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MODEL PROGRAMS AND
PRACTICES
Law Firms
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Bar Associations
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Corporation
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Law Schools
LAW FIRMS
A. Recruitment
1. Commitment
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Stress the firm's programs
for lawyers of color in promotional materials and discussions with all
law schools, prospective hires and other individuals and organizations.
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Provide active administrative
and/or financial support to minority law students and minority bar associations.
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Use executive search firms
who specialize in minority lawyers, for both new attorneys just out
of law school and laterals. Insist that all search firms include minorities
in the slate to be considered. Review the diversity performance of search
firms and, if necessary, change firms if diversity needs are not met.
When there is a job opening, do not accept a candidate slate that does
not include people of color.
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Broaden the pool of schools
used by the firm. Include schools with greater numbers of minority students.
Establish relationships with deans and professors, including faculty
of color at these and all schools to identify promising minority applicants.
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Institute mentoring programs
at local junior and senior high schools and colleges to attract people
of color to the profession.
2. Recognition/Compensation
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Publicly recognize and
reward partners, associates, law clerks and staff who show outstanding
performances in achieving diversity.
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Award "bonus points" to
attorneys in the firm who are actively recruiting attorneys of color.
These points should be included in all calculations/evaluations and
decisions on salary, draw, bonus and advancement.
3. Networking
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Senior partners hold informational
interviews with minority attorneys who later can be contacted when positions
open. This also builds a positive relationship with the attorney.
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Attend/sponsor minority
career days with law schools, corporations and other organizations within
the legal community.
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Sponsor periodic receptions,
both at law schools and on-site at the firm, to provide minority law
students an opportunity to meet minority and majority attorneys within
the firm and see what the firm can offer minority lawyers.
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Co-sponsor seminars at
law schools with minority student organizations.
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Sponsor seminars at minority
law schools and law schools and high schools that have large numbers
of minority students.
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Encourage minority attorneys
and law clerks to engage in informal "word of mouth" recruitment of
minority lawyers/clerks through their own networks.
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4. Law Clerks
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Actively participate in
local first year minority summer law clerk program (Usually sponsored
by local bar associations and/or law schools.)
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Hire local second and third
year minority law students to work at the firm during the academic year.
B. Hiring
1. Commitment
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Ensure that the firm's strategic plans include substantial provisions
relating to minority hiring, retention and advancement, with concrete
programs focused on achieving specific goals. Failure to include specific
commitments to diversity in new business oriented strategic plans was
frequently cited by minorities lawyers in surveys as reason they were
thinking of leaving the firm.
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Maintain a well funded,
minority retention committee that meets regularly, preferably chaired
by managing partner. (Some firms have recently merged such committees
with general retention committee. This consolidation was perceived by
some minorities as symbolic of the firm's diminishing commitment to
racial diversity.)
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Include minority lawyers
on the Hiring Committee and other leadership committees.
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Include minority lawyers
in the firm as interviewers whenever possible.
2. Accountability
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Adopt specific numeric goals and timetables for minority hiring and
advancement, as well as written firm policies on non-discrimination
and prohibition of racial harassment.
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Carefully monitor and measure progress with respect to real goals
and timetable for minority hiring and advancement.
3. Laterals
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Hire minority laterals,
making sure that minority associates coming up through the ranks know
that the firm is anxious to develop a critical mass of minorities in
the firm and fully intends and desires to promote minority associates
to partnership positions as well.
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The firm should make it
clear that the lateral partners can be role models and mentors for associates
coming up through the ranks.
C. Retention/Promotion
1. Commitment
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Involve managing partner
and other influential members of the firm's management in demonstrations
of the firm's commitment to diversity, including chairing of committees
dealing with diversity efforts and establishment of a diversity plan
that is strongly supported by management, communicated to the entire
firm, and evaluated and updated annually by the management committee.
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Immediately stop behavior and practices that are prejudicial to lawyers
of color in order to effectuate an institutional change in attitude.
Publicly state (without identifying individuals) that prejudicial behavior
will not be tolerated. The actions the firm takes quickly to address
such behavior at the partner and associate level will improve the environment
for all employees in the firm and increase productivity.
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2. Policies and Practices
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Review and revamp internal
policies and practices that affect retention rates of lawyers to eliminate
bias and maximize potential for minority lawyers.
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The firm's practices should include attention to including attorneys
of color in formal and informal firm and client events. It is often
the informal relationships that often prove most valuable.
3. Assignments
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Review and revamp internal
policies and practices that affect assignment of matters to associates,
assignment of associates to particular partners and inclusion of minority
lawyers in marketing efforts, including direct contact with clients.
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Smaller practice groups,
centralization of assignments within the group, and rotation between
groups have proven advantageous to minorities, as have efforts to avoid
"channeling" of minorities to less advantageous or growing areas of
the practice.
4. Mentoring
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Implement a formal, written
mentoring program. Experiment to see what approaches work best for minority
associates - e.g., focus on minority mentees only vs. all associates;
use minority mentors for minority mentees vs. senior white males in
the firm as mentors; or use of mentors from mentee's practice group
vs. mentors from another part of the firm.
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Elements common to successful
programs include:
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Careful selection of
mentors, including powerful and influential partners in the firm,
but excluding partners whose personality or biases make them inappropriate
as mentors.
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Successful mentors have
the necessary position, authority, commitment, ability and sensitivity
to fulfill the role effectively.
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Program provides adequate
training to mentors and mentees, including what to expect and how
to conduct the relationship.
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Ensure that the managing
partner and/or department head regularly checks with minority associates
to learn their perspective of how they are doing in the firm and the
mentoring program. Include in the discussion the associate's views
of the features of the program that are working and the features that
could be improved and how to make those improvements.
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Establish specific goal-oriented
plans jointly with mentors and mentees. Determine jointly whether it
is better to monitor and update every six months vs. informal meetings.
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Stress to mentor the importance
of including mentee in social settings with clients, including dinner
parties, lunch and golf vs. strictly in-office meetings.
5. Evaluations
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Review and revise as appropriate
internal policies and practices to eliminate bias in reviews and evaluations
that determine performance, compensation and advancement. See, e.g.,
American Bar Association, Commission on Women in the Profession, Fair
Measure: Toward Effective Attorney Evaluations.
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Educate lawyers who perform
evaluations on the most effective ways to measure performance, conduct
an effective performance appraisal and deliver feedback on substance
and style of performance.
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Monitor evaluations to
determine if there is a difference in the kind and number of comments
about white attorneys and attorneys of color.
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Educate lawyers on how
to elicit and receive constructive feedback on their work.
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6. Tracking
7. Exit Interviews
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Perform exit interviews
of minority lawyers, using minority interviewers.
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Provide the management
committee with the results of those interviews and implement responsive
efforts where appropriate.
D. Leadership in Diversity
1. Diversity and Management
Training
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Provide and require diversity
training for everyone in the firm, on a periodic basis to examine how
assumptions evolve, how treatment of others can be inadvertent, and
how behavior and perceptions based on stereotypes can be altered.
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Provide and require management
training for all supervisors in the Firm. Many issues that have a disproportionately
negative affect on minority lawyers stem from poor management.
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If one training program
does not work for your firm, hire another one that is more suited to
your firm's needs, culture and style.
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Such training is important
because minority lawyers often feel oppressed by the need to carry the
burden of dispelling unconscious assumptions and perceptions. Diversity
training helps to ease these burdens.
2. Minority Bar Associations
and Minority Counsel Programs
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Actively and strategically
participate in local, state and/or national minority bar associations
and/or minority counsel associations.
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Ensure that all members
of the firm know of the firm's involvement in these programs.
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Openly and positively support
and encourage all members of the firm to participate in these programs
and encourage minority partners and associates to participate in the
programs, including program events, meetings, roundtables, conferences
and leadership positions.
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Ensure inclusion of lawyers
of color at prestigious or otherwise professionally advantageous events,
including for example attendance at conferences and judges' dinners.
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Managing partners and other
influential partners in the firm should seek seats on boards or committees
of minority bars and/or minority counsel programs to demonstrate the
firm's commitment.
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Maintain up to date information
on the firm's minority lawyers and provide that information to the minority
bar associations and/or minority counsel programs.
3. Client's Request for Diversity
Information
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Track the status of matters
of clients that are members of minority bar associations and/or minority
counsel programs and keep such clients informed of the firm's minority
statistics and the matters that are represented by lawyers of color
in the firm.
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Respond completely and
timely to clients' requests for information on the diversity of the
lawyers in the firm representing that client.
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Provide all partners in
the firm with the diversity numbers for clients, including the names
of all clients who have orally or in writing requested evidence of the
firm's diversity commitment.
4. Scholarship Programs
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Fund one or more minority
law student scholarship for students attending area law schools, administered
by law schools, or minority or majority bar associations, including
the American Bar Association Minority Scholarship Program.
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