and our General Counsel Steven Rodgers. What having these allies does is allow us to work on the second strand, which is key to achieving successful culture change - giving us the opportunity to embed inclusive practices in the way we do everything.”

In this article (which is based on extracts from the D & B M A G A Z I N E FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 9 | W W W. M C C A . C O M

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Karol Goh

Allon Stabinsky

longer case study on culture change in Intel’s legal department), we will consider how Intel successfully uses allies to help achieve its everyday changes in inclusion and diversity.

full transparency and we will hold our leaders accountable by tying their pay to our progress.” The program had to multi-faceted to be successful; as Chief Deputy General Counsel Allon Stabinsky comments, “We are an engineering company so there’s certainly a focus on the data which shows us the business results. But true culture change has to come from speaking to the heart and the brain.”

The company set about to meet this challenge by working with education partners from K-12 up to college level as well as partners from groups such as Feminist Frequency, the National Center for Women in Technology and the International Game Developers Association.

Intel has now achieved its audacious goal some two years ahead of target. A significant driver for this success was the fact that leaders truly bought into it, because to succeed, diversity and inclusion has to be owned by leaders. It has to permeate everything a company does. As Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Barbara Whye comments: “I’m most proud that Intel diversity and inclusion goals are incorporated in our company business goals. Our diversity and inclusion metrics are incorporated into our company’s strategy, annual

THE BACKGROUND: BIG AUDACIOUS GOALS How do you even begin? An aspiration or a big audacious goal could be the answer.

In 2015 the then CEO of Intel Brian Krzanich took to the stage at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and used it to call out the tech industry and its dismal diversity performance. He announced that Intel would be investing $300 million over the next five years to help build a pipeline of women and under-represented minorities in tech. The company also intended to have full representation at all levels of its U.S. workforce by 2020, so that its workforce demographic would reflect the demographics of the wider U.S. population who enter the engineering profession.

“That means a significant increase in hiring, progression and retention of women and minorities in the workplace,” Krzanich told the crowd during his keynote speech. “We will measure and report progress on a regular basis and with 66

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The attitude of diversity and inclusion being integral to everything has permeated into Intel’s legal team, but as with the wider company it needed leaders and allies to make this really take root. performance goals and bonus structure. Diversity and inclusion cannot be treated as an add-on. It’s an integral part of how we do business.”

ALLIES The attitude of diversity and inclusion being integral to everything has permeated into Intel’s legal team, but as with the wider company it needed leaders and allies to make this really take root. As is being recognized in a range of different situations pertaining to inclusion, the involvement of white, cisgender, male leaders is fundamental to success.

When white, cisgender men engage in diversity, it tangibly demonstrates that this is everybody’s problem, not just someone else’s issue. It’s not without dangers however: there have been some well documented examples of diversity discussions featuring only white, cisgender men, which ultimately end up missing the mark and smack of “mansplaining” or of diverse individuals feeling their safe space is being highjacked once again by the majority.

But, like it or not, white, cisgender men still make up the majority of leaders and without engaged leaders change won’t happen. Part of this is due to the very fundamental fact that full scale change needs resourcing and leaders control budgets.

Su Suh manages the diversity and inclusion program office supporting the department’s diversity programs. She also works as Chief of Staff to Chief Deputy General Counsel Allon Stabinsky.

The two roles are not at all mutually exclusive as

Su explains: “I was lucky enough to be chosen to be chief of staff to Allon Stabinsky, and one of the key reasons he chose me for that role is because of my experience in diversity and inclusion. Allon wanted to build an inclusive practice into all aspects of the way he manages the department. Critical to building an inclusive culture is having an ally: someone in power, more often than not a white, cisgender man who believes and is ready to dedicate resources and support.”

The evidence shows that when men are deliberately engaged in gender inclusion programs, 96% of organizations see progress — compared to only 30% of organizations where men are not engaged.

Discussing the effect of allyship on gender equality programs, W. Brad Johnson and David Smith writing in Harvard Business Review assert that, “Without the avid support of men, often the most powerful stakeholders in most large corporations, significant progress toward ending gender disparities is unlikely. What’s at stake? A study by McKinsey projects that in a “full potential” scenario in which women participate in the economy identically to men, $28 trillion dollars (26%) would be added to the annual global GDP when compared to the current business-as-usual scenario.”

This can be further extrapolated out to include all minorities, as McKinsey’s research has again shown that the business advantages for ethnicity and gender inclusivity are almost double those for gender parity alone.

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What’s significant in considering the role of allies at Intel’s legal Department is that efforts are being undertaken to engage everyone through everyday actions, which we will discuss later, and that there are allies and sponsors who are in the most influential positions of leadership. That’s what is termed Inclusive leadership, which has been a key area of focus for MCCA since 2018.

INCLUSIVE LEADERSHIP MCCA and executive search firm Russell Reynolds Associates (RRA) have collaborated on research benchmarking inclusion in the legal profession and considering best practices in inclusive leadership to create an inclusive culture.

What is inclusive leadership? RRA defines inclusive leadership as: “A set of proactive behaviors that leverage the unique attributes of each person in the workplace with the goal of enhancing overall performance.”

While comprehensive recognition and support of an inclusive workplace by leaders is needed, ultimately it’s how the day-to-day experience of working there feels for those who are in the minority that will determine whether a culture is truly inclusive or merely paying lip service.

“Inclusion focuses on actively embracing diverse perspectives and changing the culture to reflect them, rather than simply hiring diverse employees and expecting them to fit into the existing culture.

Importantly, any leader or employee can contribute to inclusion, regardless of background or demographic. Yet the measure of a culture’s inclusivity ultimately lies with employees, and in particular, with those who have traditionally been marginalized.”

According to their report on Inclusive Leadership, MCCA and RRA suggest inclusive leaders excel in four key areas. They bring awareness and clarity to problem areas, they practice courageous 68

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accountability to help resolve those problems, they empower others, and they foster innovative collaboration to unlock the unique contributions of each person in a group.

One of the first step in allyship and the related inclusive leadership practices is recognizing the problem, bringing awareness and clarity to it and seeing the true lived reality of that - not merely a partial understanding from a position of privilege.

As we began to explore the above, it is to be noted that there are different versions of allyship and some are more successful than others. But to be truly successful, an ally or an inclusive leader has to be intersectional. That’s particularly true in regards to inclusive leadership, where leaders need to be both allies and sponsors of change.

Allyship has more commonly been discussed regarding gender but it’s an important factor for all groups. A common complaint about many gender-based initiatives in workplaces are that they are not intersectional and are instead often skewed towards the experiences of white, cisgender, heterosexual, middle-class women. As MCCA and the ABA Commission on the Profession Research from 2017 You Can’t Change What You Can’t See showed, women of color fare the worst. So allyship has to be intersectional and be open to broadly supporting ALL difference, not the just those differences that feel comfortable or easy to deal with.

The issue of race can be a particularly difficult one to bring successful allyship to as there can be multiple layers of discomfort and fears around appropriation and the “white savior” complex. In the U.S. this conversation can feel much more fraught because of the history and legacy of slavery and segregation. The dialogue of race has been controlled by the dominant culture, and it’s often a conversation where huge swathes of experience are denied. In her seminal 2014 blog post, “Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race”, which was turned into a book in 2017, jour-

Mike Labbee

Su Suh

nalist Reni Eddo-Lodge started that this was due to the majority of white people not accepting the presence of structural racism and it’s symptoms.

“It’s a lifetime of self-censorship that people of color have to live. The options are: speak your truth and face the reprisal, or bite your tongue and get ahead in life. It must be a strange life, always having permission to speak and feeling indignant when you’re finally asked to listen. It stems from white people’s never questioned entitlement, I suppose.”

sense of fairness and justice. Su Suh explained that this is the case with both Steven Rodgers, Intel’s General Counsel and Allon Stabinsky. But many allies can also tap into their own stories and experiences, which help them to empathize and clearly see the issues that need to be addressed to promote greater inclusivity for all.

Allon explains that there are two factors which led him to recognize the importance of diversity and inclusion: “The first is equality and fairness. And the second is my unique childhood where I both was a beneficiary of inequality and a victim of it.”

For Allon, his personal journey began growing up Jewish in South Africa, the child of an Israeli father and a German non-Jewish mother, “Which in itself is an object lesson in seeing beyond difference,” says Allon wryly. However, layer in the unique experience of apartheid where racial discrimination was institutionalized and was the very foundation of society: Allon was privileged on the one hand through not being black but as Jews his family were not entirely welcomed by the right wing Protestant government in South Africa at that time. So being the subject of discrimination and living in an environment built on discrimination

LISTENING A key starting point for successful allyship then is being able to hear the reality of other people’s truths. That doesn’t mean you need to feel you have lived them because that can never happen.

Even an immersive virtual reality experience like the Thousand Cut Journey, pioneered by Stanford and Columbia University , cannot give more than a tiny fraction of understanding the experience. In MCCA and RRA’s Inclusive Leadership Research, knowing other’s histories and truths and being able to share your own is an important piece.

For many allies, that comes from an essential

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gave him the foundation to begin to understand others’ experiences, As Su explains,”This reflects in his strong sense of justice in and around things like our demographics, but it’s more than just numbers - Allon has a learning and growth mindset. Consequently he has been very open and supports others across all genders and races.”

But how can another organization approach allyship in a way which strikes the right balance and does not invoke the notion of the white male savior coming to the rescue?

While his role has been significant in driving change in the legal department, Allon believes firmly that the first responsibility of an ally is to step back and listen. “I think it’s useful to apply the Spiderman mantra here: “With great power comes great responsibility.” As a leader it cannot be just about changing numbers and quotas but about changing behaviors: leaders are critical in changing behaviors and therefore the culture,” Allon explains.

But it has to be approached with great sensitivity, and in Allon’s case this involved taking a long hard look at his own behaviors.

“How you approach culture change for diversity and inclusion is different from other kinds of change,” Allon clarifies. “You have to approach it in a different way with different level of sensitivity.

As a leader in many situations there is a lot of pre-

sumption on you that you know the answer, but with inclusion and diversity it doesn’t work that way because you do not see the world in the same way as your team.”

For Allon “It was fundamental to approach this with humility and vulnerability and work in a more collaborative bottoms up approach instead of tops down. Listening was key. “For me it was a wake-up moment.”

A significant starting point was looking firstly at his own style of leadership which he says is being wired to take charge. “I did one of those leadership value assessments with my coach where you look at 360 degree input and it was incredibly helpful.

Some of my values were broadcasting too loudly and drowning out others’ views: this taught me I need to change the way I behave in meetings and the way I work in personal interactions. The key learning was that I need to listen more: my natural inclination is to get the problems out there and vigorously attack them but not everyone is comfortable with that.”

Thinking and listening to a diverse range of viewpoints on Allon’s approach has led Allon to do is change his style. “Now I take a more backseat approach and let others be empowered including letting them speak at the table first. Previously, by owning the debate too much from the start by setting my position too clearly, I also stopped alternative views coming out. Allowing that to happen

“You have to approach it in a different way with different level of sensitivity. As a leader in many situations there is a lot of presumption on you that you know the answer, but with inclusion and diversity it doesn’t work that way because you do not see the world in the same way as your team.”

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A Word from Paul Hastings “We are focused on changing the culture of the legal industry and creating an inclusive environment for our talent. We know that to achieve this for our firm and our industry, we need strong leader allies to move the needle. Allyship is integral to pushing these efforts forward and to broadening this discussion.”

Greg Nitzkowski, Paul Hastings Managing Partner and Diversity Council Co-Chair

means we get better results from the benefit of different viewpoints at the table.” He has not just confined this change to himself but has ensured that running meetings in an inclusive fashion is something everyone in the legal team needs to do.

A large part of this has been driven by the work of Leading Edge, the group in the legal department at Intel that focuses on empowering women to move into leadership roles.

WE4SHE While there’s increased rhetoric around inclusion, too many organizations still miss the mark on equality and inclusion efforts by focusing initiatives solely on those who are diverse. Employee Resource Groups (ERG) are often the first port of call for many organizations. While these are important in many aspects there can be a downside if these are not configured within the wider matrix of building an inclusive organization. ERGs can end up functioning almost as a form of ghettoization which fails to

address systemic structural causes and ends up reinforcing the perception that these are issues that white, cisgender men, or the majority of leaders don’t really need to think about.

As discussed above, the legal department leadership at Intel is making very strong efforts to have inclusive leadership and promote allyship to show this is everyone’s problem and that inclusive practices need to be everywhere. A good example of how this has been practically achieved has been the We4She initiative which is part of Leading Edge, the department’s leadership program for women.

The We4She initiative followed the global solidarity impact initiative He for She. He for She was started by the UN in 2014 and aimed to bolster efforts by men to support efforts for gender equality, recognizing that without the involvement and commitment of men, that change would be much slower or not happen at all in some cases.

We4She and Intel’s ally program called AllyNation set out with similar aims: recognizing D & B M A G A Z I N E FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 9 | W W W. M C C A . C O M

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that gender equality and advancement for more women into leadership were issues that men had to be involved in solving. Karol Goh, legal counsel in Intel’s Singapore Office who heads up Leading Edge, explains that He for She (which became We4She to be more inclusive), has been a game changer in assisting the equal treatment and advancement of women in the legal team.

“We have corporate driven goals which trickle down to the different departments and allyship has been a huge focus. The We4She team leads the effort for increasing allyship in the legal department.

It’s definitely been more than just signing up - it’s really called for demonstrating support. The move from He For She to We4She was to demonstrate that everyone needs to be agents for equality.”

It’s important that the initiative itself displays this inclusivity, Karol feels, and as such it’s currently run by a female and a male lawyer. Having a man involved was deliberate, she explains, as it helps focus in their viewpoint as well.

In terms of day-to-day programs that tangibly demonstrate this viewpoint, the legal department has created We4She Champion awards which are given every six months. The legal team nominates and then awards someone who has demonstrated inclusive behaviors, and recognizes both men and women who are supporters of women’s development. These awards are more grassroots awards and are often rooted in everyday interactions and behaviors; again showing that inclusion has to be everywhere and day-to-day rather than something extraordinary.

With its specific aim of moving more women into leadership and gaining greater gender equality, it is inclusive leadership and being an ally that has helped moved the needle on the We4She initiative. “It’s this tone from the top that has been fundamental in advancing the message that this really matters,” notes Karol. “Our We4She executive sponsor is Chief Deputy General Counsel Allon

Stabinsky and it has been really key that he shows his support tangibly by actively participating in We4She events. He has also encouraged members of the legal department to be better allies. It’s fundamental that this is not just lip service.”

EMPOWERING EVERYONE: EVERYDAY BEHAVIORS As discussed earlier, what’s really at stake in creating an inclusive culture is making everyone feel that they belong. One of the challenges with creating truly inclusive cultures and getting those who are not diverse to tangibly support this is the fact that many non-inclusive behaviors can be small and hard to define. These microaggressions or lack of awareness may also be harder to recognize if you have not been on the receiving end.

Sometimes these small cultural cues can be fundamental to the success or failure of culture change in regards to inclusivity because they speak to the everyday, not to the exceptional. This gets to the heart of cultural change, dealing with what Management Psychologist John Amaechi has called “cultural littering”, where the lack of proactive intervention when there’s bad behavior means this becomes normalized as part of the culture. One of Amaechi’s favorite sayings is: “People make choices, choices make culture.”

This aspect of culture change has been a focus for Intel’s legal team, specifically for the Leading Edge group. One of the group’s tools which has helped bring greater awareness of the everyday behaviors which can impact inclusivity in the workplace is the creation of posters which detail ten behaviors that can help lead colleagues to behave in a more inclusive way.

Su Suh feels that this consideration of the everyday behavior, such as how a meeting is being run, has been a transformative part of the way inclusion is now approached. “As Chief of Staff, Allon has been D & B M A G A Z I N E FA L L I S S U E 2 0 1 9 | W W W. M C C A . C O M

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very clear to me that we run meetings inclusively making sure everyone feels empowered to speak, not interrupting colleagues and not appropriating colleagues’ ideas. Slips are treated contextually.

But there is definitely a sentiment in and around accountability and thinking about what you do.”

This way of approaching meetings has had broader repercussions beyond just gender inclusivity, says Mike Labbee, Co-Chair of the legal department’s diversity and inclusion committee.

“Thinking about how you run meetings has been informative on a range of levels. One issue is we are this sprawling company with offices all around the world so meetings are generally done over the phone as people may be in different cities and countries. It can be challenging to feel engaged in some of those meetings.”

Mike explains that this issue was first covered in a legal department summit as a topic of how

you overcome inherent bias and make sure there is engagement in meetings. “One of the suggestions was when you have a teleconference and some people are in person and some are on the phone, make sure you ask for opinions and ideas from people on the phone first. It’s a little thing but it made a really big difference. People don’t check out when they are on the phone because they know they are being engaged.”

In terms of more obviously diversity-related outcomes, by pointing out common issues such as women’s ideas being appropriated or minority colleagues being spoken over it’s making people think about all the small behaviors that can make a difference, both positively and negatively.

As Mike points out: “It’s just become how we do things. It’s a good example of ways in which our culture has changed in subtle ways that are really effective.”

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D&B/TALK

OUR DIVERSITY STORY

Embracing Diversity and Inclusion: Finnegan

By Catherine McGregor

FINNEGAN IS A GLOBAL LAW FIRM FOCUSED ON INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY. DESPITE ITS GROWTH OVER RECENT YEARS, THE FIRM PRIDES ITSELF ON ITS

COLLEGIAL AND COLLABORATIVE CULTURE. LAWYERS AT THE FIRM THINK THIS

CULTURE HAS BEEN A FUNDAMENTAL FACTOR IN ITS ABILITY TO BE INCLUSIVE. WE SPEAK TO NEW MANAGING PARTNER ANAND SHARMA, THE FIRM’S FIRST MANAGING PARTNER OF COLOR, ABOUT HOW FINNEGAN HAS ORGANICALLY FOSTERED DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION. CULTURE AND COLLABORATION While many firms speak of fostering a collegial atmosphere, more often than not - in the reality of working together - competitive firm dynamics and infrastructure can still make this a challenge.

Does Finnegan have the “secret sauce” to achieve more collaboration? New Managing Partner Anand Sharma believes it does and that the key lies in the firm’s founding principles.

“We’re celebrating our 55th anniversary next year,” Anand explains. “In law firm terms we’re neither very old nor very new, but we’re new enough so that some of the lawyers still working here worked with our founding partners. Two of the key founding principles were collaboration and respect. And that’s respect for everyone no matter one’s title - as we all have something meaningful to contribute to the work of the team and in service to our clients.

It’s this culture of respect, Anand believes, which has helped sow the seeds for a collaborative culture. The founding business model of the firm was to be at the top of the intellectual property space and bring together some of the premier thought leaders in IP. As that mission has developed, collaboration is at its heart, as

Anand explains. “It’s a fundamental belief that we are better placed by proactively providing our clients access to the full talents of the firm. By balancing and leveraging the different aspects of our talent, we are able to offer a better work product. If you take two Finnegan attorneys, it’s not just “one plus one” but the exponential gain of all their shared knowledge and experience.”

Finnegan is obviously proud of the uniqueness of its culture, and culture is fundamental to inclusion. But a strong culture does not always mean a inclusive culture. Indeed, there are examples of organizations using the rather loose notion of “cultural fit” to mask biases or laziness in diverse hiring. I asked Anand how the firm balances keeping what’s great about the culture but also allowing itself to organically grow via diversity of thought and experience.

Anand answered that he feels there’s no tension between culture and diversity at the firm. “One measure of proof is they selected a forty-eightyear-old South Asian to lead the firm,” he notes.

“And even beyond me, our management and compensation committees are comprised of 66% diverse partners who have been at the firm for decades. Having that type of tone at the top,

our diverse pipeline comes from this environment infused with respect and collaboration.”

A MANTRA OF RESPECT We discussed the importance of respect in the firm’s culture. That’s partly the influence of Douglas Henderson, one of the founding partners of Finnegan, who constantly underscored the need for the firm having a mantra of respect. I wondered how this is still lived in the firm today?

It’s a respect of everyone who works at this firm, Anand explains. “There’s only one team - it’s the Finnegan team. For example, I still maintain aspects of my practice as a litigator; when we prepare for a trial, as part of that the entire team gathers together and goes through our strategies for the case. Then after each day of the trial, we do a debrief on how it went. We bring everyone together: lawyers, paralegals and secretaries who each speak and give their opinions on how the day unfolded. That speaks to our respect and our ethos of one team.”

I would suggest that some of this institutional respect comes down to being able to bring your whole self to work. But a significant part of being able to do that is psychological safety. Part of what destroys psychological safety is fear of failure and that’s a significant problem for the whole legal profession, which can lead to mental health issues. I asked how Finnegan’s culture helps to create psychological safety and the ability to fail, and Anand said he feels it lies in a structural acknowledgment

that failure happens, and when it does, not to call these “failures” but “mistakes”. One of the pillars of the firm is a second attorney review policy, which means that nothing goes out from the firm without a second review; no attorney is alone. “We want to make sure we all learn from our mistakes and don’t repeat them, but from a cultural standpoint we have a built-in understanding that in life, mistakes happen, and our second review will catch them.

Another key to diminishing the fear of failure is Finnegan’s commitment to offering our attorneys support on their path to advancement through mentoring, training, internal and external development opportunities, affinity groups, etc.,” Anand comments.

Psychological safety is important to Anand, but he questions the utility of bringing one’s whole self to work. “I want people to feel comfortable bringing their whole selves, but I don’t think every aspect of a person has to be for public consumption. The idea that we can hold something for ourselves is an important aspect of being a whole human being. There’s no pressure to be performative with our diverse selves at Finnegan. At home with my West Indian background, I eat chicken curry with roti and eat it with my hands. I also speak Guyanese slang with my family, which I use at work only when someone at the firm is from Guyana and we’ve established a certain level of comfort.” It is important, Anand feels, for corporate environments to recognize the diversity of cultural backgrounds that comprise their own organi-

WE WANT TO MAKE SURE WE ALL LEARN FROM OUR MISTAKES

AND DON’T REPEAT THEM, BUT FROM A CULTURAL STANDPOINT

WE HAVE A BUILT-IN UNDERSTANDING THAT IN LIFE, MISTAKES HAPPEN, AND OUR SECOND REVIEW WILL CATCH THEM.

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zations. Therefore, visibly celebrating different cultures throughout the year is fundamental, as Finnegan has celebrated Hispanic Heritage, Black History, National Women’s History, Asian Pacific American Heritage, and Pride Month events. “It’s really important that firms celebrate those who contribute to our workforce. But unfortunately, not all law firms have grown in these ways.” That’s something about the profession Anand feels needs to change.

A WINDING PATH What about Anand’s own story? It is one that doesn’t necessarily follow a straight line to becoming managing partner of one of the most significant specialty law firms. In common with many of the lawyers at Finnegan, Anand has a 78

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technical background, having initially worked as a software engineer for NASA after graduation. Given that sounds quite exciting, to put it mildly, I wondered what first attracted him to the practice of law?

“The path that got me here is definitely not a straight line,” Anand laughs. “My family goes back several generations in Guyana, in the West Indies. I myself was born in Guyana and were it not for Howard University, I would likely still be there today. Many in my family went to Howard and obtained degrees in engineering and computer science, so for me, that was a natural path: a degree in mechanical engineering.” His undergraduate degree in engineering from University of Maryland led him to a job at NASA. “I was incredibly lucky to work at NASA,”

Anand explains, “But I soon felt it was not for me. The science was there but I felt there were other aspects that were missing.” To seek out these missing aspects his original plan was to go to business school. While in the midst of preparing to take the GRE (Graduate Record Examinations), a conversation with his uncle who worked as a chief inventor at Xerox, changed everything. “My uncle suggested I speak to some of the patent lawyers he worked with at Xerox. This was my first exposure to both law and patent law. I suddenly realized that this was perfect for me, as I love science and am an advocate by nature. Patent law was a great fit.”

It’s a familiar path for patent lawyers to have completed an undergraduate degree in engineering or science. How much though does

that mean this area of law faces additional challenges given the oft publicized lack of diversity in STEM industries?

This is a challenge, Anand acknowledges, but it can also be seen as an opportunity. “The traditional path to patent law is a STEM degree plus law school; historically, that pool of diverse candidates was a limited pool. Today, you have a number of law firms competing to attract talent from the same pool. We have tried to approach it as an opportunity to do things differently, such as trying to effect changes in the pipeline for those who have the combined science and law degrees.”

Via one of Anand’s uncle’s connections at Howard University, Finnegan created a curriculum for undergraduate engineering degree

THERE HAVE BEEN ASSUMPTIONS THAT I AM STILL AN ASSOCIATE OR NOT THE LEAD LAWYER OR OPPOSING COUNSEL MIGHT GIVE ME A VISIBLY DIFFERENT LEVEL OF RESPECT. FOR ME, I RESPOND IN ONE OF TWO WAYS: WHEN THERE ARE OPPORTUNITIES TO EDUCATE PEOPLE, I WILL TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS AND WHEN THE OPPORTUNITIES AREN’T RIPE, I JUST SHOW THEM WHO I AM THROUGH MY WORK... students in patent law, and Anand says, proudly, that through that class there are a number of patent lawyers who are practicing today.

The firm also continues to fund its own diversity scholarship and, through the selection process, this allows them to meet a range of diverse talent. The open application process also means the firm’s potential pool of talent is not confined to just top law schools - an opportunity missed by many law firms who confine their search to just a few top tier law schools.

That narrow approach is a mistake, Anand feels.

“We extend offers to join us as summer associates beyond the few scholarship participants.

I can personally confirm that there is a lot of diverse talent beyond the top tier institutions.

I didn’t, myself, attend a traditional, top tier law school, so I’m a testament to that.”

The firm has also cemented partnerships with many of the diverse bar associations, particularly where it marries well with their practice area.

The Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA) runs an IP institute every year in DC and the firm partners with the association, not just by offering courses but by making its lawyers available in any way, such as mentoring and supporting the organization in introducing its scholars to the firm. It has produced results: “Several scholars from that program have come to work at the firm,” Anand tells me.

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I wondered if he has faced any particular challenges as a diverse lawyer and what would be his top tips on how to navigate these?

Anand shares that, like all diverse lawyers, there have certainly been instances, but he has not had overt examples of challenges. “Rather, I have had what I would call micro-aggressions; just as those appear in everyday life, they appear in corporate settings. There have been assumptions that I am still an associate or not the lead lawyer or opposing counsel might give me a visibly different level of respect. For me, I respond in one of two ways: when there are opportunities to educate people, I will take advantage of this and when the opportunities aren’t ripe, I just show them who I am through my work,” he says.

So what does being the very first Managing Partner of color at Finnegan mean to Anand?

“It means I need to do well in this position; not just for the firm, not just for me personally, but for those diverse attorneys that follow at this firm and at law firms, in general. But equally as important, doing well means keeping Finnegan at the top, and continuing in our legacy as an IP powerhouse”

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