I, Kathryn Szmuszkovicz, personally commit to the following:

Personal Commitment

• I will use my voice as a leader in my organization and in the profession to advocate for DE&I in the legal profession and in my community.
• I will use my position among my firm’s leadership to advocate for changes to further improve the equity of processes such as work assignments, hiring, and compensation.
• I will personally sponsor one junior attorney and one new principal from historically underrepresented groups each year. As part of this relationship, I will ensure that each protégé receives a concrete career-advancing opportunity with internal or external visibility each quarter.
• I will speak with three GC/LCLD Member clients about opportunities to collaborate to advance the careers of named diverse lawyers within the firm through opportunities such as inclusion in collaborative training and inclusion in succession planning.
• I will partner with a General Counsel to host an LCLD Leadership Lunch.  
• I will meet at least annually with my organization’s Fellows, Pathfinders, and Alumni to discuss their experiences within the firm, and encourage each individual to come to the meeting with a recommendation for how the firm could improve.
• I will ensure that an attorney from a historically underrepresented group is one of a team of two to three lawyers identified to succeed me with clients for whom I engage in such conversations.

Organizational Commitment

• I will continue to advocate at Beveridge & Diamond for improvements to the firm’s systems and practices (including work allocation, review protocols, promotions and appointments, succession planning, and compensation) to address systemic impediments to diversity, equity and inclusion.  
• I will ask our DE&I Committee to prepare and present to the firm annual DE&I action plans, targets, and related metrics to identify gaps and assess progress.
• I will work with our practice group leaders, DEI Committee, Associate Workflow Committee, and other relevant internal partners to assess client teams for diversity and establish strategies for addressing gaps.
• I will assess my firm’s origination credit process to ensure that practices such as origination credit-sharing for developing business are equitable.
• Our firm is a Mansfield Plus certified firm and I will continue to provide leadership support for B&D’s participation in the Mansfield Rule initiative, including efforts aimed at ensuring we consider (and realize) at least 30% historically underrepresented lawyers in firm leadership roles.
• I will select two clients each year to work with to increase the leadership opportunities for and participation of named attorneys from historically underrepresented groups on their matters.
• I will work with my firm to incorporate evaluation of principals on their personal contributions to DE&I, investments in team diversity, and actions to support for the advancement of attorneys from historically underrepresented groups.