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By Rabiya Hirji, Debbie Ting, and Ginevra Saylor, ILTA DEIC Members

As members of ILTA’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee (DEIC), we were honored to have Kate Broer, Global Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity Officer of Dentons attend one of our planning meetings to share her DEI experiences. Kate’s background includes 20 years as a litigation partner and a leadership role in client development. In 2022, Kate was asked to lead Dentons’ Global Diversity and Equity program.  We were so impressed by her talk that it inspired this blog post to share what we learned that day.

During our discussion, Kate shared her pointers for sustaining diversity and inclusion programs in law firms.

Kate recommends the following:

1.    Make DEI part of a firm’s business strategy. At Dentons, the firm’s leadership gives DEI top priority, alongside the firm’s business strategy. DEI is an intentional and standalone function. Kate reports to the global CEO and attends all global board meetings, adding visibility to the program. 

2.     Set clear goals and objectives. Kate stresses the importance of seeing DEI through the lens of the day-to-day execution of everyone’s job. She advises sticking with two to three clear and achievable goals to build momentum for the program. If the goals are unclear and too varied, goals run the risk of becoming diffused and difficult to manage. 

Try to balance the program’s priorities with a mix of goals requiring a big lift with high impact and those requiring a medium to small lift with smaller yet tangible impact.  Although accelerating some goals is prudent, keep in mind that incremental changes also build momentum. 

Once the goals are identified, set priorities based on anticipated impact. 

3.   Deliver education and build awareness. When planning educational sessions, Kate advises carefully considering the DEI program’s sphere of influence. Be realistic about the program’s capacity to deliver. 

For example, Kate currently is working on 30-minute educational programs for all the firm’s functional departments. The sessions will highlight the meaning of inclusion, diversity, and equity relevant to each employee’s role and responsibilities.

The firm also offers allyship pods, where groups of employees from around the world participate in self- directed learning exercises about inclusion, diversity and equity topics and share experiences. 

Maintaining an effective program involves a strong commitment from leadership and consensus on goals. As Kate reminds, diversity and equity are important drivers of innovation and are – simply put – the right thing to do. 

After the DEIC listened to Kate’s experiences and advice, the Committee felt re-energized and inspired by her words to plot its course and act.  Two ideas that resonated with the group were to prioritize two to three clear and achievable goals to build momentum; and to implement small ideas with big impact.

For the DEIC, focusing on two to three achievable goals is helpful advice. As you can imagine, the DEIC’s focus can get pulled into many different areas due to internal or external DEI priorities and world events.  We will be implementing this technique as we set our goals and our priorities for the coming 2024 year.

Kate’s talk was shortly before ILTACON, and the DEIC was already considering how to raise awareness of DEI as a core value of ILTA at the conference.  Her talk motivated us to implement small ideas with big impact to achieve this goal, including:

·       Displaying DEI as a core value on digital screens during the conference;

·       Asking the ILTA’s President’s opening remarks and keynote speakers each day to incorporate DEI as a topic in their presentation;

·       Creating a new “I love DEI” ribbon for attendees to wear on their conference badges to show their support of DEI. We also asked ILTA staff to explain what the ribbon was for when handing them out; and

We hope you all felt the cumulative impact of these small touches to raise awareness of DEI at ILTACON.

Consider inviting an experienced DEI professional to share their expertise with your DEI team to generate new DEI ideas and projects.  Please share in the comments what you think about Kate’s DEI tips and how they can help you or your organization.