Diversity in Practice: Casting a More Inclusive Talent Net
MoFo Perspectives Podcast
Diversity in Practice: Casting a More Inclusive Talent Net
MoFo Perspectives Podcast
Natalie Kernisant, Director of D+I, speaks with MoFo litigation associate and former SEO summer Camila Tapernoux and Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO) Director Van Ann Bui about their own unique career paths and why it is critically important for organizations to reimage their talent acquisition practices, with an eye toward removing any unnecessary barriers to inclusive recruiting. MoFo has been sponsoring pre-law interns through the SEO program since 2008, which provides educational and career opportunities to students from underrepresented communities.
Speaker: Welcome to MoFo Perspectives, a podcast by Morrison & Foerster, where we share the perspectives of our clients, colleagues, subject matter experts, and lawyers.
Natalie Kernisant: Welcome to the Diversity in Practice podcast, a part of MoFo Perspectives. My name is Natalie Kernisant, and I am the director of Diversity & Inclusion for Morrison & Foerster. This podcast series is designed to provide a space to discuss a wide variety of issues related to diversity in the law, and to introduce you to some of our talented, diverse attorneys, their areas of legal expertise, and the work that they, and their MoFo allies, do in furtherance of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Natalie Kernisant: We have with us today, Van Ann Bui, a former corporate associate at a large law firm, who is now the director of the law program at Sponsors for Educational Opportunity, also known as SEO. We also have with us today, Camila Tapernoux, a former SEO and a six year litigation associate in MoFo’s San Francisco office, whose practice focuses on intellectual property matters, including patent, copyright, and trade secret litigation. Camila, Van Ann—welcome to the podcast. As you both know, I wanted you to join me today to discuss diversity within the legal talent pipeline, particularly as it relates to attracting and retaining junior talent. Given your experiences with SEO, a prominent pipeline program focused on diverse talent, and as attorneys of color who either practiced or continue to practice at large law firms, I thought you’d both bring a unique and interesting nuanced perspective to the topic today, a perspective I think our listeners would greatly appreciate hearing. But before getting into that, I was hoping we might get to know each other a little bit better. Camila, if you don’t mind, I’d like to start with you. Can you tell us a little bit more about the work that you do here at MoFo? What drew you to your practice area, and what elements of your practice you enjoy most?
Camila Tapernoux: Yeah, absolutely. So, I wanted to be a lawyer from a very young age, but my vision of what that looked like was really vague for quite a while. In college, someone finally asked me what kind of law I wanted to practice, and I realized I probably needed to figure that out. I just moved to the bay area and being here, I sort of naturally developed an interest in the tech world, and I decided that I wanted to work with tech companies. As I explored that in undergrad and then in law school and as a summer associate, I became pretty confident that that was how I wanted to direct my practice. So that naturally translated into working on a lot of patent and copyright litigation. And then as I started to develop a relationship with some of our clients in this space, it also led to working on class action matters involving things like smartphones and other electronic. In terms of what elements of my practice I enjoy the most, I love working with these clients, and I love the challenge and the variety of the legal issues I work on.
Natalie Kernisant: So, can you let our listeners know how you got involved with SEO, and why did you decide to come to MoFo and to stay?
Camila Tapernoux: Yeah. So I had deferred law school for a year after graduating, and I was working at YouTube and the plan was just to stay there for the year and then head to law school. But I was still on my undergrad pre-law mailing list. And about halfway through the year, I got this email about the SEO program. I was glad I had deferred, but I was also really eager to start law school, and I’m not the most patient person, so I applied just without a second thought and I really had no idea how valuable it would ultimately be or how much it would shape my career. I spent my SEO summer at MoFo’s New York office, and I really loved the firm, but I knew I didn’t want to stay in New York. I was able to come to MoFo’s San Francisco office for my 1L summer.
Camila Tapernoux: And after that, I knew this was where I wanted to be. I loved MoFo and that it works with a lot of really incredible clients and especially tech clients here in the bay. But honestly, that was kind of secondary in my decision to ultimately come here. The main thing for me was the people. I was at law school in New York, so I went to a lot of New York firm events and things like that, and I constantly had this big sense of being a little out of place. And I started to become very self‑conscious and a lot less confident. And the reason I share those feelings here is that at the time I attributed them sort of entirely to shortcomings in myself, but looking back, I really see how that was partly related to being a woman of color in some pretty non-diverse settings. And when I got to MoFo, there was this tangible difference, and it had to do with a lot of things. But one big factor was that the office was very diverse. And from day one, I had coworkers and mentors and partners who were women and Latino. And beyond that, just the sense that everyone at the firm felt comfortable bringing their full selves to work. And that was really the main reason that I knew this was where I wanted to come.
Natalie Kernisant: And so sitting here engaging in conversation with one of our distinguished Latina associates, I would be remiss if I didn’t recognize that we are wrapping up our celebration of Hispanic heritage month. This month, as you both know, we celebrate the remarkable contributions that people of Hispanic heritage have made to building and enriching this country since its founding. Personally, I really love celebrating heritage months. I’m happy that it’s part of my job because we rightfully spend a lot of time focusing on things like stigma and bias and imposter syndrome, discrimination, all the things that come with being a person of color in this country and in this industry, but rarely do we have the opportunity to take time out and celebrate how our various cultures enrich and enhance our communities and our society. So in honor of Hispanic heritage month, I’d love to get your thoughts on how your culture and experience as a member of the LatinX community has contributed, if at all, to your success as a lawyer.
Camila Tapernoux: I absolutely think it does. The fact is, a lot of the client teams we work with are very diverse and building client relationships is obviously a very important aspect of our jobs. And for me being Latina has certainly served me well in that respect, not just connecting with people that have similar backgrounds, but because it’s contributed to developing the ability to connect with people that have all kinds of different backgrounds.
Natalie Kernisant: Yeah. Now, the cultural fluency that I think diversity often affords associates and partners is overlooked and undervalued. It’s powerful how our culture and our experiences really do help us in our professional world. So, Van Ann, let’s turn to you. As I understand it, you too started your career participating in a diversity pipeline program. Can you tell us a little bit about your experience with New York City Bar’s Diversity Fellowship Program during your first summer of law school and what impact that had on your career?
Van Ann Bui: Yeah, absolutely, Natalie. Thank you so much for the question. So just to give our listeners a little bit of background information, the City Bar’s Diversity Fellowship Program, it’s a pipeline program that places first year law students in summer internships across a variety of legal employers, including law firms, governmental agencies, corporations, nonprofit organizations, and the like. And so for me personally, it played an instrumental role in my career. In fact, I go so far as to say that it changed my entire career trajectory. You know, prior to law school, I had no idea what this world of corporate law meant, what it looked like. And so this opportunity really was my first foray. It gave me my first exposure to what corporate law was. You know, as a child of immigrants and didn’t have anyone who had gone to law school in my family or other folks that I knew of, it was really hard for me to imagine someone like me to really belong in that kind of space.
Van Ann Bui: And so I think that was something that I found really impactful from that summer experience. But I think more importantly, and Camila touched on this a little bit, in terms of confidence as well, is that I had also lacked some of the confidence walking into some of these rooms, going to these kinds of events. And it was really that experience that helped me see, you know, not only do I really enjoy this kind of work, but it was something that I was capable of doing, that I was qualified of doing and where I felt like I could really carve out a place of belonging.
Natalie Kernisant: So, can you talk a little bit more about why you decided to leave big law and switch gears and become the director of SEO?
Van Ann Bui: Yeah, well, you know, I really loved my experience at the firm. I had a great time there. I developed a lot of mentors and sponsors, many of whom I still keep in touch with today. I had learned so much about myself as an attorney, but at the same time, I also found myself being drawn to this other kind of work that I was also doing at the firm, you know, that of mentoring summer associates and junior associates, being involved in recruiting efforts, and finding ways to help the firms advance their diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. So as a result of that, I found myself wanting to get more involved with that kind of work. I became more involved with the city bar’s diversity pipeline initiatives committee and other nonprofit organizations that were doing really great work in this space. And then when the position at SEO came up, it really seemed to marry a lot of what I was interested in.
Van Ann Bui: So being involved in the recruiting and admission space, how do we think strategically about creating a diverse class, but then also how do we work with our young students and young attorneys educationally, academically, and to provide career support and professional development support as well. And at the same time, it also allowed me to continue to work with law firms in helping advance their efforts. And so it seemed to combine a lot of the things that I was really looking for in my next role and something that I found tremendously rewarding and impactful over the past few years, and I’m incredibly proud of the work that our team has been able to accomplish at SEO.
Natalie Kernisant: Focusing more on SEO, can you talk a little bit about sort of the articulated mission of the program and how you facilitate moving towards that goal?
Van Ann Bui: So, SEO stands for Sponsors for Educational Opportunity. It’s a pipeline program that helps to support black, LatinX, and Native American students and early career professionals who are interested in careers in investment banking, alternative investments, and the legal profession. And so I oversee the law program, and within the law program in particular, we strive to identify and recruit incoming law students, many of whom who have been underestimated and under-invested in. And so we provide intensive training, development, and coaching to our students, as well as the opportunity to intern at a corporate law firm their summer before they actually start law school. For our students, it’s not that they are not talented. We know that they’re incredibly talented. They simply have not had the same kinds of opportunities as many of their other peers to develop, hone, and showcase their skills. And so that’s really what SEO seeks to provide.
Natalie Kernisant: Now, that’s a fantastic mission, and it’s a program that I’m very familiar with in the role that I play at the firm, but also when I practiced, many of my friends had gone through the program and so I can’t even articulate how beneficial I think it was in their careers. Now, I wanted to switch gears a little bit and bring you both into the conversation. As women of color who were both fortunate enough to be selected for competitive pipeline programs and then matriculated into prestigious law firms, why do you guys think programs like SEO are so critical in the legal industry today, and what do these programs provide their participants that they may not otherwise receive from traditional professional development resources provided in law school and law firms?
Van Ann Bui: I think there are so many benefits that come out of these programs, but there are really three that come to top of mind for me. And I think the first one is that these programs are intentionally designed to create a safe space for these students. As you know, these environments were not created for people of color, for people like us. And so it’s imperative that we create and design spaces where students of color can feel like they’re able to make mistakes, they’re able to ask questions completely free of judgment. The second thing is many of us walk into these halls and these firms, and sometimes feeling like a sense of imposter, like you don’t belong. I think Camila mentioned that, and I certainly felt that early in my career. And so when you’re in these spaces where you perpetually feel like you don’t belong, it can be very difficult to be able to build the confidence in order to succeed.
Van Ann Bui: So being able to connect our students with alumni, other attorneys from diverse backgrounds who have had similar experiences as them can be very powerful in helping our students address and overcome that sense of imposter syndrome. And then the last thing that I think these programs do, and I think SEO does particularly well, is in building a sense of community. And when I think about that, I think about the very unique community that is comprised of our alumni and our students. Many of them are first in their families, in their communities, whether that be the first generation American, first generation to go to college, to graduate from college, the first in their families to go to law school, to become an attorney, to become a corporate attorney. And that is such a unique experience. And oftentimes, within our families or within our communities, there may not be other folks and can share in that kind of experience. And so being able to bring together, every year, a hundred plus some students who, to some extent, can really relate to each other on that level, I think is really quite special and allows them to be able to develop a support system that they can use going into their law school careers and going into their time at the firm in order to rely on each other.
Camila Tapernoux: Yeah, I very much agree with everything Van Ann said, especially a community and the support system that I personally gained from having participated in SEO was incredibly invaluable to my law school experience and beyond, both in friendships and in having that support system and that connection with other people going into law school with me. To frame a bit more from my personal experience, before I participated in SEO, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. And looking back, so many of my classmates had family members who were lawyers or other connections to the legal industry. And I thought I was super prepared for law school because I was a law nerd and I read SCOTUS blogs and things like that, but there’s the study of law, and then there’s the legal industry. And I did not have a clue about the legal industry, and participating in SEO was this crash course that just helped fill that gap in knowledge for me and ultimately helped me get on more equal footing in the recruitment and hiring process.
Natalie Kernisant: So I’d like to get your thoughts on some of the more challenging questions I, as a diversity and inclusion professional, have encountered with respect to diversity recruiting in the legal industry over the years. For as long as I can remember, large law firms have tended to focus their summer associate recruiting efforts on attracting students from the same small number of law schools. In fact, my team recently looked at the total number of diverse students at these schools, and let’s take black students, for example. There were a total of 206 black graduates in 2019 across the top 10 schools. Now, as you well know, not all of these students go into big law, some go to small firms, some into academia, some into non-legal fields, and yet others go into public sector or clerk. And then there are, of course, the few that don’t meet the academic requirements needed by many of these firms. So let’s cut that number by a third to be conservative. That leaves the firm’s vying for a total of 135 black students. Now in response to that, many advocate for expanding the pool of law schools from which large law firms recruit for diversity purposes, yet, for whatever reason, these firms have yet to significantly expand beyond the top 10, maybe 20 law schools. What are your thoughts on casting a broader net?
Camila Tapernoux: Yeah. I absolutely think we need be casting a broader net, not just for diversity purposes, although I think that’s definitely a critical and valid reason to do so, but also just in order to find and hire the best talent out there. I think we have to realize, and I think thankfully as a society, we are starting to recognize this more broadly, that admission to one of these few law schools, not even to mention the decision to attend one if you’re admitted, is an extremely imperfect proxy for talent, and we are starting to see a much wider recognition of the systemic inequality that’s shaping every step of the education system leading up to graduate school. And as a result of that inequality, by the time you get to the grad school level, if you’re only looking at this handful of schools because they’re historically higher ranked, you’re just not considering the top talent. And you’re further perpetuating the exclusion of incredibly talented people from these schools and ultimately these companies.
Van Ann Bui: I completely agree with Camila and this is actually a question and issue that I feel quite strongly about for personal reasons, as well. Many of your listeners may not know, but I actually started my legal education at a school that was not in the top 14 schools that firms maybe typically recruit from, and then I ultimately did transfer over to a school that was in the top 14. And when I think back on my own experiences, and I know that this is not atypical. We see this every year, there are hundreds of transfer students every year that go from lower rank schools up to top 14 schools. And within that one summer, I don’t think anyone would say that they became any smarter in just a few weeks or that they were any less smart or less talented the year before. I think that’s ridiculous to think about. And so when we think about it that way, we recognize very quickly that the top 14 or so law schools, they don’t have a monopoly on talent. Talent is everywhere. And I think we have to be smarter as a society, as an industry, on how we can tap into all of the talent across the nation, in different communities, and really go into some of these other communities that haven’t been tapped into and haven’t been invested in.
Natalie Kernisant: Yeah, I would agree. I mean, I often say to folks that I speak to in my role that there’s a number of factors that go into why you select a law school. And I think even, you know, more oftentimes for folks of diverse backgrounds, being close to family, being close to community, financial aid packages, all of these things play a significant role in electing your law school, and it isn’t as if the top 10 schools are the only consideration that you look at when you’re selecting the school. But interestingly, Camille, you mentioned this notion of casting a broader net for talent, not only for diverse talent, but also for all talent. And I’m really intrigued by that because in the work that I do, obviously, I often worry about the danger of stigmatizing diverse hires once they join a firm. Right? So if, for example, we were to expand the list of schools that we recruit from for diverse talent only, are we creating another more insidious problem by reinforcing biases that exist about needing to lower standards for diverse individuals? And if so, how might firms go about interrupting those biases from your perspectives and set up their associates for success rather than obstacles and challenges?
Camila Tapernoux: Yeah, I absolutely agree that those are important things to keep in mind as we work on broadening our recruiting efforts because the fact is that it’s not about lowering standards. It’s about breaking through the bias of limiting our recruiting efforts in a way that isn’t actually correlated with talent and ability. And it’s on us to be educating ourselves and each other so that no one is making the error of seeing broader recruiting efforts as a lowering of standards. And one thing that will help with that, that we were just talking about is that we shouldn’t be limiting recruiting efforts from this wider net to diverse candidates, because there are going to be talented people across the board who aren’t at the 14 law schools we traditionally hire from for all kinds of reasons. Like you were mentioning: decisions to be closer to family, financial aid packages, and reasons like that. So that’s all part of the same effort that will ultimately improve our recruiting and fight those biases.
Van Ann Bui: If I can just jump in here real quick. I also think that what’s interesting is that if you look at a lot of these top firms, you already see that many of them do have partners and associates that do come from non-top 14, 15 law schools. It really wasn’t until around 2008, 2009, where we saw firms really drastically shrink the number of schools that they recruited from. And so if you go further back then, and then you sort of track those associates that came in prior to that and where they are now, you already see that there are attorneys from those schools that are represented within these organizations. And then when we parse the data by geographical regions, we see an even broader array of schools that are represented in particular geographical regions. They’re already recruiting from an entirely different subset outside of those top law schools that we traditionally think of at that firm’s recruit from. And this is within the same firm. And again, you know, I post to you, do you think that any firm would think that some of their attorneys in some offices are any less smart or any less talented than other attorneys simply because of where they went to school or what office that they’re practicing in? I think the answer is no. And so we already know that there is talent that we’re already hiring for talent outside of those subset of schools.
Natalie Kernisant: Yeah. Great points, Van Ann. Particularly the point about how it’s just recently that we started to limit the schools from which we recruit. So we’ve been talking about recruiting junior talent, but as we all know, recruitment and retention are closely linked. Not only is it important to retain and develop talent, to diversify all levels of seniority at the firm, but without diversity at all levels at the firm, it’s often difficult to recruit diverse talent because let’s face it, if they don’t see success profiles that look like them, they’re not inclined to believe that they can succeed there. So Camila, you obviously have chosen to remain at a large law firm, while Van Ann, you, like me, decided to leave after practicing for several years. Now, there are obviously a lot of factors that affect one’s career decisions at any given point, but as women of color, I’d like to get your thoughts on what you think contributes to higher levels of attrition amongst people of color at large law firms and to what extent do firms have control over these factors?
Van Ann Bui: The American Bar Association actually recently did a study about this precise issue in evaluating why women of color in particular leave law firms. It’s called Left Out and Left Behind, and it’s a fascinating study. I encourage everyone to go out and read the entire report, but essentially, they identified the top three areas that are affecting the attrition rate. Number one, bias and stereotyping continues to persist in many instances. Number two, the lack of institutional awareness and support for women of color. The fact that many of the initiatives that are targeted towards women at firms are not necessarily designed for women of color. Lastly, lack of support from other women. And so the real question that you pose was what do we do about it? The study suggested a couple of different ideas, including reducing bias and decision making, improving access to effective mentors and sponsors, and incorporating an intersectional approach to addressing diversity and gender.
Van Ann Bui: Those are all critically important. But I think another area that we really should talk about is how do we rethink how we choose to train and invest in young attorneys of color by removing barriers to their progress, especially early in their careers. Although many of them might have gone to the same types of prestigious law schools that some of their counterparts have gone to, we know that they don’t all come to the law firm on the same level playing field. So what can firms do to help provide support to level out that playing field? Let’s take swimming as an example. Let’s say you have two kids the same age. One grew up with a pool in the backyard. Parents knew how to swim. Taught them how to swim from a young age. Put them in swimming classes, and they had the opportunity to practice almost every day during the summer, every summer, for 10 plus years.
Van Ann Bui: And then you have another kid who didn’t grow up with a swimming pool. Their parents didn’t know how to swim, never took swimming classes. Maybe they couldn’t afford it, or maybe they just didn’t live near a pool or near water. And so that second kid just never learned how to swim. If you ask both of these kids to dive into the pool and swim to the other side, what do you think would happen? Now, that doesn’t mean that the second kid is not capable of swimming to the other side, if given the right equipment and the tools to learn how to swim, a pool, for example, a swim instructor, and the time to learn, I guarantee that kid could learn how to swim to the other side, just as well, if not better than the first one. And that’s basically what’s going on here. How can we expect associates, who may have lacked certain opportunities, who just haven’t been given the right equipment, to perform at the same level as their more privileged counterparts immediately when they arrive to the firm, particularly when we already know that there are existing biases and stereotypes that are already working against them.
Van Ann Bui: So if we really want to tackle attrition, we have to acknowledge the inequities that have already worked against these communities for so long and be intentional about designing programs that work to counteract them.
Camila Tapernoux: Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. And a lot of the things you were talking about really resonate with me when I think about the reasons that I have been at MoFo for several years and do see myself continuing to practice law here. A huge part of that is the people who have been my mentors and my advocates, many of whom are women and LatinX attorneys. There are done definitely tons of reasons that people decide to leave firms, but I think one of the most incredibly powerful ways to support people that do want to stay at firms is to mentor them and advocate for opportunities for them to advance in their careers. And I’m incredibly appreciative of the culture here that deeply encourages this kind of mentorship. And I have received mentorship and support, not just for women and people of color, but some of my closest mentors and strongest advocates have absolutely been women and LatinX attorneys, and it’s definitely the case that that’s just a huge part of the reason that I’ve made it this far and want to continue my career here.
Natalie Kernisant: So shifting gears a little bit, a while ago, I read a study conducted by the National Association of Legal Professionals that illustrated firms who did well with respect to the number of diverse attorneys they had tended to have specific geographic footprints. More specifically, firms with offices in more diverse locations tended to do better, at least in terms of numbers, with respect to diversity. What are your thoughts on that phenomenon? And assuming it’s true, do either of you have thoughts on how firms with offices in less diverse communities attract and retain diverse talent, and are there ways to create a sense of community, even if that particular geographic location itself may not be as diverse as others?
Van Ann Bui: I think that that’s a really tough issue because in the same way that we want to go into the office and know that there are people who understand us, people who look like us and come from similar backgrounds and experiences, at the end of the day, when we go home, we also want to go back to our neighborhoods and our apartment buildings, our restaurants, and know that ourselves are also reflected in the communities in which we live. And so I think that that’s a really tough question in terms of what can firms do about that situation? You know, I think one thing that I’ve been particularly surprised about in terms of the past few months, this situation that we’re currently in, although we’re physically distant in many ways, I feel like we’ve actually been able to be more socially connected through virtual technologies like Zoom.
Van Ann Bui: I feel like I’m on Zoom all day, every day, I’m having more FaceTime meetings. I’m sure a lot of your listeners can relate to this. There are people I have worked with for years who I never actually saw face to face because we were in different offices, and now I’m seeing them all the time. And so I think that’s a really great opportunity and a way for firms to leverage different kinds of technologies to connect their diverse associates that might be in less diverse cities with other attorneys across the firm to help them build that sense of community.
Natalie Kernisant: Lastly, I wanted to get your thoughts on unconscious bias in recruiting. So as you both know, unconscious bias is a very real thing. And it’s the result of a very normal and adaptive process in our brains. Our brains go through these processes in order to quickly and efficiently process millions of stimuli that we’re confronted with every day, every moment. However, when attempting to make objective decisions about people and talent, the mental shortcuts that we use unconsciously can often lead us astray. Recruiting is one of the most common areas within talent management where we see bias leading us to make inaccurate and faulty decisions. For example, many often look for cultural fit when they’re interviewing candidates, right? So I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in a debrief session where the criteria that is used to either say someone is the right person to hire or they’re not, is this notion of they fit our culture, but using vague criteria like that only allows one of the most common biases we know to wreak havoc, you know, the bias that we refer to as in-group favoritism. We’re all attracted to people who remind us of ourselves and it’s a normal, natural, adaptive phenomenon, but in this circumstance, you know, objectively applying criteria to talent, it can lead us astray.
Natalie Kernisant: So it’s much better to have specific criteria outlined, articulated, and reviewed immediately before interviewing so that everyone knows what they’re looking for. That’s what we sort of teach all of our interviewers before they go out on-campus interviews. We’ve created an inclusive recruiting video so that we can send it to folks that are doing lateral recruiting to watch right before they interview talent, just to remind people that these biases really do have a real impact. It’s also advisable to have someone in the debrief session whose sole responsibility is to push back on those who seem to be relying on vagaries in support of hiring decisions, and at least part of my team spends a lot of time doing just that. With all of that said, I wanted to get your thoughts on other tips that you might have for interrupting bias in the recruiting process. Have you guys come across anything that you think is particularly impactful or helpful in this space?
Camila Tapernoux: So for me, my primary involvement with recruiting has been participating in callback interviews, and that’s something I’ve done since I started at the firm. And for the first several years, I would say yes, to being scheduled for any callback interview I was available for, but I didn’t give it a lot of thought beyond that. And in the past few years, it’s something that I’ve realized is actually a very critical part of our efforts to combat bias in the hiring process. First, for our own biases that may come up inherently in the process, having diverse people on these interview teams is just the most natural way to combat that. But it’s also going to increase the number of candidates who find people they connect with at the firm during the interview process that then leads them to actually want to select our firm to come to. And so having diverse interview teams is something that I think we should continue to prioritize and publicize the importance of that to associates and partners so that we all realize that participating in these interviews, it goes beyond just the way I saw it at first, just doing our part. It’s actually really important to diversity as well.
Van Ann Bui: Natalie, I’d love to first take a moment to congratulate you and your team for really thinking about how do you reframe the interview process and rethink the interview process to remove bias from that critical step, you know, we can talk about, and then certainly I think it’s absolutely critical that we all recognize our own individual biases and we can do that through unconscious bias trainings and increasing awareness and things like that. That’s absolutely important and necessary, but at the same time, I think we also need to look at how can we remove bias from the systems themselves, from the processes that we use to interview candidates, to hire candidates. Again, what schools are we going to? What questions are we asking? Removing bias from the job postings themselves, from the questions themselves, and looking into even going so far into the evaluation process, once the students are in the summer programs, or as first year associates, junior associates, how do we look at removing bias from the evaluation process and all the way up to thinking about promotion as well and increasing transparency around all of those different critical steps in the process.
Natalie Kernisant: Yeah, absolutely. With that, I just want to thank you both for this really engaging conversation and for sharing your thoughts, your personal insights, on increasing diversity in the legal pipeline. I think it’s really important to not only have folks like me in the D&I roles talking about it, but also folks in our partner organizations like SEO and our actual associates that live and breathe the culture that we create in these firms engaged in these conversations and helping to devise solutions for some of the toughest challenges we see in this space. So thank you both for your time, and thanks for joining me on the podcast.
Van Ann Bui: Absolutely.
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