Robins Kaplan is committed to eradicating racial inequities and ensuring that our organization more closely mirrors our values of inclusion and diversity. Since June, when we established Juneteenth as a firm holiday, we have continued to talk with and listen to our firm members from historically underrepresented groups to increase our understanding of the organizational challenges they face, and designed what we hope to be meaningful solutions.
In collaboration with our Diversity Committee and Working Groups, and our Black Firm Members Group, the firm developed a set of objectives and action steps that underscore our commitment to greater equity. We are sharing these publicly to promote greater transparency and ensure that we hold ourselves accountable.
Robins Kaplan commits to the following:
- Increase representation of all historically underrepresented groups to meet or exceed the average representation of those groups at similarly sized law firms;
- In recognition of the unique historical and systemic obstacles facing Black individuals, we have also set specific targets to increase the representation of Black firm members to the following levels by 2025:
- Black Partners will make up 4% of our partnership
- Black Associates will make up 10% of all associates
- Black Business Professionals will make up 10% of all Business Professional roles
- Ensure that retention rates of firm members from all historically underrepresented groups match retention rates of firm members in majority groups; and
- Substantially and meaningfully increase the percentage of trials and hearings will be led by, or have a significant arguing/witness role led by, attorneys from historically underrepresented groups.
To achieve these goals, the firm will take the following steps:
- Improve data reporting to provide increased and detailed information about our progress toward these goals, which the Executive Board will review and share on a quarterly basis;
- Recognize Juneteenth as a paid firm holiday;
- Expand our recruiting pipeline for all roles to include schools and organizations with large percentages of Black students and professionals;
- Develop leadership training programs for all partners and managers on inclusive leadership techniques for work allocation, provision of trial opportunities, mentoring, and succession planning;
- Create metrics to measure individual partner contributions to inclusion through meaningful work opportunities, mentoring, and sponsorship;
- Expand our Deputy Office Managing Partner/Practice Group Leader for Associate Development role, which was created in 2019 and has made impactful progress toward ensuring an equitable distribution of workload and opportunities to associates, to all offices and practice groups throughout the firm; and
- Participate as a charter member of Calibrate ID, a diversity survey designed to provide benchmarking data and drive innovation to increase diversity and inclusion in business professional roles at AmLaw 200 firms.
Our work to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion at our firm continues to grow and evolve as we listen, learn, and commit to ensuring that our organization more fully reflects our values. As we continue on this journey, we welcome and appreciate the feedback from our firm members, clients, and our communities. Your collective experiences and insight help us in our ongoing efforts to create greater equity and opportunities at Robins Kaplan and throughout our society.
