Violet M. Clark,
Partner
Laner, Muchin, Dombrow, Becker, Levin and Tominberg, Ltd., represents employers in labor relations, employment litigation, employee benefits, and business immigration cases.
Laner Muchin, with 47 lawyers, is small relative to most Sager Award winners, but its commitment to diversity is just as strong. Two-thirds of the firm’s associates are women and half are minorities. Nearly 10 percent of its partners are minorities and 16 percent are women. And a whopping 43 percent of its new hires are minorities and 57 percent are women. “The firm values having employees from a variety of backgrounds who bring a myriad of life experiences,” says managing partner, Joseph M. Gagliardo. “This diversity gives us the ability to offer client advice from a variety of perspectives. We believe this is an essential element of our success in the field.”
How did such a small firm come to devote so much attention to diversity?
From its inception, Laner Muchin has serviced clients that have diverse workforces. The firm recognized early on that if it wanted to be most effective in counseling its clients and in negotiating collective bargaining agreements with unions that represented a significant number of minorities, it needed to have a diverse team. Over the years, Laner Muchin created that diverse team.
(L-R) Violet Clark, Partner, Laner Muchin; Gary H. Pilnick, Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary, Kellogg Company; and Joseph Gagliardo, Managing Partner, Laner Muchin.
In 1988, the firm hired its first African American associate. To ensure her success, and the success of minorities who followed, the firm matched incoming diverse associates with successful lawyers and rainmakers. The success of these initial mentoring relationships led to a formal mentoring program for all new associates, a program which is carefully monitored by the firm. To date, Laner Muchin has two female minority equity partners, a female equity partner who sits on the firm’s governing Executive Committee, and a significant female and minority presence on every firm committee.
Laner Muchin continues to grow by confronting, rather than shying away from, its diversity challenges. In the 1990s, the firm noticed that a significant turnover in its associates, and it wanted to reverse the trend. A diversity committee was established, and began working with a consultant to analyze the firm’s culture. The firm responded by creating a diversity training program to address the issue and virtually shut down for several days to conduct the training and to implement the recommendations of its diversity consultant. The effort paid off, and the attrition rate for associates has been stemmed and the number of female and minority attorneys at all levels continues to grow.
Throughout the past few years, Laner Muchin has received numerous awards, Black Student Law Association Outstanding Contributions Award in 2004–2005, recognition by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services for being a Find Your Future Internship Program Sponsor in 2006 and the Aspire Community Partnership Award 2005 (Aspire is a not-for-profit organization that provides day and residential services to developmentally disabled individuals).
From the November/December 2007 issue of Diversity & The Bar®