At Dickinson Wright, diversity is an initiative as well as an achievement. In support of diversity, the firm has adopted a Diversity Mission Statement, and its commitment to a diverse workplace is a reflection of the value it places on offering clients a variety of perspectives and differing mindsets in approaching complex legal issues. Dickinson Wright is, and has been for decades, a pioneer in all aspects of diversity both within the firm and in the communities in which it does business. The firm is dedicated to the active recruitment, retention, development and promotion of minority attorneys who reflect the clients and communities that it serves.

Dickinson Wright prides itself on the significant number of minority and women attorneys at all levels within the firm, as well as a diverse staff. Women and minority lawyers hold significant leadership roles in the firm’s management. For example, Bernadette M. Dennehy is on the Management Team and is responsible for Finance. Kathleen A. Lang and Monica J. Labe are two of eight Department Managers. W. Anthony Jenkins is a member of the Benefits Committee. Kester K. So is on the Opinion Committee and, along with W. Anthony Jenkins, Co-Chairs the firm’s Diversity Committee and has been elected by the firm’s members to the Governing Board.

In addition to participating in the executive management of the firm, many minority and women members are actively involved in prominent leadership roles in the legal and civic communities. Dennis W. Archer is immediate past President of the American Bar Association, past president of the National Bar Association and serves on a number of corporate boards. W. Anthony Jenkins is a member of the American Bar Association Presidential Appointments Committee, current Treasurer of the State Bar of Michigan, a member of the State Bar of Michigan Board of Commissioners, and past President of the Detroit Metropolitan Bar Association. Kathleen A. Lang is a Litigation Advisory Board Member and frequent faculty member for the Michigan Institute for Continuing Legal Education. Kester K. So is a member and past Chairperson of the Public Corporation Law Section Council of the State Bar of Michigan and was appointed by the Governor to serve on the Council on Labor and Economic Growth. Patrick J. Miles, Jr. is Chairman of the Aquinas College Board of Trustees and is a member of the boards of Spectrum Health Hospitals, Metropolitan Grand Rapids YMCA, DeVos Children’s Hospital Foundation and Hope Network.

Dickinson Wright’s leadership in diversity has received national recognition. The firm was named one of the Top 100 Law Firms for Diversity in the 2007 edition of Multicultural Law magazine. The Spring 2004 issue of Minority Law Journal ranked Dickinson Wright among the top five firms in the country based on percentage of African-American attorneys. In 2002, Dickinson Wright was named by its long-time client, DuPont, as one of a select number of firms to receive DuPont’s 2001 Challenge Award, which was based on a stringent set of criteria, including "outstanding commitment to diversity in the legal profession, cost-effectiveness in the delivery of legal services and savings to DuPont, contributions in the area of technology, sustained support of the DuPont Legal Model and leadership in organizing the DuPont Minority Counsel Conference in Detroit." DuPont also recognized the firm with this distinction in 1999.

Diversity and the variety of perspectives it fosters are highly valued in every aspect of Dickinson Wright’s environment and culture.

Promoting and Supporting Diversity

Dickinson Wright supports and promotes diversity through a number of proactive initiatives.

Strategic Plan
The top item on the strategic agenda of the firm’s Chairman, Dennis W. Archer, is to inculcate the importance of a diverse workplace within the firm and to promote the advantages of having a variety of perspectives available to provide unique points of view on client matters. Mr. Archer’s mandate is to significantly increase the number of minorities and women at the firm by seeking to hire aggressively qualified candidates and to expand our recruiting efforts to encompass traditionally minority-oriented colleges and law firms.

Diversity Mission Statement
The firm has adopted a Diversity Mission Statement, which states as follows:
Diversity and varying perspectives are highly valued in every aspect of Dickinson Wright’s work environment and culture. Dickinson Wright strives to be an organization that includes people of diverse backgrounds in all facets of the Firm and that fully utilizes their talents to provide legal services of the highest quality. The Firm is dedicated to the active recruitment, retention, development and promotion of minority attorneys who reflect the clients and communities they serve. Through its Diversity Committee, the Firm’s leadership recommends and implements strategies and practices consistent with its commitment to diversity.
The Firm resolves to achieve its mission by:

• Recruiting law students of the highest caliber;
• Aggressively seeking to increase the number of minority attorneys at the Firm through recruitment, retention and promotion;
• Providing a discussion forum for topics that present unique challenges to minority attorneys in the practice of law;
• Facilitating the support and mentoring of minority attorneys;
• Arranging social, professional development and networking opportunities for minority attorneys on a frequent basis;
• Managing and monitoring the allocation and quality of work assignments provided to minority attorneys to maximize access/exposure to a wide variety of the Firm’s clients and to the partners and the leadership of the Firm; and
• Ensuring that minority attorneys are represented in leadership positions and other significant decision-making roles within the Firm.

Interviewing and Recruiting
Consistent with the firm’s Strategic Plan and Diversity Mission Statement, Dickinson Wright conducts on-campus interviews and recruits at law schools with high percentages of minority students. Dickinson Wright attorneys participate in minority law student job fairs (e.g., BLSA Midwest Job Fair and Cook County Minority Job Fair) and career panels. The firm reaches out to minority student organization leadership at various law schools with a letter from its chairman, Dennis W. Archer, asking their members to consider Dickinson Wright.

Wolverine Bar Association and Floyd Skinner Bar Association Summer Clerkship
Dickinson Wright has long participated in the Summer Clerkship program sponsored by the Wolverine Bar Association (the minority bar association serving Michigan). Each year, the firm recruits one outstanding person of color from the WBA, in addition to the minority recruits from other law schools, to work at the firm as a Summer Associate. This experience provides a practical educational experience for first-year minority law students, links majority firms with the untapped pool of qualified minority law students, and increases racial, ethnic and cultural diversity in the legal profession. In Grand Rapids, Dickinson Wright participates in the Floyd Skinner Bar Association summer program, which is the functional equivalent of the Wolverine Bar Program on the West side of the State.

Federal Bar Summer Clerkship
Dickinson Wright is a sponsor of the Summer Federal Judicial Extern Program for Minority Law Students sponsored by the WBA and the Judges of the District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. The program is designed to expand judicial clerking opportunities for minority law students. Students work directly with federal judges and their clerks in preparing bench memoranda on pending cases, and view first-hand pre-trial and settlement conferences, motion hearings and trials. The Extern Program provides extraordinary experiences for law school participants and serves as a conduit for enhancing minority representation in the judiciary.

Summer High School Internship Program
The firm participates in the Detroit Summer High School Internship Program sponsored by the City of Detroit Finance Department. The Internship Program allows 30 minority high school students to gain workplace experience at participating law firms, accounting firms and investment banking firms, and to participate in weekly education classes focused on finance and accounting. Each student is assigned to one firm where the student receives supervised assignments four (4) days of the week, and all students attend a lecture/ workshop one day of the week conducted by volunteer professionals. The workshops are designed to reinforce the workplace experience through a combination of group games, lectures and field trips. The Internship Program provides an excellent exposure to the workplace for high school students, and links the firm with potential law school minority students.

Mentor Program
Each new Dickinson Wright associate and lateral hire is assigned a junior and senior mentor based on both area of specialty and race and/or gender. The mentors are tasked with assisting new hires to adjust to the firm and its culture and to serve as a liaison between the new hire and the firm.

Training and Development
All associates participate in training sessions that provide ongoing legal training as well as opportunities to interact with all of their peers. In addition to standard legal-related issues, these sessions include important topics such as sexual harassment and respecting cultural and ethnic and gender diversity.

Alternative Work Arrangements
In an effort to provide flexibility for its attorneys who have primary childcare responsibility, Dickinson Wright began providing for part-time and other alternative work arrangements long before most private law firms began to adopt such programs. The use of such flexible programs has led to the successful retention of those attorneys, primarily women, who have chosen to pursue an active practice while raising children.

Women’s Network
The women attorneys within the firm participate, on a volunteer basis, in the Dickinson Wright Women’s Network. This network arranges social, professional development and networking meetings on a quarterly basis. The meetings generally are based around a timely topic or topical issue and provide a forum for interaction among the firm’s female attorneys and their female clients. The network is designed primarily to address topics and issues that present unique challenges to women in the practice of law. The Women’s Network recently established the Dickinson Wright Women’s Network Scholarship. An amount of $2,500 will be awarded annually for the next five years to an outstanding woman law student attending one of Michigan’s five accredited law schools, providing a tangible contribution to the education and future of the high-potential women.

“The DW Women’s Network was originally designed as a mechanism to advance women in the firm, our profession, and our community. In creating the DW Women’s Network, we recognized that women lawyers face unique issues in the practice of law. One of the main purposes for the establishment of the DW Women’s Network was to provide a forum for discussing these challenges and learning how other women, both inside and outside the firm, have addressed them. The mentoring aspect of the DW Women’s Network remains one of the primary goals and a focus of our Network. We are committed to the proposition that by supporting each other, we only become stronger and more empowered to achieve new heights in our profession.”

— Kathleen A. Lang

Discussion Groups and Diversity Retreats
Dickinson Wright regularly hosts panel discussions and small seminars on the topic of diversity. The firm also recently conducted a Diversity Retreat where its minority members and associates and the Management Team met with selected clients to identify issues related to the recruitment, retention and advancement of minority attorneys and to identify client expectations and how to achieve them.

Diversity Committee
The firm’s Diversity Committee membership includes associate and member attorneys of color; a member of the Management Team; two members of the firm Governing Board; the Chair of the Recruitment Committee; a representative of the firm’s Practice Area Directors; and the firm’s Director of Legal Recruitment. These members are accountable not only as a committee, but individually, to fashion programs and policies to attain diversity goals firm-wide. The Diversity Committee reports its progress to the Management Team on a quarterly basis, and addresses whether it has achieved its goals as reviewed by the Management Team.