Michael Boone
Partner
With cultural and ethnic diversity as a core corporate value, Haynes and Boone, LLP has enhanced innovation in its delivery of high-quality legal services to a diverse marketplace.
Haynes and Boone’s lawyers reflect the diversity of its clients and communities. Of its 422 attorneys, in the southwest region, 52 are minorities and 126 are women. Seventeen percent of partners and 35 percent of associates are female. This level of diversity is also found at the firm’s senior levels. Its 12-member board of directors has three women, and two of the six section heads are women.
This success is at least partially attributable to the firm’s implementation of MCCA’s diversity recommended practices. These practices include lateral recruiting of minority and women attorneys who can mentor incoming associates, adding schools with high minority graduation rates to their recruiting network, and incorporating minorities and women in the recruiting process.
The firm recently established the Haynes and Boone Scholars program at SMU Dedman School of Law and the University of Texas School of Law. Awardees will receive a stipend, a summer clerkship, and participate in a mentoring program.
Haynes and Boone’s recruitment process is highly intensive, with attorneys attending numerous job fairs, engaging in on-campus recruiting at schools with significant minority representation, seeking recommendations on minority students from professors, sponsoring minority law student career development events, soliciting resumes from minority organizations at law schools, and hosting cocktail receptions at various minority job fairs. Minority attorneys, especially, play a part in on-campus recruiting, interviewing and hiring decisions.
The firm is equally committed to the advancement and retention of its minority and women lawyers. The firm created an advancement and retention committee, comprised of a cross-section of the firm, including several women and minority lawyers. Under the committee’s supervision, special emphasis on mentoring and training to enhance each attorney’s career is featured.
Minority and women attorneys are also encouraged to participate in and take leadership roles with outside networks such as local and national minority bar associations and events. These actions give attorneys exposure and widen the recruitment pool by demonstrating the firm’s commitment to diversity.
These extensive recruitment initiatives and retention programs earned Haynes and Boone a ranking in the top 40 in the percentage of minority attorneys by The Minority Law Journal. The firm serves as a role model for other law firms.
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From the December 2002 issue of Diversity & The Bar®