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Ropes & Gray's commitment to diversity has long placed a particular
focus on attorneys of color. In 1985, the firm was a founding member
of the Boston Lawyers Group (then known as the Boston Law Firm Group).
BLG is a consortium of Boston-area law firms, governmental law departments
and in-house corporate counsel that collaborates on various programs
and initiatives calculated to further BLG's stated mission, which is
to support the efforts of its member organizations to recruit,
advance and retain attorneys of color. At the time of its founding,
BLG was the nation's first city-wide collaboration of this kind. Since
1985, BLG members — using BLG and its varied programs as a spring
board — have
achieved substantial increases in the number and percentage of attorneys
of color that they employ, and BLG itself has become a model for similar
consortiums formed in many cities around the country. Ropes & Gray
lawyers have been active not only in founding, but thereafter in carrying
out, BLG's vision of a
more
diverse
community.
Roscoe
Trimmier,
the firm's first African-American partner and former head of the Litigation
Department, and now counsel to the firm, served as an original member of the BLG's executive
committee and was instrumental in drafting the charter adopted by the
BLG's original member firms. A majority partner at Ropes & Gray
chaired the inaugural committee of the BLG that addresses issues of
retention of minority lawyers. Today, Ropes & Gray lawyers serve
as members of BLG's Executive Committee, Hiring & Education Committee,
Diversity Best Practices Committee, and Associate Advisory Committee.
Also, Ropes & Gray
regularly participates in the BLG-sponsored job fair that is conducted
in Boston. |
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Boston office Attorneys of Color Group members (from left to right): Anita Varma, Heidy Abreu (Cornell Law School '08), Ivan Thomann (Boston University School of Law '07), Dennis Coleman, Milap Patel (New York University Law School '03), Patricia Chen (Harvard Law School '07) and Mark Yeboah (Harvard Law School '09) |
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The firm is also an active participant
in the programs sponsored by the Partnership, a non-profit organization
whose mission, in part, is to attract and retain young professionals
of color in the Boston area. We often sponsor young lawyers
in the Partnership's fellowship program, a program designed to introduce
Fellows to the corporate, civic, arts and other aspects of Boston city
life.
Not only is Ropes & Gray a leader on issues related to attorneys of color, but our attorneys of color hold significant positions within the firm as well. Our attorneys of color lead practice groups and serve on a number of the cross-departmental
committees and groups that administer the firm on a day-to-day basis, including
the Associates Committee, the Hiring
Group, the Diversity Committee, the Associates
Development Committee, the Women's Forum and the Training
Advisory Committee. The attorneys of color at Ropes & Gray include 30 partners and comprise 16% of the lawyers in the firm (see Demographics); they are spread across all our major practice areas and occupy a wide range of seniority levels within those practice areas. Out of the leading 150 law firms nationwide, Vault has rated Ropes & Gray #4 in terms of diversity and #6 in diversity with respect to minorities. See Attorneys
of Color Bios.
The firm sponsors the Attorneys of Color group for social and professional
support of its attorneys of color. The AOC group conducts regular quarterly meetings
and leads special events oriented towards the firm's attorneys of color. Recent
events include a panel on mentoring issues, a summer event at a local entertainment
venue, and a cocktail party at a nearby restaurant. The AOC group's meetings
and events are intended to provide opportunities for the firm's attorneys of
color to share their unique experiences within the firm, to encourage mentoring
relationships among the more senior and junior attorneys through its Full Circle
mentoring program, and to ensure that attorneys of color feel welcomed and supported.
The Group sponsors, with the Diversity Committee, a leadership skills program to support junior associates in their first three years of practice and promote mentoring relationships with majority and minority partners. Pictured here are attendees at events the group hosts during the spring and summer. |
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| Here are a few photos from our Attorneys
of Color event welcoming the first-year associates to Ropes & Gray. |
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The Attorneys of Color group gets together periodically to discuss relevant topics that pertain to them as a group. |
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Giselle Joffre is enjoying a light moment at one get together; Sara Guiterrez Dunn listening to Joy Liu discuss her experience.
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Recent AOC partner, Elizabeth Reza, participating at a diversity symposium; Heidy Abreu and Malik Lewis comparing notes.
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Many from our AOC group, as well as John Montgomery, Managing Partner, and other colleagues participated in the Walk to the Hill for Legal Aid to encourage legislators to provide adequate funding for legal aid programs.
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For more
information about the firm's diversity commitment as it applies to
attorneys of
color
at
Ropes & Gray,
please contact Dennis
Coleman.
If you are interested in viewing personal biographies of some of our
Attorneys of Color, please click on the name below.
Heidy Abreu
Kristin Ali
Amanda Austin
Andrea Brobeil
Brenda Carr
Rajib Chanda
Ken Chow
Dennis Coleman
Erin Fuse Brown
Sara
Gutiérrez Dunn
Hiro Hagiwara
Alice Ho
Khue Hoang
Tsuyoshi Imai
Vincent Ip
Janice Jabido
Giselle Joffre
Jay J. Kim
William Kim
Minh-Chau Le
Julia Ledbetter
Gene Lee
John Lee
Michael Lee
Malik Lewis
Winifred Li
Joy Liu
Raj Marphatia
Milap Patel
Diane Patrick
Sasha Rao
Sunil Savkar
Monica Singh
Leslie Spencer
Kevin Strom
Shreevani Suvarna
Andrew Sung
Jay Tai
Roscoe Trimmier
Thomas Wang
Dalila Arguez Wendlandt
Keith Wofford
Michael Li-Ming Wong
Mark Yeboah
Jesse Yeo
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