I, David Taylor, personally commit to the following:

Personal Commitment

• As the Chair of Locke Lord, I will continue to use my voice and influence in the legal community to advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion within my firm and the legal profession.
• I will continue to promote our diverse attorneys by highlighting their practice areas and accomplishments, encouraging the development of and collaboration with clients, and incentivizing partners who build client teams with diverse attorneys. 
• I will continue to partner with General Counsel to host an LCLD Leadership Lunch and Learn to the extent there are opportunities to do so as identified by LCLD.
• I will meet semi-annually, along with our CDIO, with our Fellows, Pathfinders and Alumni to discuss their experiences with the program in which they participate.  Each Fellow, Pathfinder and Alumni will be required to participate in the semi-annual meetings to share their ideas as to how the firm can support them and to offer suggestions as to how both the firm and Pathfinders and Fellows Programs can improve.
• I will continue to advocate for the building of structures in our firm to ensure DEI is more fully integrated into our operations and the way we support clients.

Organizational Commitment

• Within two years, our firm will develop partner compensation incentives so that partners are evaluated on their personal contributions to DEI objectives, including demographics of client matter teams, occasions when a partner has designated a diverse lawyer to serve in a senior client relationship role, introduction of diverse lawyers into client relationships, etc.We will work with partners to develop and implement an internal process to evaluate all client teams for diversity, including reviewing consistently our top 50 clients and working with them to increase leadership opportunities for diverse attorneys on their matters, with a goal of 30% diversity in leadership and 40% diversity in client team participation in no more than five (5) years.
• We will review our analysis of business originations annually to ensure that practices such as credit for developing and maintaining business and client credit sharing are equitable.
• The firm will continue to provide attorneys with billable hour equivalent credit for DEI activities that advance the goals of increasing the number of diverse attorneys and/or demonstrably enhance the climate of inclusion in the firm’s offices.
• The firm will continue to ensure that every diverse attorney is sponsored/mentored by a member of the Executive Committee member or senior leader in the firm who is committed to the success of the diverse lawyer.
• The firm will continue to develop client succession plans that ensure a diverse partner and/or senior associate is part of a team of two or three lawyers identified to succeed our partners in the top 20% of our compensation schedule.
• Department leaders will prepare and present to firm leadership (e.g. the Executive Committee) annual DEI action plans with the appropriate metrics to ensure the goals in the plans are met.
• The firm will continue to build upon its diverse supplier (vendor) program with the goal of increasing the number of diverse vendors by 10% each year for the next five (5) years.
• The firm will continue to explore and implement alternatives to traditional law school recruitment and work closely with lateral recruiters to ensure they understand the obligation to present a diverse slate of candidates for open positions.
• The firm will conduct on an annual basis a pay equity review and analysis (pay gap analysis) for women and diverse attorneys to ensure there are no inequitable differences in compensation.
• The firm will work with and support Affinity Groups in the personal and professional development of its attorneys and team members at all levels.
• The firm will embark on internal training and messaging that introduces and supports the concept of allyship.
• The firm will continue to develop and implement programs to promote the health and wellness of its attorneys and team members.
• Consistent with our goal of increasing the number of diverse lawyers not only in our firm, but in the legal profession, the firm will continue to and expand its participation in programs designed to build a pipeline to the legal profession in each of our communities.
• The firm will publish this Pledge on its internal and external websites.