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Nixon Peabody and Diversity
Nixon Peabody, Principal Sponsor of the Diversity 2006 Conference, has been named a best place to work by FORTUNE magazine, earning the 49th spot on the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies To Work® list in 2006.
Our Mission
 A diverse environment is a rich environment, and an open, inclusive atmosphere benefits everyone who works within it. At Nixon Peabody we recognize that having an open work culture not only makes the firm more interesting and stimulating, it also enables us to respond with greater agility to the challenges faced by our clients in a diverse, multicultural world.
We are sharply aware that inclusion is important, and for that reason we aspire to become a national leader in workplace diversity. To achieve our goals, we must continually make real our mission: to attract, retain, and promote individuals of exceptional ability and talent from all genders and a broad range of racial, ethnic, social, economic, religious, and personal backgrounds.
Nixon Peabody’s Diversity Initiative is our blueprint for national leadership. Advancing its goals is the work the firm’s Diversity Action Committee. The energetic lawyers and staff that serve on the committee are charged with assuring that diversity is achieved throughout the entire range of our activities, including recruitment, training, development and mentoring, internal policies and operations, community service, and pro bono work.
We value the milestones that mark Nixon Peabody’s tradition of inclusion. They include recognizing the strength and capacity of our first women partners, Susan Stewart and Ruth Rosenberg, and of William McKnight, our first African-American partner.
We are also pleased with our long record of respecting differences in sexual orientation. The firm was one of the first in New York to extend health care coverage to domestic partners.
We take satisfaction from many other achievements through the years as well, but we recognize, too, that there is much more to do, and that to get it done we need not only a strong diversity policy, but a clear path of action that will continually give it life and meaning.
Promoting diversity in the legal profession at the national level
We salute the many attorneys and staff members whose extraordinary efforts and involvement have earned the firm the respect of countless legal and community organizations that recognize our genuine, ongoing interest in fostering diversity in both the legal profession and the community at large.
Our attorneys hold key leadership roles in national bar associations, including the Hispanic National Bar Association and the National Bar Association. The National Bar Association (NBA) represents a network of more than 20,000 African-American lawyers, judges, educators, and legal scholars.
- In 2004, the association awarded Nixon Peabody as well as one of our partners the Presidential Award for demonstrating a sustained commitment to diversity.
- In 2004, the NBA appointed a Nixon Peabody partner to be chairman of its Corporate Diversity Initiative Task Force, which is developing initiatives to increase diversity in law firms nationwide.
Our partners also serve on two American Bar Association commissions concerned with diversity:
- The Commission on Women in the Legal Profession
- The Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession
Advancing diversity in the legal profession at state and local levels
An African-American attorney in our Albany, New York, office is president of the Capital District Black and Hispanic Bar Association.
In other states and localities, Nixon Peabody’s lawyers have been active in many different associations.
- The Massachusetts Women’s Bar Association
- The Women’s Bar Association of New York State
- The Asian American Lawyers Association of Massachusetts
- The Greater Rochester Association of Women Attorneys
- The Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Bar Association
- The Rochester Black Bar Association
- The Washington Bar Association
Our attorneys also lead four New York State Bar Association committees.
- The Committee on Diversity and Leadership Development
- The Committee on Minorities in the Profession
- Ad Hoc Committee on Diversity in the Courts
- Special Committee on Balanced Lives and the Law
Promoting diversity in the business community
The country’s demographics have changed dramatically in the past fifty years. For businesses, this means both a shift in the composition of their workforce and a shift in their customer base. Nixon Peabody is helping businesses adapt in positive ways to the changing environment.
- The firm is a founding member of the Greater Rochester Diversity Council, an alliance of companies that has become a national model for understanding, promoting, and managing diversity within business communities.
- A partner in our Real Estate Group has developed an annual diversity networking event held at the International Council of Shopping Centers Convention to provide business development opportunities to minorities working in commercial real estate.
- In collaboration with a number of other attorneys, a partner in our Washington office helped launch an innovative Web-based business referral network for black lawyers around the globe. Its e-mail updates reach more than 7,000 lawyers in thirty-one countries
Reaching into our communities to promote equal rights and opportunity
The firm’s pro bono work is inspired by the belief that human rights must be protected without regard to gender, race, age, sexual orientation, national origin, physical ability, religious beliefs, personal preferences, or life experiences. Recent pro bono cases have focused on disability rights, civil rights, immigration and asylum law, affordable housing, housing litigation, and domestic violence.
In 2005, the New York State Bar Association awarded Nixon Peabody its President’s Award for outstanding pro bono service.
The firm also lends financial support to dozens of community-based organizations, including the Long Island Fund for Women and Girls, the Susan B. Anthony House, the Urban League of Rhode Island, New Hampshire Women and Children in Crisis, and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.
Nixon Peabody also advocates for the disabled. One of our attorneys serves on a Deaf Awareness Task Force that helps New York lawyers fulfill their obligations to deaf citizens under the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Our lawyers also serve on numerous boards, including those of:
- Legal Aid
- Greater Boston Legal Services
- Migrant Farm Workers Project
- Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights
- Alternatives for Battered Women
- Volunteer Legal Services Project
Creating educational opportunities
Nixon Peabody has launched creative, practical, and effective educational initiatives to reach a broad range of learners—from middle school students to law school graduates.
Middle and high school programs
In Boston, inner-city school students visit Nixon Peabody’s offices weekly during a ten-week program that teaches children about law and trial advocacy. In Rochester, we’ve been involved for ten years in a program that provides work opportunities to promising high school students from different racial and ethic backgrounds who have an interest in legal careers.
Internships
Nixon Peabody provides summer jobs to first-year minority law students as part of a new clerkship program. We also support an internship program designed to increase the number of lawyers of color. In partnership with John Hancock Financial Services in Boston, Nixon Peabody lends minority summer associates to Hancock for a two-week period, which gives the associates an invaluable chance to work within a single summer both at a large law firm and as part of an in-house counsel team.
Scholarship
The William McKnight Scholarship Fund provides an annual scholarship to an African-American high school student. We sponsor a moot court competition in Bill’s memory as well, held each year at Cornell Law School in conjunction with the Black Law Students Association. The firm also annually funds an American Bar Association legal opportunity scholarship for a minority law student.
Promoting diversity within the firm
To find individuals of exceptional ability from a broad range of backgrounds, to nurture their professional growth, and to provide them ongoing satisfaction in their careers is a tall challenge. It is, however, one we happily accept. Meeting it requires enlightened management, excellent benefits, and an inclusive culture where everyone feels valued.
Nixon Peabody travels far to recruit top talent. We attend multiple job fairs across the country, including those sponsored by the Black Law Students Association, the Lavender Law Career Conference, and the Hispanic National Bar. We also conduct on-campus interviews at Howard University. Our participation at Minority Corporate Council Association conferences also connects us with promising legal talent, as do our outreach efforts through Diversity, Inc. and Corporate Counsel Women of Color. The firm also relies on the experience of professional diversity recruiters.
Those who join Nixon Peabody receive excellent training, rich professional opportunities, and support. Our progressive mentoring program provides first-year associates with a peer mentor. We encourage all associates to develop multiple mentoring relationships during the early years of their practice.
Our benefits package is generous. It extends health care coverage to domestic partners and provides four full weeks of paid parental leave for fathers as well as mothers. Nixon Peabody also offers a diversity training program, which encourages the open exchange of different viewpoints.
Diversity invigorates our work and fosters innovative thinking
Nixon Peabody knows that when we welcome and respect differing perspectives, we jostle traditional assumptions and stereotypes, broaden our understanding, and develop new patterns of discussion and thinking that ultimately benefit both our clients and communities.
We are pleased and proud to be the sponsor this national conference.
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