News Release
McGlinchey Joins Leaders at the Front Program to Advance Equity
Read Time: 3 minsIn support of McGlinchey Stafford’s commitment to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the legal profession, the firm has joined the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity’s Leaders at the Front program.
Leaders at the Front is meant to capture the urgency and opportunity that the racial justice movement has created over the past year. By encouraging those in leadership positions to commit themselves to change, LCLD has urged its member organizations to create actionable pledges and plans to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts in the legal profession. Other organizations that have made pledges through the program include Capitol One, General Motors, and Fannie Mae.
“The Leaders at the Front program was introduced at an opportune time for the firm, as we were in the process of defining our #McGlincheyForward initiative, which focuses on firm culture, empowerment, change, and growth, to keep us accountable to our ideals of integrity, trust, and honor,” said Michael Ferachi, McGlinchey’s Managing Member. “Since being elected managing member, I have stressed to our McGlinchey Family the importance of our DEI efforts, not just for our attorneys and professionals, but for our clients and our communities as a whole.”
As McGlinchey’s executive leader, Michael is personally committed to advocating for systemic changes that uncover and correct inequity. The firm as a whole also has made an organizational commitment to advancing diversity. These efforts include the following goals:
- Research and dedicate resources to ensuring the inclusion of diverse attorneys across the national platform.
- The firm will also identify and implement tools and processes to identify, hire, mentor, empower, compensate, recognize, and provide leadership opportunities for attorneys from a wide array of backgrounds, cultures, and traditions (and implement metrics to track the success of those tools and processes). Some of this work is underway and we will continue to formalize and program these initiatives.
- Challenge the firm to “think bigger” about the broad umbrella of inequity based on race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, and physical, mental, and intellectual disabilities, and to be intentional in the use of firm language and programming to honor those experiences.
- Increase firm resources devoted to DEI programming, and to efforts that help us recognize and minimize implicit bias. Through the DEI Committee, firm leadership, and office management, the firm will make educational and community-building resources accessible across a variety of platforms and disciplines, to encourage firm employees to engage in a personally meaningful way with these resources.
- Require Practice Group Leaders to prepare DEI action plans with goals to increase diversity in their talent acquisition, professional development, promotion, composition of client teams, and the composition of business development teams, and to report on their progress at regular intervals.
- Elevate the DEI Committee’s activities and promote the importance of a vibrant, active committee. The firm will support its members in advocating for a better firm and profession, and will give special consideration to service on the DEI Committee when considering candidates for leadership positions.
“I look forward to working with Michael and the DEI Committee to achieve these goals,” said Eliska Plunkett, McGlinchey’s Chief Diversity Officer. “These measurable goals will help us evolve for the future to create an inclusive culture where every member of the McGlinchey family feels welcomed, supported, and valued.”
The firm will also begin the Mansfield Certification process with Diversity Lab’s Fall 2021 cohort of midsized law firms. (Mansfield Certification boosts the representation of diversity by measuring the percentage of diverse attorneys considered for leadership and governance roles, equity partner promotions, formal client pitch opportunities, and senior lateral positions.)
“I am very proud of the firm’s history of, and ongoing commitment to, advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion,” said Rudy Aguilar, McGlinchey’s former managing member and co-chair of the firm’s DEI Committee. “We have made tremendous progress, and these pledges will help keep us focused on our goals.”
The firm’s dedication to diversity and inclusion is demonstrated throughout its workplace.
- 63% of the firm’s attorneys and staff are diverse
- 39% of attorneys are diverse
- 31% of members (partners) are diverse
- 60% of associates are diverse
- 44% of Policy Committee members are diverse
- 47% of the offices have diverse managing members
McGlinchey prides itself on its involvement with the LCLD since the organization’s founding in 2009. The firm is a previous recipient of LCLD’s highest honor, the Compass Award, and has been named a “Top Performer” by LCLD every year since 2018. In addition to LCLD involvement, our attorneys dedicate their time and talents to improving diversity outcomes in the legal profession, serving in leadership roles within diversity-related organizations. McGlinchey attorneys are also members of the Louis A. Martinet Legal Society, Inc. (including the current President of the Greater New Orleans Chapter), National Bar Association, Federal Bar Association, Orange County South Asian Bar Association, and Orange County Asian American Bar Association, Women’s Professional Council of New Orleans, International Women’s Insolvency & Restructuring Confederation (IWIRC), and Diversity Law Institute of the Litigation Counsel of America, among others.