Vernā Myers Consulting Group, LLC

 A detailed description of our services is available as a downloadable PDF.

DIVERSITY & INCLUSION INITIATIVE AND STRATEGIC ACTION PLAN

With a working group from your firm, Verna Myers Consulting Group designs and implements a strategic action plan to promote diversity & inclusion in every aspect of your operations, including recruitment, retention, training, development, policies, education, support systems for employees from underrepresented groups, marketing, and client and community outreach.

The process begins with a workplace diversity & inclusion assessment that helps pinpoint your firm's specific needs and strengths and identify the most promising strategies, given your goals. Without such a plan, diversity committees eventually get lost, frustrated or discouraged. We not only help you understand what needs doing – we help you get it done.

SYSTEMS AND POLICIES INTEGRATION: Supporting Diversity and Inclusion

While getting better at diversity & inclusion requires personal and interpersonal change on the part of the individuals in your firm, to make real change for diversity, your organization will need to be clear about how and why it operates the way it does on a daily basis:

• How does the firm make hiring decisions? Based on what criteria?
• How does work get allocated?
• How do you assure that everyone has equal access and opportunity? 
• How do you evaluate associates?
• Who gets feedback and mentoring? 
• How do you check for bias in your systems?
• Where are summer associate events or firm events held? Are they culturally broad, to appeal to a diverse group of people? 
• How do leaders get groomed and selected? Is the firm conscious about how it is done? 
• How many women and people of color are in leadership roles? Why?

VMCG helps a firm notice and deconstruct the way it does business and offers best practices for developing systems, policies and practices that support diversity & inclusion.

DIVERSITY & INCLUSION AWARENESS AND COMMUNICATION SKILLS
 

Workshop: Diversity Leadership

VMCG recommends that your firm conduct a diversity leadership workshop early on in your diversity process – ideally once the assessment is complete. It is designed specifically to help firm management, and practice and department leaders, build the leadership and management skills to pursue successful recruiting efforts, work effectively with diverse teams, and create inclusive work environments. The workshop:

• Introduces key diversity concepts.
• Clarifies the value to your firm of embracing diversity.
• Helps participants appreciate the dynamics of difference, inclusion and exclusion in the workplace.
• Gives participants the chance to practice key leadership and management skills that will enhance their diversity goals (e.g., feedback, evaluation, conflict resolution, assignment of work) through case studies.

Workshop: Specific Skill Building for Hiring and Associate Evaluation Committees, and Staff Managers

This workshop is best conducted after an assessment and before any firm-wide diversity awareness workshop. It is designed to give those who have specific responsibilities in your firm a way to consider diversity issues as they carry out their responsibilities, develop new practices and policies, plan events, etc. The workshop:

• Presents fundamental diversity principles.
• Helps individuals think about their diversity and experiences, and how their own background might help or create challenges for them when it comes to carrying out the firm's diversity goals.
• Explores best practices for their specific areas of responsibility.
• Teaches practical skills for promoting diversity

Workshop: Diversity & Inclusion Awareness – Firm-wide

This highly interactive workshop for attorneys and/or staff helps participants:

• Learn more about how to recognize, understand and appreciate our human diversity.
• Understand the dynamic of bias, sensitivity and oppression in the workplace and in society at large.
• Consider ways to overcome the barriers to embracing diversity.
• We design each workshop in conjunction with a working committee from your firm, typically after we have completed a workplace assessment. The workshop package also includes a follow-up discussion with the working committee in which we present our observations and any recommendations for follow-up.

Workshop: Diversity & Inclusion Awareness – for New Partners and Mid-Level and Senior Associates

This interactive workshop is designed to help those individuals in your organization who are progressing through the firm think about their responsibilities for creating a work environment that is respectful and inclusive of difference. They have peer relationships, they are supervised and they supervise others. The workshop focuses on these relationships and reminds participants that while they may not be as powerful and influential as those above them, they do have influence over others and others are impacted by their behavior. They learn or relearn diversity principles and work on practical work scenarios to develop diversity leadership skills.

Workshop: Diversity & Inclusion Awareness – for Incoming and Summer Associates

Again, a highly interactive workshop, but in this case designed specifically for summer associates or incoming fall associates. The workshop:

• Introduces participants to basic diversity & inclusion concepts.
• Increases their awareness of their own and others' cultural backgrounds.
• Reveals the benefits of embracing diversity, for law students, law firms, and the legal profession as a whole.
• Helps them examine the factors that encourage diversity or stymie it.

The workshop is extremely helpful for firms that have launched diversity efforts and want to convey their values, commitment, and expectations to the next generation of talent.

Workshop: Gender Diversity and Work Flexibility – for Partners and Associates

This workshop is designed to look specifically at the unique issues and barriers that women encounter as they enter and advance in the workplace. The workshop:

• Helps participants to appreciate the different ways a male-dominated work environment can negatively impact women.
• Encourages frank and open dialogue about how to address the tension between the work demands of clients and attention to our personal obligations and interests.
• Considers the tangible and intangible costs of attrition of women from the firm.
• Raises awareness about the biases and assumptions that women face regarding work styles, communication styles, commitment to work and value to the firm.
• Familiarizes participants with the firm's alternative work policy.
• Offers best practices and management skills for working in a flexible way that respects everyone as professionals with personal obligations and commitments.

Workshop: Sexual Harassment Prevention Training

Creating a work environment that is free of sexual harassment is a four-pronged effort your firm needs:

• A well thought-out and published policy.
• Training, for everyone at the firm, which includes the legal and psychological aspects of sexual harassment.
• Clear, well-executed and published complaint and resolution process.
• Training for those who are designated to receive complaints.

VMCG works with firms to review and revise, if necessary, the firm's sexual harassment policy and resolution procedures; designs a training that reviews the law and engages participants in dialogue to consider practical issues and grayer areas of the law; and helps the firm designate and train individuals designated to act as EEOC Officers. VMCG also coaches individuals or groups regarding unacceptable behavior.

COACHING AND SUPPORT – for Individuals and Groups

Although making diversity work is always a joint effort, its success can also depend on the commitment of key individuals in key areas in the organization. VMCG can work one-on-one to help individuals appreciate the impact they have on the firm's diversity goals and to increase their diversity awareness, skills and accountability.

OUTREACH AND HIRING ASSISTANCE

Many of our clients seek our advice on increasing their outreach and hiring of racial and ethnic minorities. We work with firms to:

• Create a multi-faceted, long-term, targeted approach that includes analysis of schools, offers, acceptances.
• Develop relationships and programs at schools to increase visibility.
• Evaluate hiring criteria and programs.
• Develop diversity materials for all candidates.
• Develop lateral hiring strategies

We also conduct workshops for hiring committees and interview training for on-campus interviewers and all personnel interacting with candidates on behalf of the organization.

 A detailed description of our services is available as a downloadable PDF.