James Sandman
Partner
The year 2003 marks the fifth consecutive year that MCCA® has honored Arnold & Porter’s Washington, D.C. office for its diversity efforts.
Arnold and Porter was presented with the Sager award twice this year. Its Washington, D.C. office won the Sager award for the mid-Atlantic region, and its New York office won the award for the Northeast region. Arnold & Porter was also the recipient of the Sager Award in 1999, 2000, and 2002. In 2001, MCCA named the firm an “Employer of Choice,” which was the first and only time a law firm received the award.
MCCA has watched and rewarded Arnold & Porter’s meteoric transformation into one of the most diverse law offices in the United States. Strategic recruitment and retention programs have ensured that not only is this firm diverse now but that their inclusiveness will continue to increase.
Eighteen percent of Arnold & Porter’s attorneys in the D.C. office are minorities and 35 percent are women. In the 2002 summer associates program, 48 percent of the 56 associates were women and 39 percent were minorities, the most diverse class in the office’s history. Over the past five years, Arnold & Porter’s D.C. office has increased the number of minorities by 300 percent and the number of women by 82 percent. In each of the past four years, more than 20 percent of new associate hires have been minorities.
In the three years from 2000 to 2002, the retention rate for minorities was higher than that for all associates, contrary to the experience of most law firms.
The keys to Arnold & Porter’s success have included commitment from the very top, and the involvement of women and minority attorneys at all levels, including key committees and leadership.
The firm supports affinity groups in which informal mentoring between senior minority and women attorneys and new associates can take place. Arnold & Porter also conducts mandatory top-down diversity training.
In addition, the firm provides flexible programs to allow all attorneys, including associates, to meet the demands of family and professional commitments, such as day-care, telecommuting, and viable part-time programs.
Arnold & Porter continues to win this award because the firm is always improving and has a deep-seeded commitment to diversity.
The firm also was recognized as a “smart firm” by JD Jungle magazine in 2002 for the firm’s diversity efforts and by Working Mother magazine as one of the “100 Best Companies for Working Mothers” for the fourth time in September 2002, when it was chosen “Best in Class” in the category of “Leave for New Parents.” Additionally, the firm’s work environment was recognized this year by Fortune, which ranked it one of only three law firms in the magazine’s 2003 list of “100 Best Companies to Work for.”
From the November/December 2003 issue of Diversity & The Bar®