CLASS OF 2022
Moving the needle in IP
With its 2022 new partner class the most diverse in the firm’s history, lawyers from Haynes Boone explain how their firm did it.
For Theresa Conduah, a woman of colour, making IP a more inclusive area of the law is an important part of her career.
“When I started my legal career, I didn’t see a lot of people who looked like me, making it difficult to envision my career path. We still have a long way to go, but I am encouraged by the progress being made.
“Meaningful progress will require all of us to work together and having several of my IP colleagues recognised for their diversity efforts mirrors our firm’s commitment to advancing diversity,” Conduah says.
For Tom Chen, making advancements in D&I is especially important for him personally—in part because of his upbringing and experiences growing up in Orange County, California, in the 1970s. Chen’s high school of more than 1,200 students had only a handful of Asian students.
“I pretended not to know how to speak Chinese, even though that was my first language, because I thought that would make me fit in better and be less a target of being made fun of,” says Chen.
Haynes Boone prides itself in having a long-term focus on diversity and inclusion (D&I), with leaders who are committed to increasing the numbers of diverse lawyers on their teams and ensuring they have opportunities to develop professionally and excel. The firm also has programmes underway to nurture the next generation of lawyers and help move the needle in the historically white-male-dominated legal profession.
Individual practice groups are building on the firm’s momentum and supporting its work to drive meaningful change in the legal profession. Here, we discuss two initiatives in Haynes Boone’s IP practice group.
Our 2022 new partner class was the most diverse in the firm’s history, with 62% racial and ethnic minorities and 69% women. Of these partners, 15.3% are in IP. All but two of the 13 new partners (85%) started their careers at Haynes Boone—a testament to our sustained commitment to creating a workplace culture where diverse lawyers can thrive.
The firm also recently elevated another accomplished, diverse group of lawyers to counsel. The 2022 new counsel class comprises 55% women and 27% racial and ethnic minorities, of which 36.3% are in IP. Our newly-promoted partners and counsel are an embodiment of the firm’s commitment to recruit and train associates in a robust, equitable and inclusive manner, providing them with the mentorship and meaningful client and leadership responsibilities they need to advance their careers.
Focus on retention
A challenge facing all firms is how to retain women and diverse attorneys. Today, 59% of our non-partner lawyers, patent agents and specialists are diverse, while 40% of our partners are diverse. In 2020-2021, 60% of our entry-level associates were diverse.
We are working diligently to grow our diverse junior talent and ensure everyone feels valued and connected. One approach is through our 10 inclusion networks, which include a First Generation Network (first professionals in the family), a Pipeline Initiatives Network, a Women’s Initiative Network, and a Black/African American Network, which partner Theresa Conduah co-chairs.
Haynes Boone New Partner Class, 2022
Racial and ethnic minorities
Women
In 2020, Haynes Boone formed the Racial Equality Advancement in Law (REAL) Task Force to address the challenges we face retaining diverse, particularly Black, lawyers. The group was led by senior lawyers, including managing partner Taylor Wilson, and Sharon Jones and Tom Chen, who are leading a charge to implement 11 actions for meaningful change at the firm.
Actions included mandatory education and training around diversity issues, as well as enhancing integration for Black attorneys and evaluating optimal work allocation systems for associates.
Within less than two years, the fruits of the firm’s labour can be seen playing out in places such as the IP group, where we have started two initiatives that fall under the ‘integration’ and ‘work allocation’ umbrellas. Supporting the integration concept, we are creating groups called ‘Clusters’ in which a cross-section of lawyers from different races/ethnicities, genders, ages, practices, and seniority form cohorts that provide diverse lawyers with close-knit support, feedback, work and business development opportunities, and guidance.
The idea stemmed from a larger firm-wide integration programme for summer associates that started in 2020 and was extended to lateral hires. ‘HB Connect Groups’ were created to give summer associates and laterals a way to get integrated, stay connected, and experience the firm’s culture with attorneys from different offices and groups. Each HB Connect Group met two to three times for 30 minutes to have free-flowing conversation. Some groups came up with topics for each session; others used the time to check in and discuss their experiences.
Similarly, the IP group is creating a specialised, year-round version of HB Connect Groups with a D&I twist.
Mallika Dargan, a JD candidate and IP summer associate at Haynes Boone, said she appreciated the firm’s “active efforts to promote D&I in the IP group” during her summer stint.
”Knowing my firm is very sincerely doing everything it can to increase D&I reaffirms my decision to work at Haynes Boone and makes me want to stay.”
Annie Allison
“I was paired with a diverse IP attorney as my mentor who I created a very warm and rewarding bond with. I also attended some of the inclusion network events with attorneys from the IP group,” says Dargan. “It felt like D&I was a true priority and I felt very welcomed in the IP group.”
Some ideas have come about in response to the ChIPs and Diversity Lab Inclusion Blueprint Survey, which measures the representation of diverse lawyers and career-enhancing inclusion activities to ensure historically underrepresented lawyers have fair and equal access to quality work, influential people, and other opportunities. The survey includes three categories of questions: diversity representation target thresholds and year-over-year progress; ongoing inclusion practices and activities; and commitment to implementing “hard” actions over the next year. Diversity Lab then collects and analyses the data.
In early 2022, partner Richard Rochford, chair of the firm’s IP litigation practice group, started a ‘work allocation’ programme to ensure new associates and lateral hires were being fully integrated into the practice group.
“I wanted to let partners and counsel at the firm know about new hires that they could work with on a matter. I saw this as a way to help our attorneys become more integrated and meet more senior lawyers outside their groups or in different locations,” Rochford says. “I thought we could do this through a structured work allocation programme.”
The concept mirrors a longstanding firm-wide programme in which Catherine Dunbar, manager of attorney development, talks with new associates regularly to get a sense of their billable hours, the type of work they are doing, and what they would like to be doing. The one-on-one meetings also help Dunbar develop relationships with the lawyers.
As associate Annie Allison says: “Knowing my firm is very sincerely doing everything it can to increase D&I reaffirms my decision to work at Haynes Boone and makes me want to stay.”
Industry recognition
Senior management has been dedicated to supporting women at Haynes Boone since the early days in the 1970s when the firm was one of the first in Texas to hire women lawyers. Women have since played very prominent roles at Haynes Boone and received widespread recognition for their work.
In June, the Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA), one of the legal profession’s premier diversity and inclusion organisations, named IP partner Purvi Patel Albers a recipient of the 2022 MCCA Rainmakers Award. The MCCA champions the hiring, retention, and promotion of diverse attorneys in corporate law departments and law firms. Patel Albers was the youngest attorney to become an equity partner in Haynes Boone’s history in 2007; today, she is a member of our board of directors who works tirelessly in her efforts to advance D&I initiatives within the firm and the legal community.
Haynes Boone’s commitment to advancing women is a part of our overall strategic plan to foster an inclusive and respectful work environment. For nine years, the firm has received the Women in Law Empowerment Forum (WILEF) Gold Standard Certification, showing our continued commitment to D&I. To qualify for the certification, the firm has to satisfy both of the following criteria: 25% of equity partners or, alternatively, 40% of the attorneys becoming equity partners during the past 12 months are women; and 10% of women equity partners are women of colour or 4% of women equity partners are LGBTQ+.
”I pretended not to know how to speak Chinese, even though that was my first language, because I thought that would make me fit in...“
Tom Chen
The firm also achieved Mansfield Rule 4.0 Plus certification after completing a rigorous 12-month collaboration with Diversity Lab. The Mansfield Rule has become the standard by which law firms track and measure that they have affirmatively considered diverse lawyers for leadership roles.
Mansfield Certification Plus status shows even greater success in diversifying law firm leadership. To achieve Mansfield Certified Plus recognition, a law firm must have appointed at least 30% women, underrepresented racial/ethnic groups, LGBTQ+ lawyers, and lawyers with disabilities for leadership and governance roles over the last year.
In August, Bloomberg Law highlighted Haynes Boone’s demonstrated commitment to D&I by naming the firm in its 2022 D&I Framework. The firm is among 43 US-based law firms recognised in the framework for their level of disclosure of diversity-related metrics and distinguished performance.
Little by little, we are achieving our vision of becoming an established market leader in D&I. From the highest levels of firm management to practice group leaders and associate ranks, D&I must be seen as an opportunity to create a real competitive advantage in the legal industry. It must be woven into the culture that defines the firm.
If we can continue moving the needle with our D&I programmes and initiatives, we will reap the rewards.
Tom Chen is a member of the executive committee and board of directors and co-chair of the attorney diversity and inclusion committee at Haynes Boone. He can be contacted at: tom.chen@haynesboone.com
Theresa Conduah is a partner in the IP practice group at Haynes Boone in Orange County. She can be contacted at: Theresa.Conduah@haynesboone.com
Annie Allison is an associate in the IP practice group at Haynes Boone in New York. She can be contacted at: Annie.Allison@haynesboone.com
Images: Shutterstock / Filippo Carlot