Diversity Committee-Sponsored Events

As part of our commitment to educate our lawyers and staff on the importance of unique differences in all of us, the firm has hosted a number of events.

Building Resilience. Consultant Paula Davis Laack discussed how resilience can help lawyers manage stress, achieve higher performance and engagement, and promote better relationships and more effective problem-solving. In a March 11 talk hosted by the Diversity Committee, Paula explained how to reframe challenges and build a more collaborative and innovative mindset, while dispelling myths about what resilience is and is not. Paula is the founder and CEO of the Stress & Resilience Institute and a former lawyer who has worked with a variety of organizations, including the U.S. Army, to identify and address burnout and increase well-being in the workplace.

^{Paula Davis Laack}

Asian-Pacific Heritage. In honor of Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month, the Diversity Committee sponsored a May lunch event with award-winning author and former lawyer Min Jin Lee, who talked about her recent New York Times Opinion Page “What Is Power?” as well as the research project she is working on to write her next novel. Min Jin attended Yale University, where she was awarded both the Henry Wright Prize for Nonfiction and the James Ashmun Veech Prize for Fiction. She attended law school at Georgetown University and worked as a lawyer for several years in New York prior to writing full time. The Diversity Committee sponsored the lunch event, and all attendees received a copy of her book Pachinko, which was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction.

^{Min Jin Lee}

TGNCNB Cultural Competency & The Legal Beyond. In honor of LGBTQ Pride Month, the Diversity Committee sponsored TGNCNB (trans, gender non-conforming, non-binary) Cultural Competency & The Legal Beyond. The June 26 discussion was introduced by Andy Marra of the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF), with Kramer Levin Partner Jeffrey Trachtman, and facilitated by AC Dumlao, Program Manager of TLDEF and Kramer Levin employment law associate Sarah Hanson. Some of the objectives of the discussion included increasing awareness about TGNCNB issues, reducing implicit biases and stereotypes regarding TGNCNB individuals and gender as a whole, educating attendees on landmark cases for transgender rights, and empowering attendees to confidently address TGNCNB communities in court and beyond and become even better allies for TGNCNB individuals.