Corporate Counsel
The Metropolitan
®
www.metrocorpcounsel.com
Volume 15, No. 2
© 2007 The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel, Inc.
February 2007
Diversity – Law Firms
Making A Diversity Statement
A Model For The Profession
The Editor interviews Paul W. Sweeney,
Jr., Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston
Gates Ellis LLP (K&L Gates).
Editor: You have also had a very active
career in civic and professional affairs.
Would you tell us something about
that?
Editor: Mr. Sweeney, would you tell
our readers something about your
background?
Sweeney: I grew up in Los Angeles, in a
part of town now known as South Central.
That term may have a pejorative ring
because it is a part of the city that is
largely minority and has a high crime rate,
which, I should add, was not true when I
was growing up. I went through the public
school system and on to the University of
Southern California, which is just a mile
from where I attended grade school. From
USC I went to Columbia Law School, in
part because my grandparents lived in
New York.
After law school I joined a large firm
in Washington, DC for several years and
went on to become a White House Fellow
in the Office of the President. Following
that experience I returned to California
with several of my White House staff colleagues to start a venture in the transportation field. When sufficient funding
failed to materialize, I joined a firm in
Beverly Hills. In 2000 that firm merged
with, and became the Los Angeles office
of, Kirkpatrick & Lockhart, now K&L
Gates.
Editor: Please tell us about your practice. How has it evolved over the course
of your career?
Sweeney: I started at a firm that represented clients before governmental agen-
Paul W. Sweeney
cies, including the Federal Trade Commission, the Food & Drug Administration
and the Department of Transportation.
These were very large undertakings, and
the legal team might have numbered ten
or more attorneys. When I returned to
California, the matters I handled were on
a much smaller scale. That enabled me to
develop ongoing relationships with
clients and engage in much more counseling than I had at an earlier point in my
career. Since becoming a partner at K&L
Gates, I have been able to take on larger
clients, and my earlier hands-on client
experience has enabled me to serve as a
principal interface with them. My practice
today is a blend of counseling, trying substantial cases and supervising teams of
younger lawyers in a variety of litigation
matters.
Sweeney: Growing up in a community
where many people suffered from a lack
of opportunity, I have always felt compelled to return to that community and
help to develop ways in which people
might access greater opportunities for
themselves. Success does not happen in a
vacuum; it results from having an opportunity to show what one can do. My participation in the White House Fellows
Programs – at the very highest levels of
government – was an opportunity of
immense value and a gift. The civic and
community organizations with which I
have been involved allow me to repay
what I believe is my debt to society.
I serve on the governing board of Public Counsel, the largest pro bono law firm
in the country. It provides legal services to
the working poor, people who do not qualify for legal aid but who cannot afford
quality legal services either. The organization has a large staff of its own, and it
supervises volunteers from a variety of
firms. This service has a particular meaning for me because it enables me to share
my legal expertise with communities that
are very similar to the one in which I was
raised.
Prevent Child Abuse America – where
I also serve on the board – is a national
organization with a mission to prevent the
abuse and neglect of our nation’s children.
Many of the people in prison today suffered some form of abuse as children. I
strongly believe that the children are our
Please email the interviewee at paul.sweeney@klgates.com with questions about this interview.
Volume 15, No. 2
© 2007 The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel, Inc.
future. Unless we are able to correct child
abuse – and provide opportunities to succeed – that future is not going to be very
bright for any of us.
In addition to working with a number
of local community organizations, I have
been active with the American Bar Association’s Minority Counsel Program, the
International Association of Defense
Counsel, the American Law Institute and
a variety of other groups that address
broad legal issues. I believe that we have
a professional obligation to give back to
the community and to do what we can to
advance the principles underlying the profession.
Editor: The diversity initiative at K&L
Gates is one of the celebrated programs
across the country. Would you tell us
something about the importance of the
initiative to the firm?
Sweeney: As Chairman of the firm’s
Diversity Committee, I think I am in a
position to say that it is an immensely
important initiative. I have been involved
in all of our diversity efforts from the
beginning, and I work closely with Carl
Cooper, our Chief Diversity Officer, and
with Peter Kalis, the firm’s Chairman and
Global Managing Partner, who is also the
principal architect of our diversity initiative.
I serve, in addition, as the head of the
firm’s Los Angeles office. One of the
summer associates who will be with us
this coming year, a Stanford undergraduate and Columbia Law School student,
told us that one of the principal reasons
she was drawn to the firm was the fact
that having an African American as head
of the office made a tremendous statement
with respect to the firm’s values. This
state of affairs flows naturally, I think,
from our firm’s leadership, but it may not
come naturally elsewhere. That makes
this young person’s comments particularly meaningful to me.
Editor: How does the firm relate to the
law schools in its diversity recruiting?
Sweeney: With respect to every law
school that our firm recruits from, we will
conduct a session for the minority law student groups – the Asia-Pacific, Black,
Hispanic and gay and lesbian organizations – either prior to our campus visit or
during such a visit. We find that it is very
helpful to address these groups directly so
that they see we are truly interested in
recruiting minorities.
We also put on a program, “Life for a
Minority Attorney in a Majority Law
Firm,” targeted at minority law students
where we bring them into the office for an
evening to discuss common experiences
and interact with our minority attorneys.
We make particular efforts at law
schools with a predominantly minority
student body, including Howard and
Texas Southern’s Thurgood Marshall Law
School. We sponsor a lecture series at
Howard in which we have a United States
Supreme Court Justice speak at a luncheon, followed by a lecture from a
prominent law professor. All of the students at Howard are invited to this event.
We have found all of these efforts to be
very rewarding in our law school relationships because they demonstrate that our
commitment to diversity is not simply
going through the motions or windowdressing.
Editor: Is there a mentoring program
at the firm?
Sweeney: We have a formal program
where every lawyer is assigned a mentor.
That mentor has the responsibility of
interacting with his charge on assignments, work issues, relations with others
– even personal matters that may have an
impact on lawyer performance – on a regular basis throughout the year. We have
superimposed on this structure a mentor
coordinator for each office to make sure
that the mentors are doing their job. At the
national level, we have several people
who ensure that the mentor coordinators
do their job. We have training sessions for
our mentors and a process for feedback
from mentees. Our mentoring program is
not something we leave to chance.
Editor: Everyone seems to agree that
retention is a particular challenge these
days. How is K&L Gates faring in this
regard?
Sweeney: We are doing all right, but we
should be doing better. Since we have
made diversity a firm priority, we have
focused a great deal of attention on retention issues. I think our mentoring program
is having a positive impact. Nevertheless,
we intend to improve on what we have
accomplished to date.
Editor: Speaking of retention, on
February 2007
November 29th The New York Times
published a front page story on a recent
study that suggests that elite law firms
may be setting up young African American lawyers to fail in the competition
for partnership by hiring minority
lawyers with much lower law school
grades than their white counterparts.
Needless to say, the article caused some
considerable stir. Our readers would be
most interested in hearing your reaction to this controversial study.
Sweeney: I have not examined the statistical information used in the study, so I am
not in a position to argue with it. Speaking
for our firm, however, I can say that we do
not hire minority law students with much
lower grades than their white counterparts. It simply does not work that way.
Typically, we identify a grade range for a
particular school, and we make offers to
students within that range. We have some
minority students at the high end of the
range, and we have some at the low end.
Of course, that is true of white students as
well. We have a history with these law
schools, and our experience is that students who perform within the range are
likely to do well with us. And, like everyone else, we have had people with spectacular grades who have not succeeded
with us.
Editor: Looking forward, what would
you like to see accomplished at K&L
Gates on the diversity front over, say,
the next five years?
Sweeney: I would like to see greater
diversity at the firm’s partnership level
and in leadership positions, and I have
every expectation that will occur. What I
would really like to see is the firm serving
as a model for the legal profession, where
people say, “Look at K&L Gates and what
they have accomplished with their diversity initiative.”
It is interesting to note that approximately 25 percent of all positions in the
healthcare profession today are held by
minorities. In the legal profession it is
closer to 10 percent. If, and when, the
legal profession reflects the composition
of our society, we will see a greater
respect for, and trust in, our legal system
than exists today. We are becoming more
diverse as a society, and all of our institutions are coming to reflect that diversity. I
do not think the legal profession can
afford to stay behind.