commitment statement

A Call to Action for Sustainable Change In Diversity in the Legal Profession

    The Leadership Council on Legal Diversity (LCLD), formed in May 2009, is an organization of corporate chief legal officers and law firm managing partners dedicated to creating a truly diverse legal profession. This Commitment Statement sets out the LCLD’s commitment to materially improving the legal profession’s diversity and inclusion performance. It builds on the Call to Action Statement issued in 2004 by the chief legal officers of nearly 100 major corporations calling for greater progress on diversity.

OUR COMMITMENT

    It is imperative that our organizations hire, engage, develop, retain and promote the best talent. A critical and necessary element of having the best talent is having diverse talent. Moreover, the legal and business interests of our clients require legal representation that reflects the diversity of our employees, customers and the communities where we do business. To assure that the best talent flourishes in our profession, we must eliminate impediments that preclude minorities and women from a full opportunity to perform, succeed, and lead.
    While there has been progress on diversity in the profession generally, and in many firms and companies in particular, the profession’s diversity performance remains at a disappointing plateau. We believe that there is a unique opportunity to make significant progress if the leadership of our companies and law firms collaborate in addressing diversity in concrete, actionable and substantive ways. As the leaders of our companies and law firms, and on behalf of our organizations, we commit to work together to take action to drive material change, in our institutions, with others in our circles of influence, and in the profession generally. We commit to continuing the work of the Call to Action initiative to significantly advance diversity in our profession.

OUR OBJECTIVES AND ACTIONS

We aspire to hiring, retaining, and promoting the best lawyers by assuring that our organizations and programs are accessible to all lawyers, with a particular focus on minority and women lawyers. We also aspire to be advocates for substantial diversity progress in the profession. To that end, we pledge:

to have effective programs in our organizations for hiring, developing, retaining and promoting diverse talent;
to have appropriate training, development and mentoring programs in our organizations designed to enhance the likelihood of the success and retention of our talent, with a particular focus on minorities and women;
to create an appropriate function or committee within our organizations to guide our diversity and inclusion efforts;
to share information with each other regarding best practices which foster the achievement of our overall objectives;
to regularly share with each other information regarding our performance in this area;
to foster and develop relationships with other businesses which share our commitment and interest in diverse talent;
to craft incentives which reward the law-related entities with which we do business and which positively distinguish themselves on diversity;
to work with each other in a cooperative spirit to develop other methods to assure accountability for diversity performance within our own organizations, with other entities with which we do business and within the LCLD;
to take an active, ongoing role within my organization and the LCLD to maximize the achievement of the foregoing objectives;
to collaborate and work with other organizations and individuals in the profession to enhance and improve the profession’s diversity.

In summary, we hereby affirm our commitment to the mission of the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity to bring together the leadership of companies and law firms to use all of the means at our disposal to realize a truly diverse profession.

MEMBER COMMITMENT

Name of Firm/Corporation:
Signature of Managing Partner/General Counsel:
Print Name:
Date:

Please click here for a printable LCLD Commitment Statement.

Fully completed and executed LCLD Commitment Statement should be forwarded together with the invoice and dues remittance to:

LCLD Membership Committee Chair
c/o Dennis J. Broderick
EVP, General Counsel and Secretary
Macy’s, Inc.
7 West Seventh Street
Cincinnati, OH 45202

To join LCLD, click here.

commitment statement