We employ many and varied strategies to achieve our goal of robust DEI, including:
Representation
As described more fully above, female and diverse lawyers are represented significantly in leadership roles and in offices and practice areas across our firm.
Recruiting and Promotion
Carlton Fields enjoys great success in recruiting female and diverse attorneys at the entry level and laterally from government, other law firms, and other organizations. We have built a reputation as a welcoming and inclusive law firm for female and diverse attorneys, and this has proven to be a great asset in our recruiting efforts. Our full-time talent director who oversees recruiting is a Black female attorney. We work closely with a diverse recruiter to assist in lateral hiring, and we have developed a robust recruiting pipeline with diverse and female judges. We also recruit from historically Black law schools. (Associate recruits, please use this link.)
We have enjoyed great success over the past 15 years or more in promoting female and diverse attorneys to shareholder in great number. We have a rather unique structure that enables more liberal promotion than typically practiced by other firms. Over 10 years ago, we eliminated our strict “two-tier” system and now generally use only one class of stock that affords all shareholders equal voting rights, access to all activities and any leadership role in the firm, and participation in the same compensation process under the same performance-based, not class-based, criteria.
Elimination of Hidden Barriers
We scrutinize all offices, practice groups, and industry groups on an ongoing basis to ensure that all female and diverse lawyers are strategically placed and receiving access to important opportunities to build and sustain successful careers. This is something that we monitor in real time, year in and year out.
Structure
Our law firm is organized as a corporation and has a full-time CEO form of governance. Our CEO personally oversees the firm’s diversity efforts and reports to our board on our progress and challenges. We have a chief diversity officer and a full-time talent director who are responsible for overseeing and effectuating DEI. Our practice group leaders are all charged with embracing and implementing DEI. In addition, each of our practice groups also has talent managers who are tasked with overseeing DEI in their respective groups, working together with our firm’s CEO, CDO, firmwide talent director, and practice group leaders. DEI is a standing agenda item for every managers meeting, which include our CEO, CDO, talent director, practice group and industry group leaders, and other firm managers.
Training and Professional Development
Our law firm provides career track and business development training to our female and diverse attorneys at strategic stages of their careers in groups and in one-on-one coaching, employing in-house and outside professionals. The firm has a sponsorship program pairing diverse lawyers with highly successful senior shareholders in our firm to facilitate the development of important client relationships and access to strategic engagements. This is coupled with a mentorship program for all associates. In addition, the firm’s CEO meets one-on-one and in small groups with female and diverse lawyers throughout each year to provide them with access and advice on how to build their careers.
We have also recently provided DEI training to all of the firm’s top managers; we have regular discussions about these issues in shareholder meetings, board meetings, and managers meetings; and we provide DEI training from time to time to all shareholders.
Feedback
Our firm does not rely on year-end reviews as a principal vehicle for feedback and career development. We foster a practice and climate of “real-time” feedback for all up-and-coming attorneys, augmented by quarterly meetings between each associate and his or her respective practice group leader, where our associates are expected to provide an agenda touching on all aspects of their progress, successes, disappointments, frustrations, and aspirations. We encourage frank feedback from all supervising attorneys and discourage “soft” feedback that dodges tough issues that can and should be resolved to empower career advancement.
Growth Mindset
We embrace a “growth” mindset and discourage a “fixed” mindset on the part of all of our attorneys and staff. Yes, society, our profession, and our law firm must continue to grow and evolve institutionally. But no individual can wait for that. We encourage and seek to empower each of our professionals to face obstacles with the resolve to go around them, over them, or through them.
Accountability
We evaluate all of our professionals regularly regarding their success in these endeavors. Our CEO, CDO, and talent director frequently intervene to resolve impediments or problems and to help identify solutions. Their success is a factor in the setting of their own compensation. All of our practice group leaders and industry group leaders are subjected to a 360-degree annual review by all members on a number of key performance indicators, including their commitment and success with DEI. This is taken into account in the setting of their compensation. Each year, in their annual self-evaluation reports, all shareholders must report their activities and success in mentoring younger lawyers and in promoting DEI. This is taken into account in the determination of shareholder compensation.
Metrics
The firm monitors its diversity metrics on a regular basis, including the engagement of female and diverse lawyers in servicing our most significant clients and matters to ensure that female and diverse lawyers are not simply staying busy but are getting equitable access to the firm’s best professional opportunities.
Business Resource Groups
Carlton Fields has several robust affinity groups for female and diverse lawyers and their allies, namely, our Minority Business Resource Group, our Women’s Business Resource Group, and our LGBTQ+ Business Resource Group.
Networking
Carlton Fields has been a member of the Leadership Council for Legal Diversity (LCLD) since its inception. Our CEO has served on its board and co-chaired its Fellows Program, and we have sponsored a number of LCLD Fellows and Pathfinders over the years. They have all built robust networks of in-house and law firm colleagues across the country and actively cultivate this network. Our CEO meets with them individually throughout the year to ensure that they are leveraging these and other relationships to full advantage. We also have colleagues who hold leadership roles in the National Bar Association and in regional diverse bar associations and other organizations. These are all in addition to involvement in more traditional ABA and state and local bar associations, Inns of Court, and trade associations, which we also support. Even more important, the firm encourages all client relationship managers to include female and diverse lawyers in client meetings and other client-facing conversations and opportunities, as appropriate.
Succession Planning
The firm has a formal succession planning policy that requires all shareholders who manage significant client relationships, regardless of the shareholder’s age or proximity to retirement, to involve female and diverse lawyers intentionally in these relationships and to position them for leadership roles at the time when actual succession occurs. This process is audited by a senior staff member and our CEO. This has produced significant success stories over the years in passing important client relationships along to female and diverse lawyers.
The Rooney Rule
We seek to inculcate the habit in all law firm leaders and shareholders of practicing the “Rooney Rule” in all things. This includes hiring, promotions, staffing, client development, law firm committee membership, leadership roles, client meetings and events, professional and community activities and events, and appointments of all kinds. Although we have discrete practice groups and industry groups for good and sufficient reasons, and although we practice in 11 offices across the country, these are not hard and fast lines. We encourage our shareholders to “think outside the box” when making these decisions, drawing on talent, as appropriate, across groups and offices in order to diversify our teams.
Culture of Diversity
Maybe most importantly, we have established a genuine culture of diversity. All law firms tout their collegiality. We do, too. But ours has a secret sauce: What you see is what you get. This has always been the case in anyone’s memory at Carlton Fields. We welcome all newcomers from the outset, we abhor hidden agendas, we are not all the same by any means, but we revel in our differences, and we cherish authenticity, transparency, collaboration, and honesty. We do not promote “covering” or expect any of our colleagues to be “someone else.” We take our work very seriously, but we try not to take ourselves too seriously. We accept each of us for who we are. We have purposely and strategically decided to remain relatively small (under 500 lawyers), precisely to preserve the quality of relationships among ourselves and with our clients. This means we are very selective about who we hire, and every person counts.