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Diversity

 

Diversity

Stevens & Lee and its affiliated companies believe that diversity, inclusion, respect and fair treatment help us harness our different strengths and experiences for the greater benefit of our clients and for the good of our businesses.

We are committed to achieving and promoting cultural, gender and racial diversity, as well as diversity which results from life experience. Because of this commitment, we actively recruit minority and women professionals and staff members, as well as people who have different educational and occupational backgrounds and bring unique skills, interests and ideas to our culture.

The firm’s leadership actively ensures that the way we conduct business remains in continuous alignment with our diversity objectives.

Our steadfast commitment to maintaining a diverse workforce extends to the retention, development and advancement of both our attorneys and our staff. We offer part-time and flex-time opportunities that allow our team members to succeed both personally and professionally. Professionals at all levels of seniority have such schedules.

Recruiting, Retention, Development and Advancement

We recruit professionals of all levels of experience without regard to age, gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, or disability. When we recruit personnel we make a deliberate and concerted effort to include an extensive and diverse group of candidates.

We focus our retention efforts on providing all of our junior professionals with equal access to work, as well as qualified mentors to provide support and guidance on a confidential basis. We have formal systems in place to ensure equitable work allocations among all of our professionals. Our business units maintain backlog systems to ensure that each junior professional is allocated an equal amount of quality work to foster professional growth.

We sponsor a curriculum for all of our personnel, addressing a full range of business development skills. There is, and will continue to be, within our business units, an equitable allocation of resources, both human and capital, to support all of our professionals in their client and professional development efforts. In addition, we support and encourage our professionals to participate in industry conferences and other knowledge-based or training seminars dealing with business development skills and techniques.

Our firm uses the same criteria to evaluate both full-time and part-time professionals, although it may take a part-time professional longer to gain the necessary skills and experience required for promotion.

Professional Associations and Client Collaboration

Stevens & Lee’s commitment to diversity extends beyond creating diverse populations within our own business units. Our professionals actively participate in organizations such as the National Bar Association, Corporate Counsel Women of Color, the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, the AKA Foundation of Central Pennsylvania, The Forum of Executive Women, and Ladies First, an organization of women engaged in public finance, as well as the diversity committees of our state and local bar associations and chambers of commerce. We have sponsored programs and have joined such organizations in their efforts to promote diversity among the legal and business communities. We also host periodic networking events for women in-house counsel and women executives.

We are a long-time sponsor of a bar association program that places minority first-year law students in summer internship positions in law firms, and were honored for our participation in that program with The Honorable Clarence C. Morrison Equal Professional Opportunity Award. In addition, we regularly recruit a minority summer legal intern and “share” that intern with a firm client to advance our joint diversity efforts.

Diversity and inclusion are important to Stevens & Lee. We welcome the contributions of men and women of all ages, races, religions, sexual orientations, or disability conditions and those who bring diverse experiences, educations and perspectives that help us provide excellent service to our clients.

 
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