Exelon is the nation’s largest electric and gas utility company. Based in Chicago, the company values its focus on diversity because it is a business imperative.
“Fundamentally, we are better with a diverse workforce. The same holds true for our vendors. Diversity produces a better product and better results,” notes Andrea Zopp, the company’s executive vice president and general counsel.
Zopp ensures that Exelon’s legal department is at the forefront of the company’s diversity measures. “Exelon and its law department have had a long-standing commitment to diversity,” Zopp reflects. “We work with our vendors to ensure they are doing all they can to promote diversity in their organizations and are living up to our standards.”
Exelon’s legal department formalized its diversity effort by creating the AAA Diversity Program in 2005. The program, which stands for Awareness, Action, and Assessment, is focused not only on in–house lawyers, but also those attorneys that are hired by Exelon. Under the program, firms must report the gender and minority diversity of lawyers assigned to Exelon projects and the percentage of law firm billings represented by diverse lawyers. Exelon provides the law firms with billing profiles, ranking them by diversity billing performance, and uses the profiles in assigning new work to the firms
In order to increase diversity, Exelon Preferred Provider (EPP) law firms are encouraged and – in some cases required — to take action in three categories. First, the firms are committed to drawing from a diverse pool of professionals, including women and persons of color. Additionally, the firms are encouraged to provide opportunities for their attorneys to build relationships with Exelon attorneys. And finally, the firms must provide all diversity information and reports requested by Exelon Legal, including diversity demographic data on gender (male or female) and status as a person of color for all timekeepers available to work on Exelon matters. Exelon Legal uses the demographic information to determine the percentage of billings generated by those minorities and women, and then uses the numeric profiles to grade each firm’s commitment to diversity. Exelon makes decisions regarding the level of work assigned to each firm based upon the firm’s diversity profile, in addition to traditional factors such as cost and performance.
“We are proud of the program and the effect it has had on diversity in the legal profession. It keeps the firms moving in the right direction. We would like to get to the day where we don’t have to push for diversity or discuss it; that it would happen automatically,” Zopp concludes. DB
From the November/December 2009 issue of Diversity & The Bar®