Press Releases

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Managing Partners Named for Diversity and Flexibility Meeting with General Counsel

San Francisco, March 19, 2009 — The Project for Attorney Retention (PAR) announced today the law firms whose managing partners and firm chairs have been selected to join a group of prominent general counsel at a meeting later this month to discuss diversity and flexibility initiatives. The firms were nominated by PAR and chosen by the general counsel for their exceptional progress toward diversity and flexibility objectives.

The law firms are:

  • Arnold & Porter LLP (Thomas Milch)
  • Crowell & Moring LLP (Kent Gardiner)
  • Dickstein Shapiro LLP (Michael Nannes)
  • DLA Piper (Lee Miller)
  • Farella Braun + Martel LLP (Steven Lowenthal)
  • Fenwick & West LLP (Gordon Davidson)
  • Fulbright & Jaworski LLP (Steven B. Pfeiffer)
  • Gibbons P.C. (Patrick Dunican)
  • Morrison & Foerster LLP (Keith Wetmore)
  • Schiff Hardin LLP (Robert Riley)
  • Sidley Austin LLP (Thomas Cole)
  • Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP (Elliot Portnoy)

The meeting, which takes place later this month in Chicago, is the first event of the Diversity and Flexibility Connection. The Connection is designed to bring together influential general counsel and managing partners for frank, moderated discussions about how in-house and outside counsel can work together in an approach that incorporates the most effective tactics from both diversity and flexibility efforts. Topics to be discussed at the meetings include shared objectives for diversity, the role work/life issues play in diversity, major issues that affect women's advancement, and how corporate counsel and law firms can best work together to achieve inclusion through flexible scheduling. After initial discussions, the Connection will produce best practices and action steps for law departments and law firms. PAR will also assist with the establishment of metrics to measure the progress that results from the initiative.

As previously announced, PAR has selected, based on their leadership and commitment to diversity, the following general counsels to participate in the Connection:

  • Dennis J. Broderick, Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary, Macy's Inc.
  • Catherine A. Lamboley, Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary (retired), Shell Oil Company
  • Jeffrey J. Gearhart, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
  • Michele Coleman Mayes, Senior Vice President & General Counsel, Allstate Insurance Company
  • Teri Plummer McClure, Senior Vice President of Legal Compliance and Public Affairs, General Counsel & Secretary, United Parcel Service
  • Roderick A. Palmore, Executive Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary, General Mills Inc.
  • James Potter, Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary, Del Monte Foods Company
  • Thomas L. Sager, Senior Vice President & General Counsel, DuPont Company
  • Douglas G. Scrivner, General Counsel, Secretary & Compliance Officer, Accenture
  • Laura Stein, Senior Vice President & General Counsel, The Clorox Company
  • Leslie M. Turner, General Counsel, Coca-Cola North America
  • Danette Wineberg, Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary, The Timberland Company

PAR's Connection will complement the work of other influential groups and initiatives that are working to increase diversity and flexibility in law firms and to strengthen law firm/client relationships, such as A Call to Action, the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, the Association of Corporate Counsel's Value Challenge, the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, and the National Association of Women Lawyers. In consultation with these groups and building on their work, the Connection will bring together diversity and flexibility research and best practices that until now have been viewed as distinct. In keeping with PAR's hallmark, the Connection also will develop practical action steps and solutions for law firms and their clients that will achieve inclusion for all lawyers. PAR will release a report of the Connection's work and recommendations in the fall of 2009.

PAR, a nonprofit organization that studies the advancement of women lawyers and work/life issues for all lawyers, is headquartered at UC Hastings College of the Law. Its co-directors are Joan C. Williams, distinguished professor of law at Hastings, and Cynthia Thomas Calvert, a former law firm litigation partner. PAR is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and other grantors, and by its law department and law firm members. For more information, visit PAR's website at www.attorneyretention.org.

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