"Before we launched MCCA, I knew that what was needed was clear evidence that there was a pathway to lasting success in achieving diversity goals."
– Lloyd Johnson
In the mid-90s, Lloyd Johnson Jr., founder of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA), spent a lot of time thinking about a problem that wasn't getting solved: the lack of diversity in corporate law departments. As a lawyer who is also African-American, he had already worked in two law departments—Hewlett-Packard and Empire BlueCross—and had run his own law firm. However, through his participation in two professional association diversity committees and his own observations, Johnson knew that minority hiring and promotions in law departments were increasing at a slow pace.
To Johnson, who was accustomed to nothing short of all-out efforts (he was on the NCAA champion USC track and field teams in 1976 and 1978), the slow pace of change became a call to action. "I decided to call attention to the issue," Johnson said recently, "by hosting a reception in Manhattan for minority attorneys and people running law departments. More than 200 people attended. This outpouring of interest convinced me that a new organization was needed to focus on expanding diversity."
In order to determine the next steps, Johnson reached out to people in the legal community who would soon form the core group of MCCA supporters. Thomas L. Sager, assistant general counsel at Dupont Company, provided some early financial support and helped enroll Dana Mayer, a diversity consultant and strategist who subsequently helped to significantly shape MCCA's direction. General counsel such as Richard Rawson of Lucent Technologies Inc., Anastasia Kelly of Sears, Roebuck and Co., Jose de Lasa of Abbott Laboratories, Howard Rudge of DuPont Company, Rebecca Goss of Eli Lily and Company, Robert Sharpe of PepsiCo Inc., Kenneth Frazier of Merck & Co., Inc., Joseph Ryan of Marriott International, Inc., and other early diversity leaders provided support and worked the telephone lines. Additionally, Vernon Jordan, then a partner at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP, and Anthony Greene, director at Herbert L. Jamison Insurance Co., were there every step of the way.
From the outset, Johnson's vision for MCCA was supported by extensive research, which examined the needs of corporate law departments and looked at what was preventing them from expanding diversity. Law departments needed to know more about the diversity best practices that would lead to lasting success in expanding diversity and moving away from one-shot and ineffective initiatives. They needed an ongoing source of information about diversity initiatives that produced good results and a set of metrics that would enable them to track their progress. And, they needed to have a point of focus to ensure that attention would be paid to diversity efforts year after year.
"It seemed obvious to me in 1997," Johnson explains, "that what we needed to do was create a national survey to collect diversity employment numbers, hold dinners around the country to focus attention on the metrics and publicize the good performers, and publish a national magazine to provide a steady flow of information about best practices and role models." For a fledging organization with virtually no money, these steps struck many as impossible to achieve. And yet, they also made sense.
Johnson and Mayer, together with many of the board of directors, developed a strategic plan that built on the vision. Ongoing research into diversity best practices and the experiences of successful law departments and law firms became the substantive foundation. The research findings would be shared with law department members and law firms through a magazine, website, general counsel roundtables, and annual conferences. Awards for law departments, law firms, and legal community diversity leaders would bring recognition to those acting on the commitment.
Johnson, who by 1997 was traveling constantly to meet with general counsel, law department diversity committees, and potential supporters, launched the first diversity survey by sending letters to the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. For many, the survey itself was a wake-up call that people were looking at law department employment numbers. "The key role of the survey," said Johnson, "was to announce that every year someone outside the company would be looking at diversity progress in the law department. Whereas previously, perhaps not even the general counsel had been monitoring such progress. The data collection was symbolic and practical."
The Diversity 2000 Award Dinners, which began in 1997 in Washington, DC, were also symbolic and practical. "Corporate performance is always stimulated by competition and recognition and we had to have a vehicle that would create both," said Johnson.
"The dinner series gave us a forum to point to the role models as proof that achieving diversity is positive and realistic. This message has reached more and more people every year as the number of people attending the dinners has grown. In New York, last year we had more than 1100 people from law departments, law firms, and even law schools." More than 40 corporate law departments have been honored at the 17 dinners held in major cities around the United States.
"I always felt that the most effective way to accelerate law firms changing their commitment to diversity was to leverage the purchasing power of their clients," he continued. "The dinner series provided a way for law departments to invite their law firms to attend the dinners and bring senior attorneys from their firms. After five years, thousands of law firm attorneys have been exposed to the message that its corporate clients expect the firms to achieve diversity in the legal teams that serve them. This is a powerful message for change."
Another smart move to reinforce the message to law firms was the creation of the Thomas L. Sager award. Named in honor of Sager's leading efforts at DuPont Company to open doors at law firms for minority attorneys, the Sager Award is presented at the dinners to law firms whose performance demonstrates sustained commitment to diversity.
"Law firms are the training ground for many attorneys who eventually go in-house. Our goal was to be sure that law firms hired and trained minorities who could then become candidates for these in-house jobs. The Sager Award was a positive way of showing the law firms that all the old excuses for not hiring minorities weren't taken seriously by the leaders," explains Johnson.
The dinner series also provided the funding base for MCCA along with the corporate membership program. Together, they provide a base of more than a million dollars a year. This base has enabled MCCA to publish Diversity & the Bar magazine, which is now sent quarterly to 30,000 in-house and law firm attorneys. It continues to deliver critical diversity research and information to help reshape the profession.
The magazine and the MCCA website provide the most substantial and continuing coverage of legal community diversity issues in the country. "We knew early on that we had to sustain a high level of attention to diversity issues. Without a magazine filled with stories about diversity hitting the desks of the most influential attorneys in law departments, we ran the risk of falling off their radar," said Johnson.
In 1997, to overcome the initial lack of financing, Johnson developed a publishing partnership with Corporate Legal Times. Johnson realized that Diversity & the Bar could become a valuable publication that would attract the support of advertisers.
Through the partnership with Corporate Legal Times, MCCA maintained responsibility for the content and Corporate Legal Times took on the responsibility of producing and distributing the publication. In 1999, when the original agreement was concluded, Johnson negotiated an even more attractive partnership with American Lawyer Media, who then took over as the production and distribution partner.
The website, first established in 1998, expanded MCCA's outreach. With the help of a major grant from Sears, Roebuck and Co., Johnson created the first national online job posting and recruiting center for minority and women attorneys.
Sponsored now by DuPont and its Primary Law Firms, the job-posting site provides corporate law departments and law firms with the means to post openings with the certainty of reaching diversity candidates.
In 2000, MCCA launched the Pathways to Diversity research program, the most significant research program so far. This study focused on the diversity practices of 16 companies and documented the most important principles and strategies in five key areas of law department management to achieve success. The Pathways study has provided a clear roadmap for law departments of all sizes to develop and implement a long-term diversity plan that will yield positive results through the process.
"Before we launched MCCA," Johnson explains, "I knew that what was needed was clear evidence that there was a pathway to lasting success in achieving diversity goals. So much of what was around at the time were well-intentioned efforts where everyone was repeating all the old mistakes. The Pathways study produced a major breakthrough because it clearly and coherently maps the steps that departments have to take. I think this is probably the most important substantive deliverable we have provided yet for members."
MCCA, which now has grown to more than 80 corporate law department members, is successfully making the transition from the founder generation. Johnson is now the chairman of the board and has been succeeded in the executive director role by Veta T. Richardson, who joined MCCA in 2001, after having served as the vice president and deputy general counsel at the American Corporate Counsel Association. Today, the board of directors, which was once a small group of original supporters, has grown to 14 members, many of whom are general counsel and leaders from major corporate law departments.
For Johnson, the founding of MCCA has been a long and all-consuming process. Through the early days, it was only because Johnson and his wife, Zenobia Johnson, were willing to finance the organization on credit cards and through deferred paychecks that MCCA survived.
Even when others joined the board of directors and took on leadership roles spearheading major projects, it was always Johnson's relentless schedule of face-to-face meetings and energy that sustained continuity and momentum. It was not unusual for him to personally call the managing partners of hundreds of law firms to encourage them to turn out for the Diversity 2000 Dinners. "It would have been less expensive for me to buy a telephone company considering the phone bill we had," said Johnson.
"I think it will be a decade before I really digest what this experience has all meant to me," Johnson said. "For me, the need was to keep moving ahead every day to make progress on the key goals. There were a lot of setbacks and problems that simply had to be overcome. For us to succeed, we had to be creative, and when a goal was threatened because someone didn't deliver, I just had to find someone else who would.
Generating enthusiasm within the legal community for diversity and turning MCCA into a highly visible and respected brand with staying power, has been the most exciting and exhausting experience of my life."
What are the diversity challenges that lie ahead for the legal community? According to Johnson, "The diversity challenge for the 21st century is globalization. International trade is driving the business community in so many ways including through the Internet. Even smaller companies are selling globally. This means managing legal affairs in scores of countries around the world and creating law departments and legal teams that can manage on this scale. In the context of this globalization, diversity is a prerequisite for success.
The need to be able to successfully manage the cultural dimensions of a global legal team will be paramount in the 21st century. Companies that are achieving diversity in the United States have a head start because they are beginning to understand how to tap the strengths that come from a multicultural team."
"Before we launched MCCA, I knew that what was needed was clear evidence that there was a pathway to lasting success in achieving diversity goals."
—Lloyd Johnson
Stephen E. Nowlan was chairman of the executive committee of the MCCA board of directors from 1998-2000.
From the December 2001 issue of Diversity & The Bar®