Beyond Mentoring: Eliminating Bias and Creating Inclusive Workplaces for Women of Color

Monday, June 24, 2019 | 6:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.

• Description
• Faculty
• Agenda
• CLE Credit
• Sponsors

• The City Bar and the legal community have been discussing the lack of diversity in the profession and its leadership ranks for years. Even though there are a number of successful women partners and women’s sponsorship initiatives, Asian, Black/African American and Hispanic leadership is still low and the attrition of lawyers of color is still high. (See, e.g., City Bar Diversity Benchmarking Report 2016). This program will focus on how to address diversity, inclusion and bias against women of color in the legal community. We will provide both a panel discussion and written materials to help increase the professional competency of lawyers (e.g., self-awareness, self-regulation and pro-social skills in dealing with colleagues, adversaries, clients, judges, juries, and legal staff), encourage new perspectives and better work product by being more inclusive, enhance an awareness of bias and provide tools on how to reduce it, improve the emotional intelligence of lawyers, and provide meaningful steps to eliminate bias in the legal system against women of color.

  Specifically, the goals of the CLE are to do the following:

  • Define bias and privilege and the disproportionate manner in which they impact women of color in the legal community
  • Discuss the unique gifts, talents and experiences of women of color and their ability to provide perspective, insight and expertise to co-create more innovation
  • with tools to move beyond biases to support better visibility, acceptance and inclusion of women of color in the legal community
  • Provide techniques to create a culturally competent and responsive community for women of color in the workplace, to ensure psychological safety and support
  • Determine techniques that women of color can use to obtain leadership opportunities, such as finding their voice and place at the table
  • Establish essential leadership skills to lead, role-model and sustain a more inclusive work environment through more transparency, better communication and improved trust to institutionalize more equitable work environments, tools and opportunities to succeed for women of color
  • Identify systemic ways to support the well-being of women of color in the legal profession who navigate explicit and implicit bias daily
  • Encourage new ways to create inter-sectional and inter-generational communal spaces to impact positively the experiences, advancement and empowerment of women of color

  Live Program & Webcast: Free for Members | $50 for Nonmembers

• Louis J. Briskman Former Senior Executive Vice President and General Counsel CBS Corporation	Paula Brown Donaldson Executive Director Practicing Attorneys for Law Students Program, Inc.	Lisa E. Davis Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz PC	Anu Gupta Founder and CEO Be More America
  Michele L. Jacobson Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP	Rhonda Joy McLean Former Deputy Director, Time Inc.	Maria D. Melendez Sidley Austin LLP	Laurie N. Robinson Hayden Senior Vice President and Assistant General Counsel, Litigation CBS Corporation; Founder and CEO Corporate Counsel Women of Color
  Lara Sheikh Senior Legal Editor Thomson Reuters	Wayne Stacy Department Chair — Intellectual Property (San Francisco), Baker Botts

• TBD

• New York CLE Credit: 2.5 Diversity, Inclusion and Elimination of Bias
  

• Sponsoring Association Committees:
  Minorities in the Profession | Jonathan Waldauer and Johan Tatoy, Co-Chairs
  Women in the Legal Profession | Melissa Colon-Bosolet, Chair

  Sponsorship Opportunities are Available! Please Contact:
  Angie Avila, Manager, Membership Outreach and Sponsorships | (212) 382-6608 | aavila@nycbar.org

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