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Top Talent, Showcase Diversity Initiatives


The 2009 National LGBT Bar Association’s annual Career Fair and Conference (popularly known as “Lavender Law”) will provide law firms with a unique recruiting opportunity during troubled economic times, according to the conference’s organizers and supporters. 

Lavender Law is “a celebration of diversity,” says D’Arcy Kemnitz, Executive Director of the National LGBT Bar Association, an organization formerly known as the National Lesbian and Gay Law Association.  The conference’s purpose is to bring together legal practitioners, judges, scholars, and law students in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (“LGBT”) legal community.   As part of the conference, Lavender Law includes a one-day job fair, which provides law firms and other organizations – including government agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. Treasury’s Comptroller of the Currency, and District Attorneys’ Offices – a chance to talk to talented LGBT law students and lateral candidates and showcase the firms’ and organizations’ diversity initiatives and LGBT-friendly environments. 

Although the current upheaval in the economy and legal industry has created uncertainty for attorneys and law students in the job market, the resultant increased competition for fewer jobs means that more firms have greater access to “cream of the crop students,” says Elaine Arabatzis, Diversity and Pro Bono Counsel for Dickstein Shapiro LLP.  In a normal economic climate, most top-tier students, especially those from highly ranked law schools, secured job offers early in the recruiting season.  But in today’s legal job market, large numbers of talented law students have fewer options open to them, which means more firms have access to top talent than ever before, says Arabatzis.   Lavender Law is a cost-effective method by which law firms gain exposure to a huge segment of promising young law students who are also diverse job candidates.

Recruiting at Lavender Law 2009

This year’s Lavender Law career fair and conference, which will be held in Brooklyn, New York, is scheduled for September 10 through 12, with a welcome reception on the evening of September 9.  The career fair will be held on September 10, with numerous workshops and social events happening throughout the remainder of the weekend.  While firms have the opportunity to sponsor various receptions and lunches held throughout the conference, tables at the career fair are available for as little as $1000, making Lavender Law’s career fair an affordable way firms can promote themselves to a broad array of diverse and talented job candidates.  Firms wishing to sponsor additional programs or events throughout the conference have the option of taking advantage of one of the numerous sponsorship packages offered by the National LGBT Bar Association. 
Recruiting at Lavender Law’s career fair provides law firms with at least three distinct benefits.  First, because hundreds of law students and lateral candidates attend, Lavender Law’s career fair gives firms the chance to meet and recruit a large number of promising law students and lateral candidates in a single day.  Second, Lavender Law provides firms with the opportunity to showcase their diversity initiatives and LGBT-friendly environments directly to LGBT law students and lateral candidates.  Third, participation in the conference is a concrete example of the firms’ commitment to diversity at a time when clients are increasingly demanding diversity of their outside legal providers’ and the firms’ client service teams.   

Recruiting Top Diverse Talent

Lavender Law’s career fair is the only national legal recruiting forum focusing on LGBT law students and lateral candidates.  “Lavender Law may be more important to employers than to the students attending,” says James Leipold, Executive Director of National Association for Law Placement (“NALP”).  “It is a clear avenue for employers to recruit LGBT law students.” 

The recent upheavals in the legal market, reported in such mediums as American Lawyer and the legal industry blog Above the Law, as well as numerous other publications, mean that more students are competing for fewer positions available at law firms.  Top students, especially those at highly regarded law schools, used to get snapped - up by firms right away, but because of the slump in the job market, these students are still in play, says Arabatzis.  Lavender Law’s career fair and conference provide firms with access to that extraordinary talent, she says. 

The number of students attending Lavender Law has been increasing steadily, according to statistics maintained by the National LGBT Bar Association.  In 2006, 400 students attended Lavender Law; in 2008, that number increased to 590.  Over 25% of the student attendees at the 2008 conference came from law schools ranked in U.S. News & World Report’s top twenty, including Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, New York University, University of California – Berkeley, University of Chicago, Georgetown, and University of Virginia. 

"Firms have the opportunity to rise to today’s economic challenges and maximize the value of their diversity initiatives," says Arabatzis.  Because Lavender Law offers several different sponsorship options to participating firms, the conference is a cost-effective recruiting tool.  “These students are competing fiercely for the jobs that are out there,” she says. “Why would firms not want to take advantage of that?”

Showcasing Diversity Initiatives to LGBT Candidates

Lavender Law’s focus on the LGBT legal community gives participating law firms the opportunity to showcase their firms’ diversity programs and LGBT-friendly policies and environments directly to LGBT students and lateral candidates.  Participation in Lavender Law is a testament to the firms’ commitments to diversity and LGBT-friendly cultures that the firms can highlight in their marketing materials.

Firms participating in Lavender Law’s career fair have a chance to interview students, as well as give students the chance to interview firms, says Arabatzis.  “The job fair gives the students a chance to truly get a sense of the firms’ real commitment to diversity.”

According to Leipold, LGBT candidates do look at, and ask recruiters about, firms’ diversity policies, committees, and affinity groups.  “If an organization hasn’t done a self-audit in terms of its policies and public front on LGBT issues – if it hasn’t put the policies in place – it simply takes itself out of the recruiting market for a large segment of the population,” he says.  Lavender Law gives firms with LGBT-friendly policies a chance to publicize those initiatives directly to the LGBT legal community.  Such policies include sexual orientation and gender identity and expression in non-discrimination policies, extension of  benefits such as health care and bereavement benefits to same-sex partners, and gender identity and expression and gender transitioning training.

Two additional factors firms can emphasize when marketing themselves to the LGBT student and lateral legal community are acceptance and mentoring, says Kemnitz.  LGBT students are interested in learning about the level of comfort law firms truly have with LGBT attorneys; for example, they want to know if they can bring their partners to social functions sponsored by the firm, or if they can display photographs of their same-sex partners in their offices.  Says Kemnitz, “Giving an individual a fighting chance to be who they are is really the goal here.” 
When it comes to mentoring, says Kemnitz, LGBT students are interested in working with intelligent, savvy mentors who can guide them in making prudent career choices.  “LGBT students know they do not have to be mentored by someone who fits in the exact same demographic they do,” she says.  Instead, these students  want to know that they will have opportunities to succeed at the firm, regardless of their sexual identity or gender expression.

Additionally, legal practitioners attending Lavender Law as firm and organization representatives can be role models for LGBT candidates by demonstrating to the law students  that it is possible to succeed as an  LGBT attorney.  According to Arabatzis, “Students attending Lavender Law have a great opportunity to see established practitioners and get a sense of how they themselves may want to represent themselves in the field.” 
Showcasing Diversity Initiatives to Clients

Law firms participating in Lavender Law may cite their participation as an example of their commitment to diversity to clients who inquire about the firms’ diversity initiatives.  “There’s more going on [regarding diversity] than just the bottom line,” says Kemnitz.  “Diversity sells when it makes the firm look good.” 

Major corporations and privately held companies have, in recent years, begun to emphasize not only their own commitment to diversity, but to encourage law firms with whom they do business to prioritize diversity, as well.  Two corporate pledges in particular illustrate the importance many companies place on diversity:  The 1999  “Diversity in the Workplace – A Statement of Principle”  and the  2004 Call to Action, both of which were signed by general counsels and chief legal officers of hundreds of American corporations. Signatories to the 1999 Statement of Principle pledged to inform their outside legal service providers of the corporations’ dedication to workplace diversity and their intent to consider the commitment to diversity demonstrated by law firms when making engagement decisions.  Signatories to the 2004 Call to Action went even further, pledging to seek -out relationships with outside counsel that value diversity and to end relationships with outside counsel without such an institutional focus.   These statements are strong messages to law firms that their clients value diversity and intend to provide more of their business to firms who mirror this commitment and to terminate relationships with firms who do not. 

Lavender Law Then and Now: Growth of the Conference and Future Challenges

The first Lavender Law conference, held in 1988, grew out of conversations between attorneys attending 1987’s Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, says Kemnitz.  Since then, Lavender Law has been held annually, in a different city each year.
The career fair component of Lavender Law was added in 2002, according to Kemnitz, and only about fourteen recruiters attended that conference, which was held in Philadelphia.  Since then, the career fair has grown exponentially:  almost 160 recruiters attended the 2008 event, which was held in San Francisco.  Kemnitz and Arabatzis agree that a critical component of the growth of the career fair was moving Lavender Law from October to September, the height of the legal recruiting season. 

The career fair at Lavender Law is part of a larger three-day conference consisting of numerous workshops, panel discussions, and social events.  “Lavender Law has a winning formula.  They do a marvelous job,” says Arabatzis.

Leipold agrees.  “Lavender Law has had good leadership and good stewardship.” Because Lavender Law is a national forum dedicated to the LGBT legal community, the conference is an important resource for LGBT students and attorneys, he says. 

One of the resources offered to students attending Lavender Law is the career fair preparation session held that morning, says Kemnitz.  The preparation session, run by NALP professionals, emphasizes the importance of details and making a good impression, she says.  Lavender Law “grows to respond to the demand,” says Kemnitz, “And because of NALP’s involvement, Lavender Law has taken on a life of its own.”

Arabatzis agrees that the preparation sessions have been important in preparing students for the career fair.  “Students come in business attire and take the conference seriously,” she says, while in the early days of Lavender Law, many students approached it more casually.  Today, says Arabatzis, students attending Lavender Law are confident and savvy, informed about making decisions for themselves and their careers. 
However, the career fair is about more than just the search for the right candidate or the right job, says Kemnitz.  “Lavender Law is an opportunity for people to have fun.  Students are excited to have a chance to show themselves at their best, and their excitement is infectious.  It gets the recruiters excited.” 

While there are still challenges in the area of making both law schools and law firms more LGBT friendly,  LGBT students today expect that their status will be viewed as a “plus” for diversity purposes, says Kemnitz.   “There is an expectation among the younger generation that their identity should not hold them back.”

“We’ve made tremendous strides and great progress,” agrees Leipold.  With polls suggesting that young people today view sexual identity as a non-issue, he expects that as today’s LGBT law students and young attorneys become partners and leaders, there will be even more progress toward LGBT equality in the workplace.  The next frontier, Leipold believes, is equality and acceptance of transgendered people in the workplace. “This is an awareness and sensitivity issue,” he says, “and, in that respect, Lavender Law is a great resource for employers because it has a critical mass of transitioning and transitioned transgendered people.”

Firms wishing to participate in the Lavender Law 2009 career fair and conference should contact the National LGBT Bar Association for more information, or visit www.lgbtbar.org.

 

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