Robert A. Stern
General Counsel
Sodexho, Inc. believes that diversity is a business imperative and an ethical and social responsibility, grounded in its core values of team spirit, service spirit, and a spirit of progress, which is exemplified in its legal department.
The legal department receives leadership from Robert A. Stern, general counsel, who is a avid supporter of diversity. Of the department’s 19 attorneys, 47 percent are female and 31 percent are minorities.
Five out of nine vice-president level positions are held by women or minorities. In addition, a quarter of the company’s attorneys have played instrumental roles in establishing employee networking groups, including the African-American Leadership Forum, the Women’s Networking Group, the Organization of Latinos, and the Pan Asian Network Group. Sodexho’s law department takes pride in fostering behaviors and practices that are inclusive and embrace diversity. For example, it has championed alternative work arrangements, demonstrating a commitment to understanding the diverse set of individual needs of law department staff, and then tailoring employment offers, benefits, and assignments to meet those needs. Currently, the department employs five attorneys who work alternative schedules, including one job share arrangement, which was featured in the September/October issue of Diversity & the Bar®.
Equally committed to promoting diversity within external communities, the legal department has made contributions to the Women’s Bar Association annual dinner, the Harvard Law School Black Law Students Association, and the American Association of People with Disabilities.
Since 1998, Sodexho’s retainer letter has expressed the law department’s concern about the under-representation of minority lawyers in the legal profession.
Retainer letters further encourage the target law firm to give every consideration to selecting attorneys of diverse backgrounds for the matters that Sodexho would refer to the firm. As a result, over 100 of its outside counsel are either women or minorities. Sodexho believes that management’s ability to respect and manage employee differences is essential to attracting diverse employees and building diverse, high-performing work teams, which will allow it to more effectively serve clients and enhance the company’s competitive advantage in the marketplace.
For the past three years, the law department has participated in the Minority Counsel Program of the American Bar Association Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession.
Sodexho’s commitment to workforce diversity is part of a dynamic, inclusive process for building organizational excellence, by ensuring that all employees are full partners in the company’s growth and financial success.
From the November/December 2003 issue of Diversity & The Bar®