Compiled for LCLD Members and the Board of Directors every Wednesday, this digest is designed to brief you on the latest headlines about LCLD Members and organizations, as well as thought-provoking articles on diversity in the legal profession, talent development, mentoring, and leadership. Past issues of the Digest are also archived on the LCLD web site.

If you have questions about the Digest, articles you'd like to share, or if you would like to subscribe, please email Communications Manager Caitlin Puffenberger at cpuffenberger@lcldnet.com. 

1. Initiatives to Break Through Career Barriers

LCLD Member firm DLA Piper is taking an innovative approach to bias—in partnership with NYU and law professor (and former LCLD Annual Meeting speaker) Kenji Yoshino, the firm has put 1,200 lawyers through actor-led workshops aimed at helping people see their own biases.  Financial Times

2. Why Perks No Longer Cut it For Workers 

• Inclusive companies with leaders who make employees feel supported stand the best chance to fill jobs during the current labor shortage, according to an analysis from The Wall Street Journal. LCLD Member organization Mastercard is profiled as one of those companies.  The Wall Street Journal 
• According to a researcher from Gallup, these are also the companies that will best weather a recession: “Companies that rank in the top 10% in engaging their employees...posted profit gains of 26% through the last recession, compared with a 14% decline at comparable employers.”  The Wall Street Journal 

3. Advancing Black Leaders, Part 4: Why So Many Organizations Stay White 

• “Even though discrimination has been officially outlawed...exclusion is visible in many organizational processes,” writes Victor Ray, professor of sociology and African-American studies. “These range from ‘race-neutral’ grooming codes that coincidentally target black hairstyles to the white normativity built into seemingly nonracial organizational expectations.”  Harvard Business Review
• If leaders and their organizations truly want to improve, they need to “stop thinking about discrimination and inequality as rare events and understand that racial processes often shape behavior in the absence of ill-intent.”  Harvard Business Review

4. Being Black in Corporate America: An Intersectional Exploration  

A Center for Talent Innovation study based on interviews with almost 4,000 employees found the following:  Center for Talent Innovation  

• Just 8% of white-collar professionals are black, along with 3.2% of senior officials and 0.8% of Fortune 500 CEOs. 
• Black employees have less access to senior leaders than their white peers and experience more microaggressions at work than members of other minority groups. As a result, black employees are 30% more likely to leave their jobs than white employees. 
• Black women value organizations that have clear expectations for inclusive behavior and clear communication of how promotions work, while black men value organizations that provide in-person bias awareness training and pay for them to attend events for people of color. 

View the full CTI report here, or read the New York Times analysis here. 

5. Interrupters Need to Bolster Diversity at Large Law Firms 

“What we need in this profession are interrupters… We cannot rest on a one-day [diversity] event,” writes Leslie John, Partner at LCLD Member firm Ballard Spahr.  The Legal Intelligencer