Corporate Counsel
The Metropolitan
®
www.metrocorpcounsel.com
Volume 14, No. 3
© 2006 The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel, Inc.
March 2006
Diversity – Law Firms
Getting It Right: An Outstanding
Diversity Initiative Shows The Way
The Editor interviews Carl G. Cooper,
Chief Diversity Officer, Kirkpatrick &
Lockhart Nicholson Graham LLP.
Editor: Mr. Cooper will you tell our
readers something about your professional experience?
Cooper: Following about a dozen years of
teaching at the University of Pittsburgh
Law School and the City University of
New York, and several years in private
practice, I became the Director of Real
Estate at the Urban Development Authority of the City of Pittsburgh, and, just
before coming to Kirkpatrick & Lockhart,
I was the general counsel for the Housing
Authority of the City of Pittsburgh.
Editor: Would you tell us about the
things that attracted you to Kirkpatrick
& Lockhart?
Cooper: I met with the Chairman of the
Management Committee to discuss his
and the Committee’s idea of having someone at the management level of the firm to
help establish the goals and objectives of a
really robust diversity initiative and to
then implement them. I believed that I was
helping to get the initiative on track, but
when I came to understand that I was
under consideration for the position of
Chief Diversity Officer I looked upon it as
a wonderful opportunity to ensure that
something very important be achieved.
Editor: The firm has a long-standing
and unusually strong commitment to
diversity. This did not just happen.
Can you tell us something about the origin of this commitment?
Cooper: During the 1990s the firm
attempted to become more diversified.
The initial results were disappointing. In
late 1998 the firm brought in a consulting
firm, and one of the results of that exercise
was the creation of a firm-wide diversity
committee. When the committee was
established, it had representation from all
of the firm’s five offices. Today we have
12 offices, all of which are represented on
the committee, and the group continues to
be chaired by an African American partner
from our Los Angeles office, Paul
Sweeney, who is also the Administrative
Partner of that office, and I think his presence reflects how seriously the firm takes
its diversity initiative.
The committee itself is representative
of the diversity of the firm. It includes
men and women, representatives from the
gay and lesbian community, African
Americans, Latino, Asian Americans and
majority representatives also. We have
tried to ensure that everyone has a voice.
One of my responsibilities is to go from
office to office to get feedback on our initiatives, and I have learned that someone
in my position must be a good listener.
Editor: Would you tell us about your
responsibilities as Chief Diversity Officer? For starters, to whom do you
report?
Cooper: I report directly to Peter Kalis,
Chairman of the Management Committee,
and I also attend meetings of the Management Committee. My responsibilities are
broadly defined, and they concern both the
recruiting and the retention aspects of the
firm’s diversity initiative. In the latter
area, I have two people who report to me.
I work closely with
the Chief Officer for
Recruitment and
Development, Susan
Fried. We are focused
on
professional
development for our
associates and on the
administration of our
Carl G.
mentoring program,
Cooper
respectively. They are
available to all of the
firm’s offices to support that office’s
needs. For example, if an associate
requires tutoring in oral presentation or in
brief writing, we will see that the right program or support is made available. With
respect to mentoring, all of our associates,
from entry through the end of their second
year, are part of the program. Our mentors
are volunteers, and they are evaluated on
their effectiveness. They are advocates for
the young lawyers they are mentoring, and
they are expected to work with them on
any deficiencies that may need attention.
At this point the program is only two years
old, so the returns are not in as yet on how
effective it is. The anecdotal assessment is
that it has been very successful, and I
believe it is something of an honor at the
firm to be a mentor. Because these are the
partners who are responsible for the legacy
we are trying to pass down, we think it is
important to come up with some sort of
recognition of the contribution they are
making. That has not been finalized as yet,
but the discussion is underway.
Editor: There have obviously been
some very positive moments in your
experience as Chief Diversity Officer.
I’m sure there have been some challenges, too.
Please email the interviewee at ccooper@klng.com with questions about this interview.
Volume 14, No. 3
© 2006 The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel, Inc.
Cooper: Yes. One challenge is getting
good assignments for young associates on
a regular basis. Much of what we do in a
large law firm is not particularly dramatic.
To keep the associates interested, we must
develop a way to get a variety of good
work experiences into their hands. A second challenge has to do with time management. Much of this relates to the
balance of life issues that young women
associates in particular face. To this end,
we have hired a young woman who has
the title of Director of Professional and
Personal Life Integration. I hasten to add,
the issue of attaining a proper balance
between one’s professional and personal
life is not just a woman’s issue. There are
plenty of men here who wish to spend as
much time as possible with their families.
The challenge is to make that possible,
and we are working on it. We do understand that it is no answer to tell a young
associate that he or she is going to be making a lot of money and that that will take
care of the matter.
Editor: It is very unusual to find a law
firm that buys into such a philosophy.
Cooper: Well, we don’t just do what
everyone else is doing. We look at other
firms, but we have a particular, and very
personalized, culture at K&LNG, and we
do not implement any program or initiative without deliberating on how it might
play out in this environment. Much of the
credit for this approach must be given to
the Chair of our Management Committee.
Editor: I understand that the firm will
soon publish a very extensive report on
its culture of diversity and the efforts it
has made to advance its diversity
agenda. What is the origin of this project?
Cooper: Several years down the road
with our diversity initiative, we realized
that we had accumulated an extraordinary
amount of information – case analyses,
news articles and interviews, lectures and
memoranda, even a very favorably
received law review article of mine – that
might be helpful to others. We are
approached by, and work with, other organizations all the time, and I mention the
ABA Diversity Initiative and the Pennsylvania Bar Association Diversity Task
Force as but two examples of ongoing
relationships. In response to this interest,
the report – which is a compendium of
our experiences – is meant to enable us to
take stock of where we have been, what
we have learned and where to take the
next steps, and, at the same time, to benefit others similarly inclined. It is, in
effect, a road map as to how a law firm
can go about transforming itself into one
of the best in the country in terms of
diversity.
Editor: Is there a particular audience
that you are trying to reach with the
report?
Cooper: It is directed at law firms and at
bar associations that work with law firms
trying to become more diverse. And, of
course, at the academic institutions that
are sending their graduates to the firms.
This is the decade of diversity. You will
recall that in the 2003 United States
Supreme Court decision in Grutter v.
Bollinger, with Justice O’Connor writing
for the majority, the Court agreed with the
University of Michigan’s assertion that
diversity was a compelling state interest.
Justice O’Connor concluded her opinion
by saying that, after years of trying to get
this right, we have made progress but
have not really managed to resolve it. She
indicated that we had about 25 years to do
just that. The military has done a good
job, and corporate America is not far
behind, but the law firms have some distance to cover. I think the legal profession
is going to implement the changes that
are necessary to reflect the changing face
of our nation, and I take particular pride
in the fact that K&LNG is among the
leaders in this initiative. When I joined
the firm I was given a mandate to change
not just the culture of the firm but also the
culture of the legal profession. I am not
sure, but I think that I am alone among
chief diversity officers in having such a
mandate.
Editor: You’ve stated publicly that
diversity is not a commodity but rather
a value that adds to the quality of life in
a law firm environment. Would you tell
us about what you’ve seen in terms of
the impact of your efforts on the
morale of people within the firm?
Cooper: I think that a clearly evidenced
commitment to diversity on the part of a
law firm results – among a great many
other things, of course – in people staying
March 2006
longer. The fact that they are part of a firm
which has placed such a high value on this
initiative makes them feel good about
themselves, and that serves the cause of
retention.
Law firms have a leadership responsibility in our country. What law firms say,
and more importantly what they do, is
important. At a time when the educational
system in our country is failing, and failing
spectacularly for our minority communities, it is essential for law firms to stand up
and be heard on what is a crucial issue –
education – for long-term law firm survival. A real commitment to diversity – and
not just lip service – is the way in which
they can make themselves heard. Their
minority partners serve as role models for
young people all over the county. The
arithmetic here is pretty simple: it costs
more to have someone in prison than in
college. And a college graduate is a productive member of society for the rest of
his or her life. Yet today there are more
young African American males in prison
than in college. We must address this.
Editor: I think you’ve put your finger
on a major problem. It’s also a practical
problem for a law firm. Young minority
law graduates, and minority males, in
particular, are few and far between.
Everybody wants them. There is a lot of
competition. How do you go about differentiating K&LNG from everybody
else and getting them in the door?
Cooper: Good question. Getting to good
young people during their second year of
law school is a little late, so we are trying
to identify and connect with them at an earlier point. We have K&LNG lawyers
teaching elementary school children about
civic responsibility, democracy and what it
means to be a citizen of a free country. We
have a high school program, and we are
trying to project role models for young
people in inner city schools. With the assistance of the ABA, I am recruiting lawyers
to talk to them about staying in school.
This kind of activity is not going to affect
our current profits, but 10 years from now,
or 20, when the work force is going to look
very different from what it is today, it may
well enhance our ability to survive and
prosper. And it is the right thing to do. At
K&LNG we have a leadership that understands that it is crucial to plant the seed
today if one is to harvest tomorrow.