I, Binal Patel, personally commit to the following:

Personal Commitment

• Continue to use my voice as a firm leader at and in the profession to advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) in the legal profession and in my broader community;
• Maintain an open, transparent and participatory workplace where lawyers and staff happily make career-long commitments;
• Partner with clients to help fuel a diverse summer associate hiring pipeline;
• Identify networking and promotion opportunities for diverse attorneys and staff in partnership with my diversity & inclusion committee members; and
• Serve local and national bar and industry associations to promote diversity and mentoring for all attorneys.

Organizational Commitment

• Recruiting and empowering top lawyers and staff, who value diversity and inclusion for the creative thinking and contributions those attributes foster;
• Maintaining and increasing our high threshold of diverse lawyers:  40% of our attorneys currently represent diverse populations;
• Administering and promoting the firm’s Donald W. Banner Diversity Fellowship for Law Students; 
• Working with law schools to develop and participate in pre-law scholar programs for diverse students;
• Tasking the firm’s diversity & inclusion and mentoring committees to better integrate DE&I into attorney mentor relationships;
• Supporting the recruitment, retention and advancement of veteran attorneys; and identifying opportunities to work on pro bono cases related to veterans’ issues; 
• Identifying DE&I networking and promotion opportunities for all attorneys; and
• Partnering with clients to expand our DE&I reach.