Comité Diversité & Inclusion
Licks Attorneys has recently undertaken a major commitment to inclusivity and diversity. During the second semester of 2019, with the support of national and international institutions focused on Women in Intellectual Property and Innovation, we held several events to highlight the importance of diversity in the legal profession. This year we celebrated International Women’s Day with activities designed to raise awareness among our female professionals of the importance of good mental health and nutrition practices. At the beginning of 2020, the firm established a new policy that set maternity leave for six months and paternity leave for 20 days (10 + 10). These initiatives mark the beginning of an ambitious agenda to transform our professional culture.
In September 2020, we hired an external consultancy firm specialized in promoting organizational diversity and inclusivity to help us structure our Diversity and Inclusion Committee and develop appropriate policies for the firm. To date, they have concluded 70 percent of this project, including a full diagnostic, conducted through an extensive quantitative questionnaire involving the entire firm and qualitative interviews with selected leaders and staff members. This diagnostic stage provided an in-depth insight into our firm’s strengths and weaknesses in the D&I field and is guiding us through our next steps.
We are now completing the mentoring process with the consultant, which includes a separate workshop with our Committee members addressing the most critical matters raised during the diagnostic phase at the end of 2020. After that, we will begin the third and last phase of the project in June 2021, including different online classes for all our members on important issues like inclusive communication and recognizing unconscious bias. At the end of this process, we believe we will be better prepared as a team to work on internal politics and procedures related to diversity and inclusion in our firm and community.
Due to the pandemic, plans for other events in 2020 had to be postponed. However, we intend to regain the positive momentum the Committee has already created by initiating events to cultivate diversity and inclusion through a focus on ethnicity and gender identity. We want not only to involve all office members in these events but also to conduct internal reforms that channel our collective efforts into creating an inclusive organizational culture that everyone can be proud of. We also intend to reach out to young minorities and the LGBTQIA+ community by offering more opportunities through partnerships with universities.
We aim to help build a more robust, multicultural, and human environment, not only within the doors of Licks Attorneys but also outside of them.
For more information on the matter, please contact us at diversidade@lickslegal.com