Diversity Initiative: Goldberg Kohn, Commercial Law Firm, Attorneys

Diversity conferences and literature typically focus on the business reasons for diversity. At Goldberg Kohn, we believe that to succeed in the long term, the principal motivation behind a diversity initiative must be a focus on creating a vibrant culture in which attorneys of all backgrounds can, and desire, to succeed here in the long term. We are committed to building a firm that contributes in important ways to all facets of our community life and reflects the diversity of Chicago.

In order to ensure a professional environment that is welcoming and supportive of a diverse attorney population, Goldberg Kohn officially adopted a more elaborate diversity initiative in the Fall of 2005. This initiative leverages and enhances the firm's core cultural values with a more concerted recruiting and retention strategy for attorneys of color. The program has several components, among them being to emphasize the core principals upon which Goldberg Kohn was founded and the unique culture it has created. We believe this culture is conducive to the professional development of a diverse group of attorneys.

Throughout its 30-year history, and continuing, Goldberg Kohn has implemented a deliberate, purposeful growth plan — one attorney at a time. We do not hire or acquire practice groups and we have never merged with another firm or group of attorneys. Goldberg Kohn is one of the few single-tiered partnerships remaining among the major Chicago law firms. We operate on consensus building, not vote-counting. We have clients of the firm, not "books of business." This creates and reflects a unique environment where every principal is seen as an equal and where every attorney of every background has the opportunity and encouragement to flourish. Our focus on diversity recruitment highlights these factors because we believe that women attorneys and attorneys of color will view Goldberg Kohn as a place to establish a long-term career.

In addition, the firm has a long-standing commitment to community involvement that is consciously directed toward diminishing obstacles that traditionally cause under-representation of certain minority groups in the legal profession. For instance:

Goldberg Kohn has made an enormous and comprehensive commitment to increasing the educational opportunities for children and students of all backgrounds.

Our attorneys include the founding board members of the Chicago Charter School Foundation, Chicago's largest charter school, which is attended by more than 6,000 students – kindergarten through 12th grade – in nine (9) of Chicago's most underserved neighborhoods. More than 90% of the students are either African-American or Hispanic. The firm devotes hundreds of hours a year on this project, and have committed hundreds of thousands of dollars in pro bono legal services, to help assure that these children are provided a quality K-12 education.

The firm is a long-time supporter of the Daniel Murphy Scholarship Fund, an organization that provides economically disadvantaged students the opportunity and support necessary to attend the finest private high schools in Chicago and around the country. More than 80% of the DMSF scholars are African-American or Hispanic. DMSF also provides mentoring, college counseling, SAT test preparation, speech training, summer jobs, and other support.

The firm is an active participant and supporter of Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, which offers a Catholic college preparatory education for immigrant families of Chicago's Near Southwest side.

The firm is committed to ongoing support of economically disadvantaged students through its deep involvement in Scholarship Chicago, a foundation that provides scholarships to colleges of the student's choice, along with mentoring and summer internships. These components provide the students with tools not only to go to college, but to graduate and become successful in their chosen career. Nearly 90% of the Scholarship Chicago scholars are either African-American or Hispanic. In 2005, the firm was Chicago's first law firm to commit to becoming a High 5 Sponsor of Scholarship Chicago. As part of this sponsorship, Goldberg Kohn will donate $55,000 over a five-year period that will assist five underprivileged Chicago high school juniors pursue their dreams of going to and graduating from college.

As part of the firm's desire to build a pipeline of diverse lawyers, the firm regularly hires summer interns from Scholarship Chicago to provide opportunities to a diverse group of college students to learn about the legal profession and to develop skills that will assist them in law school. In addition, as a leading member of Meritas, an international network of law firms, the firm led the effort to create the $30,000 Meritas Scholar scholarship through the Minority Corporate Counsel Association's Lloyd M. Johnson, Jr. Scholarship Program. Successful applicants to the scholarship program will have been accepted to an accredited law school, have demonstrated leadership and an interest in and commitment to diversity.

Our firm's commitment to children includes serving as co-lead counsel on a landmark pro bono case against the State of Illinois that resulted in improved access to medical care for more than 600,000 children on welfare in Cook County. Our firm also sponsors two University of Michigan law students each summer as Bergstrom Fellows to assist in child welfare law. The law students provide much needed services to various child welfare offices specializing in representation of children, parents and social service agencies.

Goldberg Kohn's involvement in a diverse array of community and civic activities is also deep and rich:

Goldberg Kohn has regularly sponsored a diverse group of student activities and associations at the law schools where it has predominantly recruited, including among others: BLSA, CCBLSA, Black History Month, Diversity Week, LLSA, LLSA Heritage Month, APALSA, Outlaw, and the Women's Coalition. In addition, the firm is a member of the Chicago Committee on Minorities in Large Law Firms, a regular sponsor of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, and a regular sponsor of conferences aimed at addressing how to increase diversity within the legal field.

The Goldberg Kohn Foundation donates over $200,000 annually to more than 50 diverse civic and charitable causes, including among other organizations: the Chicago Urban League, the Chicago Foundation for Women, the National Women's Law Center, the Chicago Bar Foundation, Jewish United Fund, Filipino American Network, the Lawyers Committee For Better Housing, the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago, Public Interest Law Initiative, Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, and the Salvation Army.

Goldberg Kohn attorneys are leaders in the community, and this holds true among our attorneys of color. For example, Oscar Alcantara, who chairs the firm's Intellectual Property Group and Diversity Committee, also is a board member of the international organization Meritas, Inc. In addition, other attorneys of color have served as the Co-Chair of the Chicago Chapter of the Filipino Civil Rights Advocates; a board member of the Chicago Access Corporation, which oversees the Chicago Access Network Television (CAN TV); the Social Chair of the Young Lawyers Division of the Cook County Bar Association; a board member of the American Liver Foundation Illinois Chapter; a board member of the Northwestern Law School Fund Board; and as a member on the Steering Committee of the ACLU Young Advocates. Furthermore, we have a GLBY attorney who serves as a director of the Center on Halsted, a gay and lesbian community center in Chicago. This is in addition to the more than 20 firm attorneys who sit on the boards of a large variety of civic and charitable foundations and organizations in the Chicagoland area, collectively volunteering more than 2,000 hours annually.

Goldberg Kohn's Task Force on Women's Issues has been central in addressing the best practices for the firm to adopt in order to better promote women through the highest levels of the firm's leadership. As a result of the Task Force's efforts, Goldberg Kohn has become a signatory to the Chicago Bar Association Alliance for Women's "Call to Action." The Call to Action provides goals for law firm signatories to work toward and suggested best practices for achieving those goals. Denise Caplan, who chairs the firm's Corporate, Tax and Securities Group and who has served on the firm's Management Committee, is leading the firm's efforts toward meeting those goals. Goldberg Kohn's women attorneys also have established ENGAGE, a not-for-profit group designed to bring together women entrepreneurs and business leaders. ENGAGE frequently uses women-owned businesses for required services – from the design of the group's identity to event logistics. Our women attorneys are active in, among other organizations, the University of Chicago Women's Business Group (including serving as president); the National Association of Women Business Owners; the Women's Business Development Center, including sponsoring its annual Springboard event, a nationally recognized investment forum for women-owned and women-led businesses; the Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice (including serving as president-elect); the Lesbian and Gay Bar Association of Chicago (including serving as president); and the Center on Halsted.

We believe that these values and activities provide a strong foundation upon which to build a more proactive and concerted diversity initiative. The firm realizes, however, that there are many actions it can take proactively to seek out and encourage greater diversity amongst our attorneys and our firm. To that end, Goldberg Kohn has committed to pursuing the following:

The firm has established a Diversity Committee which holds primary responsibility for administering and furthering the goals of the firm Diversity Initiative. The Diversity Committee shall meet regularly and shall be comprised of a cross section of the firm’s attorneys, including associates, senior and junior partners, and individuals representing diversity communities.

As of January 2006, more than 85% of Goldberg Kohn's 85 attorneys graduated from a top-10 rated law school (as ranked in 2005 by U.S. News and World Report). These schools, however, have only a limited number of law students of color, and we realize that there are many reasons why law students of color may choose not to apply to the few law schools we have predominantly hired from over the 30-year history of our firm. Thus, the firm has committed the resources and the effort to going to the campuses of other top universities, including top universities with diverse student populations, to increase the pool of candidates we consider for our summer program.

The firm's Recruiting Committee employs search firms that specialize in minority lateral hires and will continue to do so in the future.

The firm will host a minority reception every year and invite minority law students to meet attorneys from our firm and to learn more about Goldberg Kohn.

The firm will formalize a mentoring program for all attorneys to ensure that associates' voices are heard and their needs addressed, and to help retain and promote our minority associates.

In addition to exit interviews for all attorneys, the firm will perform exit interviews for minority associates with particular interest in assessing their views of the firm culture and to uncover ways we can improve.

The ever-changing needs of the 21st century require diversity in the legal profession and in the community. It not only results in a better work product, but in a deeper appreciation of global differences that affect us all. We strongly believe that our historical civic commitment, coupled with aggressive diversity recruiting/retention efforts and diversity initiatives for the community, can create a firm that reflects our community as a whole.