In this episode of Diversity in Practice, as part of MoFo's observance of National Disability Employment Awareness Month, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Natalie Kernisant leads a discussion with David Cross—chair of the firm's Antitrust Litigation practice, Disability Affinity Network liaison, and an active member of the Diversity Strategy Committee—about his personal experience navigating the legal industry as an attorney with a disability. Later in the episode, they are joined by Caren Stacy, Diversity Labs CEO, and Carlos Terrazas, Disability Inclusion and Global DE&I manager at McDonald's Corporation, to discuss how MoFo is partnering with Diversity Lab and their newest initiative—the Disability Inclusion Advisory Group.
Transcript
Natalie: Hello everyone. My name is Natalie Kernisant, and I am the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Morrison & Foerster. I wanted to warmly welcome everyone and thank you guys for joining us today, whether you're colleagues, clients, in the room or are virtually joining us. I am very excited about today's events. It is sponsored by our Disability Affinity Network and our Diversity and Inclusion group in celebration of the National Disability Employment Awareness month. So, for most of you, you are very familiar with MoFo. And we have always valued the differences among people within our organization, while recognizing our similarities.
This year we are proud to begin formally celebrating National Disability Employment Awareness month by raising awareness and celebrating the unique experiences and many contributions of employees with disabilities.
Today, I have the honor of speaking with David Cross, a litigation partner and disability network liaison based in our DC office, where we are today. We are going to be discussing his personal experience navigating the legal industry as an attorney with a disability. We will then be joined by Caren Stacy, Diversity Labs CEO, and Carlos Terrazas, Disability Inclusion and Global DE&I manager at McDonald's Corporation, to discuss how we at MoFo are partnering with Diversity Lab and their newest initiative the Disability Inclusion Advisory Group. With that, please join in me welcoming our first esteemed panelist David Cross. David, thank you for joining us today.
David: Thanks, Natalie.
Natalie: Before we turn to today's conversation, the heart of the conversation, can you tell us a little bit about your practice and what led you to MoFo?
David: Sure. So, I chair the Antitrust Litigation practice. I've been practicing for 20 years, which is hard to believe. I joined the firm in 2015 with a team of associates and a paralegal. And I would say what drew us here was really the people, kind of what you were just talking about. The firm has developed a very strong reputation for inclusiveness and collaboration and not having sharp elbows. We have found that to be the experience since we've been here. It's been a great experience.
Natalie: I know very well that you are the Affinity Network liaison for the firm's disability network and a member of the DSC, a very active and engaged member. So, thank you for that. I've had the good fortune to work closely with you on a lot of these issues and know that you self‑identify as a person with a disability. can you tell us a little bit about your disability and when you first realized or understood that you were different?
David: Sure. That's a great question because there was no a-ha moment when I kind of think to myself I just woke up one day and thought 'I'm different.' I was born without a left hand. It's just always been that way. It wasn't—many folks with disabilities have to adapt because it happens later in life. For me it's just always been a way of life. So, the difference point has always been there. Growing up as a kid, kids can be pretty cruel. As a child, you are often reminded that you are different, particularly in a qualitative sense. You're less than, you're inferior, you're broken. When you realize that kids look at you like the disabled kid in Goonies, it's a pretty isolating, pretty marginalizing feeling. And that was something that I was always aware of.
I think my parents did a nice job of sort of engraining in me that it's a difference, but it's not a qualitative difference. Very much sort of taught me that whatever that I wanted to do, I could do. Probably taught that to too much of an extreme because I have internalized that in ways that sometimes may not be helpful. It's a constant awareness.
Natalie: How do you think living with a disability and navigating the world in your skin has affected your world view, your perception?
David: I think it's pros and cons. The pros grow from the challenges and from the life experiences. To give you an example, there are lots of things that people would view as easy ordinary things are for me a challenge. A perfect example is when I was a kid, a lot of kids—we all started wearing Velcro shoes because we couldn't tie our shoes—for me, I was wearing Velcro shoes at an age when that was made fun of because all of the other kids were tying their shoes.
I remember coming home from school one day and thinking this sucks. I've had enough of this. And I sat down on the back steps with pair of my dad's shoes because I didn't have shoes that tied and sat there until I figured out a way to tie my shoes. I figured out how to cross the monkey bars, I figured out how to climb a rope to get through the obstacle course. At boy scout camp I figured out how to serve a tennis ball. Through solving those challenges that come up in ordinary life I think, for me, that creates—that lend itself to trades about creativity and problem solving, relentlessness. I often hear from clients that they like the creativity and they like the relentlessness, so those can be positive trades.
But they can present in negative ways too. To the point I was making before, when you are subject to a lot of bullying and ridicule, you learn to develop certain mechanisms for that. For me it was realizing that you just can't show weakness. You can never show vulnerability because once you do, in my mind, you've validated the stereotype; that you are qualitatively different. That you're not as capable. To give you another example, I can recall I played varsity basketball and my closest friends would say, 'Hey, you're making us look bad in practice.' Because if we were going to run sprints, I was going to be the first one to finish. If we were going to run laps, I was going to run until I puked in a trashcan. It was always funny to me because they would say, 'You make me look bad. You're hyper competitive.' For me it's not competition. It's just about achieving parody. The way I would view it is when they would have drills for them to dribble with both hands, I can't do that. When the coach would say, 'Let's have left-handed and right-handed layups,' I'm not making any left-handed layups. So, what I want to do is tell the coach, 'Look, my net value is on par with everyone else even though there are things that I can't do, so I am going to offset the deficiencies by being the one who is working the hardest on the court.' I'm going to hustle the hardest. I'm going to be the most aggressive on defense.
But the challenge with that is from a personal dynamic even with your closest friends it can be 'Well, you're just hyper competitive. This is self-aggrandizing.' But for me I just want the coach to look at me the way he looks at you in terms of the value to the team. So, there are pros and cons that come from it.
Natalie: You speak to this notion of turning adversity into an advantage, which is something we focus on a lot in the D&I space, particularly this year. I wonder how specifically has your disability impacted your career?
David: I think it's the same. It's pros and cons. On the pros, again, I think the way I serve clients with the creativity, with the problem solving, with the relentlessness, I get a lot of feedback from clients about that. That they like that. Those are positive traits, I think. One of the other things for me is because I have I feel like such an acute sense of what it feels like to be marginalized or left out, I find myself very empathetic to that. In my prior firm, whenever we had associates who were struggling and showed a lot of potential, I'd always be the one that got the call that was like, 'Can you come in and help this person?' One of the associates that came over with me from my prior firm used to joke that I would put myself on the island of misfit toys, which I took as a complement. She meant it that way. Everybody struggles in some way. I think everybody feels a little bit left out at some times, so for me really having an empathetic sense to that I find myself gravitating to people who are struggling and try to help.
I think the negative repercussions are with respect to opportunities. I can remember a partner telling me that he was not going to include me in a pitch, it was an in-person pitch. He said he was going to talk about my experience and sell me to the client, that I was perfect for it. But he was concerned that the client may have an adverse reaction to someone with a disability. They might think, 'Oh, how is a judge or jury going to react to this?' So, let's get hired and they'll get to know your work and the point of which they figure this out, I think they won't—
Natalie: How did you respond to that?
Dave: The irony of it is in the moment I remember thinking, 'Oh, there is kind of a logic to that. But there is something insidious about it too.' I think no one would ever say, 'We're not going to include a person of color on a pitch because we think the potential client might be racist.' We would just not work with that client. In my mind, one of the challenges that people with disabilities have is sort of combating discrimination, whether conscious or unconscious, is I think people justify it more. Because the reality of being disabled is that there are certain things you cannot do. I'm never going to juggle. It's not going to happen. I think people will justify it because we think of skin color or gender or sexuality—that does not have any impact on your performance. That is pure unmitigated bigotry to judge someone or assess their value based on that. I think people look at those with disabilities and say, 'Well, if you're in a wheelchair or have some other sort of physical disability, or perhaps a mental disability, that actually affects your performance.' So, people will justify that to say things like the partner said, which is, 'What if a jury is offput or distracted by you giving an opening statement with a disability? We need to think about that.' My response is to say, 'Well, there was a time where people would say the same about people of color or there shouldn't be a woman giving that argument.' I think we've made a lot of progress in other categories. There's still more progress to be made. But I think there is still a lot we need to do on the disability side.
Natalie: One of the challenges you and I have talked about often, as an organization I think we face when trying to advance D&I particularly for those living with disability is the accuracy of their self-identification data. There is sometimes, I think, a fear that with self-identification you lose control of that information, when in fact the firm is quite sensitive and explicit about the ways in which we use that, but I also think that with diversity information, in particular, like you were sort of speaking to, there is a social stigma that is attached to that. I know that is one of the reasons you wanted to have an event like this is to share your story. Can you tell us a little bit about why you think it's important to bring awareness to this particular group but also to share your story?
Dave: Yeah. Let me give you some context. When I started my career 20 years ago, I remember one of my two friends, both men, both gay, one was not open about it, one was. I remember we would have discussions among the three of us with the one who wasn't open about why he wasn't. His explanation is that he was open with his family. It wasn't that. His concern was that 20 years ago, that the industry hadn't fully really embraced it. And his concern was that it could affect his career opportunities if he got hired. 20 years later I think we made a lot of progress on that particular front. I think people with disabilities are still really concerned about that. I think there continues to be a negative stigma for the reason I talked about, folks view it as a qualitative difference. I think folks are worried about self-identifying. I will tell you that I bet if you were to ask the people who interviewed me here when I came in seven years ago, I bet at least some of them would tell you that they had no idea that I had any disabilities until pretty deep into the process. Because I know in that context, conscious and unconscious, I'm going to hide it because my concern is that people sitting in the room, no matter the type of person they might be, you just can't help that you're human. There are going to be unconscious biases. We learn that we justify unconscious biases in conscious ways. We learn that people who may not want to hire someone because they're female, because they're a person of color, will find what they consider a qualitative distinction to say, 'Well, this person wasn't qualified.' And that's always my fear. Someone is going to be offput or distracted. Even now there are people that I can't have a conversation with without them pretty frequently staring at my arm. And that is a very marginalizing feeling. People that you respect, people that are very sophisticated, people in normal ordinary course you would consider very open minded and fair and equitable are still human. At some level you're almost a circus freak.
The reason I think this is important to talk about is because I think there are a lot of folks who feel the same and aren't comfortable identifying. I will tell you that in 20 years of practice I can't think of another lawyer with a physical disability that I've ever come across. 20 years of interacting with thousands of lawyers. That is an extraordinary statistical improbability when you consider the number of disabled people in the country. I think there are two things that drive that. One is probably an unconscious bias. It makes it harder for people with disabilities to get hired, particularly at our level of practice to get into leadership positions, which I think are important. And the other is I think there are probably a lot of out of us out there, as I did, until basically two years ago, who didn't talk about it. Who just wanted to pretend that it doesn't exist? Wanted to keep our hands in our pockets. And I finally decided a couple years ago that's unhealthy for me, that's unhealthy for others. I spent a long time thinking about it and paying psychologists to help analyze that and think about that. But I would like, I guess, to give people more comfort, that no matter how you are different or how you are diverse, whether it's color or it's sexuality, gender, disability, or anything else, everybody struggles in a different way. Everybody should feel open about that and not feel like they have to mask it.
Natalie: Can we dig little bit deeper on something you mentioned?
Dave: Yeah.
Natalie: You said a few years ago you decided to start talking about it. Was there an incident or event in your life that made you make that decision because that's a pretty brave thing to do?
Dave: It sort of just dawned on me that I was approaching 20 years of practice and in all of that time I had never seen anyone else with a disability. But, at the same time, I had seen the profession make great strides in other diverse areas. It started to feel to me like that those with disabilities are sort of falling behind in the diversity and inclusion efforts. And, again, I don't think that for any insidious reasons. I think it's just—there are certain unconscious things at play there. The other was—you might remember I wrote a piece on this that the firm actually helped me publish. The president of the Unites States at the time commented on the Special Olympics. He actually had people in who had won medals. He went from praising them to saying, 'I tried to watch it, but I couldn't watch it too much.' And that's like code for the community
And that is like code for the community of the disability which is, I couldn't watch these people. It's like a train wreck watching these people do what they do. There's all the spin that came on it, but it's pretty clear in my mind and the others what he meant; you can't watch this in the same way that you can watch normal people excel at the Olympics. And that for me was sort of a flash plane. If it's being—if that sort of mindset is at the highest levels of leadership, then something is wrong, and there needs to be a voice about that.
Natalie: I do want to ask a question for allies out there, for folks that want to be more engaged and more actively supportive of raising awareness in this space. Do you have any suggestions or tips or resources that folks should focus on?
Dave: Yeah, great question. Interestingly enough there's not sort of a great third-party organization in the legal community for people with disability. There have been a couple attempts at it but not in the way we have in the bar associations for other diverse groups. I think there are various reasons, and I have talked to some people that have tried these organizations. I think there are various reasons for that. That's part of the challenge is there's not a great networking organization and that's one of the things I would like to see develop. But I do think that the organizations that are focused on diversity, like Diversity Lab, obviously, what Caren's doing. I think those are really important initiatives and folks should get involved as I have. The other thing I will say is I think is everyone can sort of relate to the challenge at least, even if you don't fully appreciate like I—one of my closest friends from law school is black, and I remember him coming back from his first year of class saying—a very large class of summer associates, he was the only black person in his entire summer class 20 years ago. We sort of talked about how marginalizing that was. I can never fully appreciate what it's like to be a victim of racism, even implicit, but just like he can't appreciate my experience, but we can relate. So, I would say sort of finding advocates who can at least relate to your experience, whether it's people who suffer similar discrimination on race or gender or sexuality, that's where I think we can find advocates and sponsors.
Natalie: Thank you. I did want to take a second though to thank you, David, over the last several years you have been such a champion for disability awareness at the firm and it's because of you that we are officially celebrating this month. It's because of you that we have a disability affinity network, and it is because of you we are partnering with Diversity Lab on this new initiative that we're going to turn to in a minute. I just wanted to thank you on behalf of the firm for being such an advocate for D&I.
Dave: Thanks. Thanks for the work that you do.
Natalie: I want to welcome, Caren Stacy from the Diversity Lab and Carlos from McDonalds. Hi, guys. Thank you both for joining us. I would like to shift the conversation toward how you and your organizations are partnering with folks like MoFo to take the lead in not only raising awareness about—but actively fostering a greater sense of inclusion for lawyers with disabilities in the legal industry. First, Caren, I'd like to start with you if that's all right. Now MoFo has been a long-time partner with you and a supporter of the work you do through the Diversity Lab, participating in programs like OnRamps and the Hackathon that actually led to the creation of the Mansfield Certification. So, we are long-time friends. Can you tell us a little bit about the lab, its mission, and how it started?
Caren: I'm happy to and thanks for having me. So we're a lab, which tells part of the story already, we experiment, and one of the things that I found—Natalie, you and I have known each other a long time, I was in a somewhat similar roll to you at MoFo but at Weil Gotshal, and Cooley, and Arnold and Porter over the years and so I headed up talent for about 30 years. I hired 3,746 lawyers. I wasn't counting. But one of the things I noticed over time was that we kept saying we wanted to create a more inclusive and equitable environments, but we weren't necessarily willing to do something different than we had done before, and so the idea behind Diversity Lab was is we should be experimenting. We should be using behavioral science and data and all these things that we use in other realms but not as much here. And so we started with OnRamp fellowship, the idea that women are leaving the profession and we're not giving them a structured path back. So along with MoFo and Sidley and a bunch of other firms, we said we want to try this. One year fellowship, women who have taken a hiatus from the practice of law and want to come back so they can expand their skills, so they can expand their networks, and thanks to firms like MoFo, we now have brought back 120 women into the profession that otherwise would tell you that a door was slammed in their face. And that's really how Diversity Lab started. After OnRamp worked in people eyes as an experiment, we started hearing, 'All right. What else you got?' And that's how Diversity Lab was born.
Natalie: Excellent. Well, thank you for the work that you do. I do want to turn towards disability inclusion. More specifically, Carlos, I know McDonalds has been a long-time DEI and accessibility advocate. Can you tell us a little bit about what led McDonalds to approach Caren and the Diversity Lab and ultimately create what is now the Disability Inclusion Advisory group and a little bit about the group?
Carlos: Yeah, first of all thank you all for having me. And, David, thank you for sharing your story. We're a strong believer there needs to be more of you around the country. So, I can't take all the credit for reaching out to the Diversity Lab. I have to give credit to our director of legal D&I senior counsel Christine Jones who was the one who initially reached out to Caren [but at McDonalds we have a significant amount of outside counsel, and we were looking at that Mansfield Certification. So, one of our inhouse counsel was curious as like, 'Yeah, we have this, you know, women, LGBTQ et cetera in our diverse pool, but we don't have any disabled attorneys. Is there a directory for that? Are there other resources that we can find?' And obviously it was led to Christine who was kind of bounced back and forth around, 'Where can I find this—where can I'—I think she talked to Haben, who is famous for being the first blind Harvard law student—blind and deaf Harvard law student. So then at the end of the day we were introduced to the Diversity Lab, and I came to McDonalds right at that point. We were introduced to Caren, and we thought it was a great opportunity to amplify our methods. So, we started the council and now we are looking forward to this opportunity to amplify that.
Natalie: Thanks. Now I know you were in the midst, Caren, of determining when and how to expand the Diversity Labs directory of diverse partners, so can you tell us a little bit about the directory and how you were working with the Disability Advisory group to expand?
Caren: I can. When Christine and Carlos and McDonalds called and said, 'We want to create diverse team not only internally but with our outside counsel,' and they had used this [inaudible] beta test, what we're calling the diverse partners directory. And McDonalds had used the directory already to hire outside counsel and said it would be great if we expanded this because we were only testing it with four firms, and so, of course, you know our mantra at Diversity Lab, yes, we would love to do that. So, our first thought was to work with the Mansfield world firms, because as MoFo is a perfect example, you all have already shown that you have the desire to do the hard work, that you have the desire to stay committed to the hard work, and we knew that putting this diversity directory in place, it wasn't just that that we would need to do. Our goal with the diversity directory was we want to increase the market visibility of underrepresented lawyers including lawyers with disabilities, but we also want to do what David has done today, which is tell some of these lawyer's stories so they begin to serve as bright lights to other people who might not feel comfortable being or disclosing their disability either internally in their organizations or externally. And so the directory really does serve two purposes.
If in-house counsel wants to work with diverse teams, great. Here's a directory of amazing talent that you can easily search and find the type of lawyers that you need and want who practice that type of law and happen to be underrepresented and in particular lawyers with disabilities and then if—we're talking about this from an internal inclusivity standpoint. What do we need to be doing internally so these lawyers feel comfortable putting themselves in this directory for both their lawyers and for the external public to see? So, we piece the advisory board together made up of Christine, Carlos, you, and David. We've got 12 people total, including Haben [inaudible], and then a couple of other folks from firms, a couple of other folks from trade organizations, and a couple of other folks from inhouse counsel. And the idea is to do essentially what David said, create a network of people that are talking about this and thinking about how do we educate, how do we take action, and how do we do so in a way that's impactful from both inside and outside counsel?
Natalie: So, Caren, sitting on the advisory board, which both David and I do, I know that we've talked long and hard about sort of best practices and how best to raise awareness and support attorneys with disability. Can you talk, you or Carlos, can either of you highlight some of the best practices that were identified through that project?
Caren: Okay, I'll name a couple and then you can name a couple.
Carlos: Yeah.
Caren: Two things that came up for me that were I think somewhat surprising, and this is coming from someone who all day every day, I'm thinking about inclusivity and equity and that's not to say I'm perfect as a human, because as David said, I still bring biases and I still bring lack of awareness and lack of education to the mix sometimes. So, I will tell you this advisory group super educated me and in particular Haben. when we started to say if we were going to create a culture of inclusivity at our firms and at our legal departments and in the community what would we do? One of the first things that came up, and this is me being vulnerable, is that the directory wasn't accessible digitally and that was an 'ah ha' moment for me. And Haben went on to explain to us that our website wasn't also good from a digital accessibility standpoint, and there was a lot of things we weren't thinking about that we needed to think through different and better. One was digital accessibility, but the other one that I was thrilled to have this discussion was around language. In looking at the ADA disability rights pledge and some of those other things we had seen the language used, 'lawyers with disability' or 'people with disability,' but as we began to go back and forth in this advisory group, it was pretty clear that everybody had their own preferences, their own beliefs, and their own values and perspectives on language.
And some people preferred disabled individual, some people preferred individual with disability, and they all had reasons, good reasons for it. And I think one of the things I learned is, and you'll see this in the list of disability and inclusion actions, we used the language in a lot of different ways because we want people talking to each other about these things and educating themselves and hearing different perspectives and not just saying, 'Gosh, this is the set way we talk about people with disabilities.' It's not. They're not a monolithic group, and as David said visible, invisible disabilities, there's all kinds of perspectives and all kinds of differences that we have to take into consideration when we're thinking about inclusivity. So those are just two of the things that I took in quickly and to heart.
Carlos: I will just piggyback on that is how we all brought our personal perspectives into why we prefer to be identified in the first‑person language or identity‑first language, and I think it was the ability to have that safe space of having a conversation that kind of showcased why a group like this was necessary, and really one of our main actions is to create a resource group. for disabled people that have that safe space that they can come and have these types of conversations. Allows them also to say that—ironically at McDonalds we just launched ours about a year ago. It's about almost a year old, and so it's been very effective. There's been leaders that have joined the group and learned about all sorts of language, from first person to identity first. So even what we see in McDonalds is, we look at disability as presentive, permanent, temporary, and situational. And how we intercept across all of our other resource groups is because disability does not discriminate. It doesn't matter if your rich, poor, black, white, whatever it is, it will impact you at some point, in some way. So, it has given that ability to create more allies and more opportunities for a more robust voice.
Dave: Can I comment on this? On the point Caren was making about language and what we refer to folks as people with disabilities or disabled people that was actually a new issue for me to confront during the course of this discussion. It was really interesting to see different perspectives on it. You see a divide even in the community because some people feel very strongly that the language of disabled people says that defines us; that is, you call us disabled people, then you are defining someone by their disability. Instead, you want to say people with disabilities because you are putting people first. The disability is just a trait. I think there are reasonable views on both sides of that even my own mindset is kind of morphed on that over time because what I have come to realize in the last couple of years is it is a defining trait. And I think the more that we as people with disabilities or disabled people resist that, I think that my own view is that it's unhealthy. I will say for my own psyche, I always thought people with disabilities is the better language for the longest time because I did not want to be defined by it. And I think that is the stigma in the world, seeping into my own mindset.
Natalie: To piggyback off of that, I was actually kind of surprised about this conversation when we were having it. And I do diversity and inclusion work, and I have always thought that you would say lawyers with disability. Caren—her perspective was really eye opening for me in the sense that it was a way of empowering the community by taking, what we were talking about before, and turning that diversity into an advantage by taking that label and saying, 'it is a defining characteristic, and it's going to be something that I am proud to talk about and not hide.' So, again, to Caren's point and what I find time and again in this type of work is that none of these categories are monolithic groups. Everyone has different experiences within whatever group you are talking about, and there are going to be different opinions and ways of approaching topics, even within a particular affinity group. So, I think it's important that we learn to have individual conversations and respect peoples' individual perspectives, and I think that is the heart of inclusivity, the heart of the work we do in this space.
Keeping with you, Carlos, if you don't mind. I wanted to shift a little bit. David and I talked a little bit about underreporting in this space. According to the CDC, 26%, and that one in four adults in the U.S., has some form of a disability. Yet, accordingly to a 2020 report on diversity conducted by the National Association of Law Placement (NALP), less than 1% of attorneys report having a disability. We know this is due to in large part social stigma. To quote a Bloomberg article about disability inclusion 'Being an attorney is very competitive, even more so in big law. No one wants to be seen as having any weakness, as a general matter.' What are your thoughts—Carlos, we'll start with you, then I would love for David and Caren to jump in too. But what are your thoughts on how we might improve the underreporting of attorneys with disabilities so that we might be able to target more resources and support to that community?
Carlos: I speak on what we're doing here at McDonalds, and I think that's part of the bigger strategy is to really educate our people on what disability is. A lot of people don't see the non-apparent disabilities, the mental health disabilities, the [inaudible] disabilities. So, we're starting from scratch, where we're: one, clearing defining it. Not by the ADA. We think the ADA is like that's the bottom line. We can go above and beyond that. Really defining it and putting it in situations, like I said earlier, from a permeant, from a temporary, and from situational. And the way we are showing that is a permeant disability is someone who uses a wheelchair, like myself. Or someone can—how is blind or deaf. Temporary is you break your arm, you have eye surgery, whatever it is. But it's temporary and you assume that it will be removed. Situational is very simple. You are in a loud room. You can't hear what the people are saying on the stage. Closed captions would help you have that access.
So really defining it that way and having that open dialogue to keep talking about of bringing in allies. Because then once you bring in the allies, and have that safe space for them, you can also bring in the disabled people who will want to feel welcomed and what not. First and foremost, you probably need to find some sort of leader message who will be open to talk about some way, somehow disability affects them through themselves or through a kid or a friend or whatever. Having that leader message is super important for those people to feel comfortable disclosing.
Natalie: Caren or David, do you have other thoughts?
David: Yeah. I can jump in. I think one of the most important things that we have done under diverse classes is we need more people to be present, particularly in leadership. I think the more folks that see that identifying as disabled is not going to be an impediment. That's important. I think we are a long way from that cause they're just not many of us, particularly at this level of practice. I think that is part of it. But then to Carlos's point, and also small things that help, there is a famous story about Mr. Rogers, where he used to begin each show by talking about his fish, and a little girl who was blind wrote him a letter that said, 'Hey, I don't know if you are ever feeding the fish because I can't see what you are doing, and I'm worried about the fish. That they are going to starve.' From that day forward, whenever he fed the fish, he would say, 'I'm feeding the fish.' It is such a small, in the grand scheme trivial thing, but it is huge for her and everyone out there who she represents. It is also sort of adjusting the mindset.
Someone who shared something with me one time, it was someone who was trying to go to a movie theater in a wheelchair and they couldn't go to the movie theater because they couldn't get in. The person conveying the story said, 'the problem was they were in a wheelchair.' What the right mindset is, no, the problem isn't the wheelchair, the problem is that the building was not accessible. So, I think a lot of it is how we think about people with disabilities, how simple it is to just be much more cognizant of it, and how simple solutions can be to make things more accessible and give people a path where they feel comfortable with that path, is going to lead where they want it to go.
Natalie: Quite frankly, I think storytelling and you sharing your story is so helpful in that space, removing some of the stigma. David is a very successful partner at the firm, a well-respected member of the community, and an advocate for D&I. I think the power of sharing that story and being brave enough to share that story is really, really impactful. I think it'll go a long way in terms of incenting others to share their stories and self-identifying. So, I thank you for that.
Carlos: Can I quickly just add to David's point? what he said, reminded me of what we also do in and the work we do with our definition is social model the disability. Where we make sure we are letting people know what that means, which is how the attitude and the environmental barriers create the disability, not the person. Right? So, it is not my fault that I use a wheelchair. It is rather the building that was engineered to have four steps and won't let me access it fault. Things like is something that we all [inaudible] to help people see that vision as well.
Caren: You know, I'll tune in on two things that I think interweave both points. So, I completely agree. David made the point that part of the battle is to ensure that the leaders are talking about this and that if they are allies, if they are people with disabilities, but they have to be talking about it. It can't just be that we have an expectation that lawsuits are going to be talk about it or that this other group is, and that in particular is why the Diverse Partners Directory, we started with partners, because we wanted partners to serve as role models. We wanted them to say, 'Look, I'm disabled, and let me tell you, my story.' That goes to what you were saying Natalie, so that more people are talking this in a way that it feels like. It should be a conversation and it should be something that we are talking about on a more frequent basis. It is interesting because, having been in the legal the for more than 30 years, the discussion really did start with women and then it expanded with race, and I do feel like LGBTQ+ has gotten definitely more discussion and more education over the years, but it does feel like people with disabilities is overshadowed in those discussions. It is particularly why, when we thought about what we wanted to do with the Diverse Partners Directory, we wanted to just start with lawyers with disabilities. And we wanted to start with the Mansfield firms because the other thing that we learned is that the vast majority of law firms didn't know exactly how to find people with disabilities, and for at least that reason and others, they weren't tracking to see; were they hiring lawyers with disabilities and people with disabilities? What was their census? When they did a census of other humans in the organization, they sometimes weren't asking about people with disabilities.
So, part of this is, we want to make sure that people with disabilities get counted, get seen, that they are visible, that they have all of the same opportunities to succeed that everyone else does and that was what was so eye opening about this, by the way, this list that will come out, The Disability Inclusion Action, and it is something that we haven't talked about yet, Natalie, but the law firms that agree to participate in the Diverse Partner's Directory will also agree to look at these 10 actions that they can be taking and start putting them in place. David, some of the things that you talked about right, you said this sounds so simple, Caren, but it is important. If you are having an event, please have cocktail tables, so I have somewhere to put my drink and still shake someone's hand. There are things like that go from a 'Oh yes, of course we should do that,' to things that maybe we are thinking about, but like Carlos said, the building isn't structured that way, and we need to make changes so that it is equitable and inclusive for everybody. So, I am super excited about this, and I think it is going to do two things. It is going to tell some stories that maybe we haven't been able to tell, and it is going to start to bring out some real education and conversation that maybe we haven't had as much as we should.
Natalie: Caren, so you talked a little bit about the best practices, the list of best practices that the advisory group is working on. What's next for the advisory group?
Caren: Well, we have to redo the app, which was great. It has been an amazing learning process. So, we hired someone who not only can develop beautiful apps, but they are incredibly thoughtful about accessibility, and what that looks like and what that means for how we built this. So, we have been behind the scenes rebuilding the app. We have been behind the scenes rebuilding the diversity lab website. So, anybody that think they're—that they don't have a lot left to learn, we all do. The next step after that is, we want to do two things. Obviously, we want to put the Diverse Partners' Directory out there, so that in‑house counsel have the ability to find and hire lawyers with disabilities. We want to put the list of disability inclusion commitments out there, not only for the Mansfield firms, but for everyone to benefit from. And then, we are going to run a series of webinars, so that lawyers with disabilities, and people with disabilities, and allies can talk and tell their stories and share experiences, so that everybody can start to hear and understand what we should all have been talking about already. And then Natalie, it is up to you, David, Carlos, and the rest of the advisory committee what we do next. That is at least on the first priorities list.
Natalie: It is all very exciting stuff. I do—I want to be mindful of time and make sure we have time for questions from the audience. , So, let's turn to the chat questions first and then I'll turn to the room.
UF1: Yes, we have a few questions in the chat. What are some strategies to help address and eliminate the stigma around certain disabilities?
David: Want me to go first? Sure. I would like to think that what we are doing here is part of that, having sort of an open dialogue about it, because as I mentioned before, I've spent the better part of 47 years being as closed off about it as I could be, trying to pretend like it didn't exist, and hope that people just see me as normal, and I think that is unhealthy. It has taken a lot of time to get to that realization, and I think having a dialogue, feeling more open, feeling like you can be more vulnerable with folks, and having everyone sort of normalize disability, for lack of a better way to phrase it, is I think the best step towards that, and then firms like ours working with Caren and Carlos to embrace it and show that there is a path to success regardless of how abled or disabled you are.
Natalie: Caren? Carlos?
Carlos: I'll just echo with saying that when these resources go out, one of the things we've done here is we've had multi-talk throughs every month for many disabilities where it creates that dialogue and that learning to destigmatize something like autism or something like ADHD or deafness or whatever it is. We do that on a monthly basis to let people learn about the different disabilities and then have an open dialogue, and trust me, we've never had a silent room where someone said, 'Oh, you know, my friend is or my son has autism.' Never, always there is someone that comes out and it just trinkles down from there. Really, really helps with that open dialogue.
Caren: I would just add that I think the best thing that we can all do is have these discussions and if there is a way to create inclusion and equality so that people with disabilities feel comfortable speaking out that is incredibly important because one of the things—so I just met with the Harvard Disabled Students Law Association about a week ago. One of the things that those students said to me is two things. One, law firm websites, I didn't see the words disability inclusion, disability, lawyers with disability, people with disability at all. They thought that was striking that people are not talking about it and they don't necessarily feel counted when people are talking about inclusion efforts. The second thing they said was 'We looked for firms where somebody looked like us. We thought that if someone looked like us at that firm, then maybe the firm—someone had come before us and had helped pave the way.' So, until we get leaders, until we get associates and partners, and everyone in the firm to talking about and destigmatizing disabilities, I think that we're going to continue to hit a wall on that subject.
Natalie: Thanks, Caren.
UF1: I have another question from the chat. What advice would you give to junior lawyers who are afraid to disclose their disabilities? Is there anyone to help guide how to disclose your disabilities at the firm? HR perhaps?
Natalie: Yeah. I'll start the answer to that question. So obviously the Diversity and Inclusion group at Morrison and Foerster has a disability infinity network now. We support disability as a diverse category, so we are resources at the firm. if you're at the firm, feel free to reach out to me or any member of my team, and we do have members at most offices now in the U.S., so please feel free to reach out to us. I do think that HR is another resource. Obviously, any of your HR mangers, HR team is prepared to help with accommodations or with just talking through how to approach being more open about your disability in this environment. So those are two basic resources at the firm, but if I could volunteer David, as well.
David: Yeah, and the other things I would say is we do have an infinity group, disability infinity group. You do not have to be disabled to identify as disabled. There are folks in the group, in fact, I am the only one in the group who identifies as disabled, as I mentioned before. It has been a long process for me, and so I would say join the group. If you are here at the firm, you don't have to identify, and you can sort of work with us and maybe get to a point where you're comfortable with that. One thing that I would say to give great credit to the firm, one of the first things I raised when I first raised this issue a couple of years ago was that I did not see a way for people with disabilities to identify, except in the context for asking for reasonable accommodation, which a lot of people will not do unless they critically have to have it because of the stigma. And Natalie and Larren jumped on it immediately, and we have that in the system now, but it's not required of course. But I would say that is one, that you can get involved with the group. And then the other is that I'm always happy to connect with anyone confidentially and help in whatever way that I can.
Natalie: I would also say, for those at the firm, the Diversity Strategy Committee more broadly, this is part of our conversation, how to raise awareness around the disability, so I think you will find a lot of champions and allies and folks that are very supportive in that group as well and we have a DSC member in each of our offices. So that would be another resource, I think.
David: [inaudible] Eric, the lead chairman, has served on the Diversity Strategy Committee as long as almost anyone so I think there is very strong support for the initiative at the highest levels at the firm.
Natalie: In the remaining minutes, I don't know if anyone has questions?
David: Now everyone is on the spot.
UM1: [quiet speech] I was asking if there is a law school recruiting angle here because there is a group here that is being excluded, perhaps from the market in an irrational way and the next David Cross could be out there somewhere in a law school or the next Carlos, or David Tatel—
David: Be careful what you wish for there.
UM1: —who's on the DC circuit. He is a brilliant theorist and he's blind. So how should we be thinking about that kind of recruitment angle here?
Natalie: Well, I would be happy to get thoughts from Caren and Carlos too, but I do think many of our law school partners have Disability Infinity Groups themselves, so our team is definitely looking to partner more closely with those groups. Particularly, as we are turning more of our attention toward resources to supporting and raising awareness in this space. I do think there is an angle for recruiting purposes, at least to build that relationship with those groups on campus and really hear from them what they would like to see in the recruitment phase. I think that conversation has begun, but I don't know if others if others had thoughts.
Caren: I'll chime in but having just had this meeting with the Harvard law students, the Harvard Disabled Law Students Association. Having been in recruiting for 30 years, I have heard lots of on campus interview horror stories, but nothing like some of the experiences some of these students had. One of the students I was talking with is blind and deaf and the person kept asking her, 'What is her accent?' And so, training out interviewers and helping our interviewers understand differences is a really important part of this. And then, another one of the amazing students I talked to is quadriplegic, and she went for a call back and couldn't get into the building, and she was late to her interview. And you can imagine already the amount of anxiety you feel interviewing, add to that not being able to access the building to do your interview. So just thinking about that from a recruiting perspective, that as the person that asks, that would be a really, really important step to take.
Natalie: I think it also may be a topic that we approach with the advisory group moving forward.
David: Yeah.
Natalie: So, I want to thank each of you for your time today. This was a very engaging conversation around a very important topic that I hope the industry as a whole starts to pay more attention to. And so, thank you, Caren. Thank you, Carlos, and a special thanks to David for sharing his personal experiences. And for anyone out there who is interested with getting more involved as an ally or in support of diversity and inclusion, whether it is for disability or other groups, please reach out to me or any member of my team. We're always looking for more champions in this space. Thank you very much. Any final closing thought from anyone?
Caren: I want to thank the clients, McDonald's because—
David: Yes.
Caren: —the combination of the law firms and the clients working together is what is going to make this industry better, and it is going to push for change in a way that we probably couldn't do on either side by ourselves. Thank you, McDonald.
Carlos: Yeah. Thank you.
Caren: And thank you, [inaudible] and Intel. Thank you, all.
David: Thank you.
Carlos: Thank you.
[End of transcription]
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