I, Sarah Solum, personally commit to the following:

Personal Commitment

• Champion our five-year global commitments to diversity and inclusion and targets for gender, race and ethnicity, LGBTQ+ representation, as well as location specific race and ethnicity goals.
• Engage with our US Governance Group about the importance of their personal commitment to recruit, retain and promote attorneys from underrepresented groups. 
• Encourage an open dialogue with senior partners and leadership around diversity and inclusion and ensure that DEI is regularly included on the agenda at the highest level.
• Meet annually with our Employee Resource Groups regarding our DEI initiatives. 
• Collaborate with a general counsel to host a LCLD Leadership Lunch.
• Explore additional opportunities to partner with clients on activities, events, and initiatives to advance our mutual DEI goals.
• Share my personal commitment to DEI in internal communications and firm town halls. 

Organizational Commitment

• Drive accountability through our ambitious D&I targets and commitments to ensure that Freshfields remains a diverse, equitable and inclusive firm.
• Recognize all colleagues’ DEI contributions through our feedback and appraisal processes (including 360 reviews) and continue to give equal value to D&I work as client work for our lawyers.  Ensure that championing of DEI does not lie solely with underrepresented members of the firm.  
• Continue to participate in Diversity Lab’s Mansfield Rule to further our progress by ensuring that women, underrepresented racial/ethnic lawyers, LGBTQ+ lawyers and lawyers with disabilities make up at least 30% of the candidate pool for leadership and governance roles, equity partner promotions, formal client pitch opportunities and senior lateral positions.   
• Continue our commitment to the Law Firm Antiracism Alliance and the Alliance for Asian American Justice.
• Ensure that our US colleagues are well-represented in our global talent programs (e.g., Global Sponsorship, for women lawyers, and Future Leaders, for racially/ethnically diverse colleagues) as we support the career advancement and retention of diverse colleagues.
• Continue to invest in our Returner’s Program which provides a pathway for former practicing lawyers who have been out of the profession to relaunch their careers, while increasing candidate flow and reflecting the firm’s emphasis on diversity and inclusiveness.
• Increase our recruitment efforts at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
• Continue offering the 1L Diversity Fellowship opportunities to law students from underrepresented groups to build the diversity pipeline.
• Continue to support involvement in Legal Outreach and The Vance Center.
• Implement clear and focused goal setting, encourage regular check-ins and enable in-the-moment feedback to better enhance our performance processes to ensure that our people have the support they need to develop their careers. Encourage a culture where constructive feedback is normalized to ensure that underrepresented colleagues have the same meaningful feedback as others to help them grow and flourish.