At EpsteinBeckerGreen, we realize that diversity is critical to our success, and we welcome the unique perspectives that a diverse workforce brings to the Firm, our clients, and our profession. Our ability to draw on talent from a broad range of cultures, backgrounds, and viewpoints is a key advantage. We take pride in having our professionals learn from each others’ personal knowledge and believe that the personalities, life experiences, and values of our attorneys are an essential part of what sets EpsteinBeckerGreen apart.
Diversity Committee
Chairman
Kenneth G. Standard, New York
Members
Julie Badel, Chicago
Clifford E. Barnes, Washington, DC and New York
Steven R. Blackburn, San Francisco
Angel Gomez, III, Los Angeles
Hervé Gouraige, Newark and New York
Raymond T. Mak, New York
Kenneth G. Menendez, Atlanta
Philip D. Mitchell, Newark
Dean L. Silverberg, New York
Lynn Shapiro Snyder, Washington, DC
Robin Taylor Symons, Miami
A. Martin Wickliff, Jr., Houston
Diversity Efforts at EBG
Our Firm is committed to maintaining a diverse workforce and an environment in which all attorneys and staff members can develop to their fullest potential. We foster a work culture that promotes diversity within recruiting, professional development, and ongoing communications. The 2008 Diversity Scorecard’s annual survey of minority hiring by the nation’s biggest firms once again placed EBG in the Top 100 Law Firms for Diversity. Nearly 40 percent of the Firm’s attorneys and 28 percent of the Firm’s members are women, while 50 percent of the Firm’s total staff are minorities.
EBG’s diversity is also reflected by the fact that two members of EpsteinBeckerGreen’s 11-member board of directors are women and two other members are minorities. Additionally, four of EBG’s five core Practice Steering Committees are led by women and/or minority shareholders:
-
The Health Care and Life Sciences Practice Steering Committee is chaired by a woman shareholder.
-
The Real Estate Practice Steering Committee is chaired by a woman shareholder who also is the managing shareholder of EBG’s Atlanta office.
-
The Labor and Employment Practice Steering Committee is chaired by a minority shareholder who is also the managing shareholder of EBG’s Houston office.
-
The Litigation Practice Steering Committee is co-chaired by a minority shareholder.
EpsteinBeckerGreen is acutely aware that there is still a disproportionately small number of minority attorneys in the legal profession. In our largely successful effort to deal with this challenge while growing the Firm, we have relied heavily on the lateral recruitment of associates and members, including recruiting members from nontraditional backgrounds for firms our size--such as corporations, government agencies, and the judiciary.
The Firm also actively supports many events, organizations, and programs that give our attorneys an opportunity to advance the recruitment, retention, and promotion of minority Americans. Here are just a few examples:
-
EBG has sponsored programs at the Minority Corporate Counsel Association’s conference for the last few years in New York, the Southwest, and Washington, DC, and has been a sponsor of the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund’s National Equal Justice Award Dinner.
-
EBG established the
Hispanic Business Group, which includes attorneys from all of EBG offices who focus on the complex business and legal needs of a growing Hispanic population in the United States.
-
EBG co-founder and Washington, DC Office Managing Shareholder Steven Epstein has actively supported the creation and growth of the Institute for Responsible Citizenship, including providing the Institute with space in EBG’s offices. The Institute seeks to inspire promising young men to become exemplary citizens for life through its national internship program. The Firm has hosted numerous programs involving Institute scholars, including introducing the scholars to Washington, DC attorneys to educate the young men about the practice of law. Mr. Epstein also serves on the board of directors of Street Law, a practical participatory education program for youth to learn about law, democracy, and human rights. EBG attorneys in the DC office participate in Street Law’s programs, and the Firm sponsors Street Law’s annual gala.
-
Kenneth Standard, a minority member of the Firm and chair of the Firm’s Diversity and Professional Development Committee, and Douglas Hastings, chair of the Firm, participated in the 2008 Call to Action General Counsel’s Summit on Diversity in an effort to share best practices with other firms and business leaders and to learn additional ways EBG can improve its diversity efforts. Messrs. Standard and Hastings also are members of separate working groups formed to implement the Call to Action diversity initiative.
-
Mr. Standard is also a past president of the New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) and a current member of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession, where he co-chairs its oral history project. At the NYSBA, he co-chairs the Diversity and Leadership Committee and leads its Pipeline efforts as chair of its Outreach to Youth Committee. The NYSBA has honored Mr. Standard for his longtime leadership on diversity and inclusion issues in New York State and beyond by instituting the Kenneth G. Standard Summer Internship Program for Minority Law Students. Mr. Standard has raised tens of thousands of dollars in contributions for Street Law and recruited corporate hosts for programs and students.
-
At the suggestion of David Matyas, a member in the Firm’s Washington, DC office, the American Health Lawyers Association (AHLA) established an Advisory Council on Racial and Ethnic Diversity, which hosts numerous diversity events at AHLA conferences, and a minority law student internship program, among other activities.
EpsteinBeckerGreen also recognizes the importance of women attorneys and continually strives to increase the number of women attorneys at the Firm. EBG has implemented new recruiting programs that celebrate and emphasize gender diversity within the Firm, and it has partnered with clients, bar associations, and community organizations that cultivate similar ideals. For example, EBG founded a Women’s Initiative program, which seeks to enhance the careers of professional women. The Firm also is the founding sponsor of the Women Business Leaders of the U.S. Health Care Industry Foundation (WBL), an organization whose mission is to promote the appointment of women health care executives to corporate boards of directors by providing a forum for senior executive women to network exclusively with other senior executive women from across all segments of the health care industry. To date, more than 1,400 senior executive women and women board members currently participate in the WBL.
At EpsteinBeckerGreen, we will continue in our diversity efforts and seek to partner with clients, bar associations, and community organizations to make our society and our profession fully inclusive.
Women's Initiative
The mission of the EBG Women's Initiative is to enhance the careers of professional women by providing opportunities outside the office to network, share information, acquire skills and develop rewarding professional relationships.
About the EBG Women's Initiative
EpsteinBeckerGreen has been proactively helping clients and friends since the firm was founded in 1973. For more than three decades, EpsteinBeckerGreen has sought to better the business and professional communities in which we live and work through a variety of programs, seminars, conferences, and training and networking opportunities. We have done this using EpsteinBeckerGreen's exceptional resources: a global presence, including offices in ten major U.S. cities and affiliations worldwide; an expansive client base ranging from start-up entrepreneurs to Fortune 500 companies, which represent every industry and every business sector; attorneys at the forefront of legal, management and business issues; and inspirational female leadership within our own firm.
We help women develop professionally through EpsteinBeckerGreen programs that provide informal opportunities to network with other women executives, along with the chance to learn a little something... because, often, a little something is all that stands between where a woman is and where she can go.
Over the past six years, we have held successful golf clinics, cooking classes, media skills workshops, wine tastings and self defense classes around the country. We have received overwhelmingly positive participant feedback as well as national press coverage, which has led us to one undeniable conclusion... the EpsteinBeckerGreen Women’s Initiative works.
EpsteinBeckerGreen remains committed to building on and exceeding the national average for the numbers of minority and female attorneys both within the firm and throughout the legal profession in the U.S. The EpsteinBeckerGreen Women’s Initiative sets the scene for great women to accomplish great things. They say it's who you know – and we know outstanding women.
For more information, please contact the following individuals:
Contact
For more information, please contact EBG attorneys Frances M. Green (212-351-4654 or [email protected]), Joan A. Disler (973-639-8298 or [email protected]), or Maxine Neuhauser (973-639-8269 or [email protected]).
