(held May 31 and June 1 in Washington. D.C.)
OVERVIEW
On May 31 and June 1, 2001, approximately fifty equal justice
advocates gathered in Washington, DC for LSC's and NLADA's first
national conference on diversity in the legal services community.
Focusing on broad aspects of diversity - including, among others,
age, gender, disability, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity and
national origin - participants examined diversity-related strengths
and challenges facing clients, staff and program leaders (both
local and national), and brainstormed about potential strategies
for addressing the challenges. To ensure that the dialogue would
include the variety of issues and individuals in the legal services
community, NLADA and LSC selected participants to reflect both the
leadership and emerging leadership of the field. To the maximum
extent possible, participants broadly mirrored the full population
of the national community. Attendance at the meeting was limited to
about 50 people to foster candid conversation. Two members of the
Karp Consulting Group (Deborah Howard and Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb)
facilitated the two-day session.
All participants understood that, while the assembled group
reflected the demographics of the community, they did not speak for
every member of the broad-based legal services community. It should
be noted also that no clients were involved in this event. Thus the
vision and strategies suggested here must be seen and considered in
the context of a series of dialogues on diversity that NLADA and
LSC are holding throughout the year and in the context of the
reports issued following those conversations.
Participants began the conference by setting goals. They
included the following:
•
Identify and prioritize diversity-related issues that
exist within the legal services community.
•
Identify key diversity-related challenges that exist
internally and externally.
•
Identify obstacles within our legal services community
that cause and/or perpetuate bias, oppression, and
unfairness.
•
Brainstorm strategies to address the identified issues,
overcome the challenges and obstacles, and to promote justice,
fairness, and inclusion.
In order to facilitate the ability of the participants to work
from an agreed upon set of facts about themselves, the facilitators
divided the conferees into three groups. Each group represented a
time in the history of legal services -- The Past (20 years ago),
The Present and The Future (10 years from now). Each group was then
asked to answer the same set of questions about their particular
era. The thoughts and observations of each group are reported
below.
The Past
•
Key constituents included clients and community-based
organizations, local bar associations, client advisory committees,
LSC, other funders (such as United Way) and policy advocates like
NLADA.
•
The client community included a high number of welfare
recipients, was majority white and female with some regional
differences and included some undocumented individuals, elderly,
non-working poor and prisoners.
•
Program staff was less diverse. Fewer women worked in
legal services, particularly as lawyers. Management then was almost
exclusively white, male, younger and inexperienced. There were
fewer indigenous staff members.
•
Program staff members were treated with a "sink or swim"
attitude. Although they were expected to handle large caseloads
almost immediately, they were also freer to pursue an issue area
and develop themselves professionally through that pursuit. Program
leaders believed that poverty could be eradicated and accordingly
staff energies were often focused on impact work rather than on
access. Legal services organizations were centered on the
eradication of poverty and promoting equality and justice and
independence.
•
Although there was concern about diversity, there was
neither real dedication to making it happen nor any real
accountability with one exception -- the importance of hiring
African American attorneys and having African American
representation on boards in regions where African American
populations resided. Other than that, little attention was given to
retaining and promoting people of color, women, people with
disabilities and others who reflected the client community.
However, there was an awareness of the need to hire nonlegal staff
from the communities being served and this meant that staff
workforces often consisted of male, white attorneys and female
paraprofessional staff.
•
Some litigation was discrimination-based, i.e., school
desegregation and voting rights cases.
•
Staff training was usually not a priority for individual
programs and was generally provided by state and national back-up
centers.
•
Some national organizations recognized the need for
greater gender diversity and pursued activities to bring women into
the legal services workforce.
The Present
•
Today's key constituents include governing and policy
boards and clients (those being served and those not being served).
Other constituents are Congress, state and local bar associations,
court systems, new funders (IOLTA, state government, Department of
Justice Violence Against Women Office) "old" funders (LSC, United
Way), state and local governments, staff, social and human services
organizations, and civil rights and other advocacy groups (most of
which did not exist 20 years ago).
•
The client community has changed. Women, senior citizens
and the working poor still need our services, but new groups have
emerged. Programs are now expected to serve gay, lesbian and
transgendered persons, persons with AIDS, children, homeless
people, more immigrants (many of whom do not speak English and have
complex problems), persons with disabilities, unemployed persons,
people of color, rural and urban low-income people, people from
depressed areas, and those with mental illness.
•
Our staffs include more women, people with disabilities,
individuals from the community, eligible clients, gay, lesbian and
transgendered persons, people of color, people from diverse
economic backgrounds, and single and married parents. These staff
members tend to embrace the belief that each person who needs a
lawyer should have one, and that this is critical to moving people
out of poverty. However, although motivated by the desire to serve
and empower all people with legal problems, programs pragmatically
recognize the need to prioritize and focus their legal work on the
community's most serious problems.
•
The Present values include a commitment to quality work
and respect for clients.
•
Today's programs emphasize such activities as training
and CLE opportunities for staff, mentoring, team building and
strategic planning. Programs are exploring flexible work schedules,
incentive awards, higher salaries and loan forgiveness initiatives.
Staff are encouraged to be active in the community and in bar
association activities.
•
Many programs hold diversity training sessions for staff
and boards. Recruitment and retention efforts often reflect the
importance of a diverse workplace and the commitment of board and
staff to this value. Client communities are more diverse and
programs have more bilingual staff members. Offices are more
accessible to people with disabilities in part because of the
Americans with Disabilities Act. In some programs, management
structures have become broader to accommodate new supervisors and
approaches. Some managers have shown themselves willing to address
uncomfortable issues, give up power and make difficult financial
commitments to achieve a diverse work environment. Nonetheless,
serious diversity challenges continue to affect our
community.
•
A concern in the Present is translating the national
dialogue on diversity to local action. How can programs strengthen
their efforts to hire and retain a diverse staff as well as develop
diverse leadership? How do we encourage programs to hire people of
color, women, people with disabilities, gays and lesbians and other
nonmajority employees? How do we create opportunities for
minorities and women (and younger staff) to advance? How do we
engage Boards of Directors in these efforts?
•
Today's diversity approaches stress inclusion of people
of color, people with disabilities, gays, lesbians, older people
and women. In the Present we recognize that barriers are not
excuses. We realize that diversity can help programs reach clients
in a more appropriate and useful way, and we recognize the need to
increase staff communication skills including fluency in languages
other than English. We acknowledge that sharing power is often key
to achieving diversity in program leadership.
The Future
•
Key constituents will include older and aging clients.
The client population will be multinational due to the continuing
influx of immigrants. There will be more women, children and
employed people along with those with mental health
needs.
•
Community partnerships will expand, enhanced by the
growth of state justice communities and the many stakeholders
engaged in state planning. The importance and impact of non-LSC
funders will increase.
•
Staff members will reflect the community population and
include more people with second and third languages and individuals
who are immigrants or firstgeneration Americans. We will employ
more people who are not lawyers and those embarking on second or
third careers. Our leadership will reflect the expanded diversity
in the general program population.
•
There will be a greater emphasis on technology skills.
Office schedules will be more flexible (to accommodate staff) and
non-traditional (to accommodate clients). Programs will gain higher
visibility in multicultural communities.
•
The legal services community will expand its hiring,
retention and training activities in the multicultural community.
Innovative loan forgiveness programs will attract diverse staff. It
will nurture a cadre of multiculturally competent and innovative
leaders. Diversity will be reflected in our community's everyday
culture. Partnerships with non-traditional organizations will grow
and new definitions of diversity and leadership will be crafted. We
will pursue affirmative
challenges to institutional oppression and disparate treatment.
We will concern ourselves with the clash between groups as a result
of changing demographics, and with the clash between "the law" and
our vision for inclusion as a justice imperative.
THE NEED FOR A DIVERSE WORKFORCE WITHIN THE LEGAL SERVICES
COMMUNITY
Turning to the importance of diversity, participants agreed that
giving diversity concerns their time, energy, attention and
resources will generate big dividends. Participants agreed that a
diverse staff creates a better product and strengthens client trust
in the program. They felt that a diverse environment fosters
personal growth and leads to an appreciation of differences in
others. Diversity allows us to tap into human genius, inspiration
and excitement. It makes us aware of the special needs of
disenfranchised groups. It empowers clients and staff, strengthens
the organization and improves ties to other groups.
However, participants also agreed that a highly diverse staff is
not achieved without certain difficulties. Diversity "pioneers"
often feel the fatigue and isolation of being the only or among a
few people of color, women, persons with disabilities, gays or
other representatives of minority groups in their office.
Proponents of increased diversity may face criticism from staff or
supervisors for "spending too much time on diversity." Since legal
services people often think of themselves as "progressives" who
don't need further education on issues of inclusion, making
diversity work within programs is not easy and requires the support
and the guidance of committed leaders. Helping staff and boards
arrive at a common vision necessitates honest and sometimes
difficult conversations.
All participants agreed on the following:
•
Turning words into action requires establishing goals and
setting realistic timeframes and benchmarks (without setting an end
date);
•
Success is easier to obtain if people are not made
defensive;
•
Framing diversity efforts in positive and practical terms
will allow proponents to move beyond the "moral imperative"
approach;
•
Budgets and other resources must be revised to support
the new effort;
•
Policies will need to be strengthened to accommodate more
aggressive and urgent strategies.
Building and retaining a diverse staff and board is a major
challenge for most programs. Many conferees believe that increasing
salaries and benefits and developing loan forgiveness programs will
go a long way to attracting a more diverse staff. Seeing
opportunities for advancement and leadership positions in programs
is critical to retaining women, people of color and other
individuals who contribute to a diverse staff. An active and
authentic commitment to diversity throughout each program is
essential. A core group can begin the work, but structural and
programmatic changes -- mentoring, opportunities to talk about real
problems and see solutions implemented, power sharing, diverse
boards of Directors, new definitions of leadership --will be
necessary to achieve lasting change. All conferees agreed that a
program's belief in the value of diversity is best shown by the
extent to which it devotes time, money and people to achieving
it.
CRITICAL ISSUES
After identifying the benefits and challenges of focusing on
diversity and developing strategies to maximize the benefits and
overcome the challenges, participants identified internal and
external issues that they wanted to spend more time discussing.
Internal issues selected for further discussion included the
following:
•
Recruitment and retention of diverse
leadership/governance
•
Recruitment and retention of minorities
•
Perception that programs have withdrawn from
discrimination-based advocacy
The top external issues included:
•
Lack of a common definition/vision of
diversity
•
Loss of trust among communities because of perception
that programs are no longer dealing with discrimination-based
issues (and resulting tension between African-Americans and
Hispanics)
•
Making justice communities more diverse, inclusive and
multiculturally competent
•
Creating organizational cultures to address a broader
range of legal issues than we do now1
Conferees agreed that leadership is broader than just
"management" and that the concept of leadership rests on power
sharing. Conferees further noted that possibilities for promotion
among women and members of "disenfranchised groups" must be in
place to ensure that "diversity" goes beyond race. Additionally,
women managers and minority managers cannot be held to unreasonable
expectations and higher standards than those applied to
heterosexual white men.
Conferees believe that programmatic growth rests on a common
definition and vision of diversity and earmarking resources so that
goals are attained. Programs need to come up with innovative ways
of supporting people who are advocates for diversity, including
charging certain staff members to "reach out" to others to overcome
possibly hidden discrimination (such as discrimination members of
religious groups and gays/lesbians/bi-sexual and transgender
persons). Sensitivity to differences must be constantly encouraged.
We should be particularly careful not to refer clients elsewhere
merely because their issues or situations are unpopular. Programs
should consider reengaging in discrimination-based advocacy if that
approach has been abandoned or overlooked in recent years.
1
Participants gave issues 3 and 4 the same number of votes, tying
them for third place.
Conferees found that programs lacked a common definition and
vision of diversity. Some felt that there had been loss of trust by
clients from "disenfranchised" groups because of a belief that
legal services programs have pulled away from discrimination-based
initiatives. With respect to challenges at the local level,
conferees discussed the need for programs to create cultures that
address more complex issues (for example, mental health and race
issues). On a broader level, conferees agreed that we must work to
ensure that both individual state justice communities and the
broader national counterpart becomes more diverse, inclusive and
multiculturally competent. Participants agreed that in order to
identify and serve groups that remain isolated, we need to broaden
our language bases, bring more qualified support staff to our
programs, use community leaders and be sensitive to tension between
disenfranchised communities.
VISION FOR SUCCESS
After prioritizing their primary issues, conferees then listed
indicators by which success in achieving diverse communities of
justice could be defined. Indicators are grouped by topic and
summarized by theme.
Leadership
Indicators of success -- Our senior management includes more
women, gays, lesbians, people of color, older people and people
with disabilities. Leaders are held accountable for progress in
meeting goals that ensure our programs and state justice
communities are diverse throughout, maintaining a "glittering
mosaic." From novel power-sharing arrangements, new leaders and
leadership models emerge. Local and national initiatives are
established to nurture and promote them.
Program Boards
Indicators of success --Boards contain representatives from a
greater variety of groups. National, state and local program boards
reflect the diversity of the communities they serve.
State Justice Communities
Indicators of success --We endorse a common vision of diversity
and goal for achievement on the national, state and local levels,
and diversity issues are included in every state plan. Effective
policies that implement diversity goals are adopted throughout each
state. Our goals and related efforts as contained in state plans
are based on a deeper understanding of client demographics
published in the new census material. We have crafted innovative
strategies for reaching severely marginalized communities and our
statistics show that they are working. Program staff and
stakeholders are engaged in a full range of client services,
address a full-range of legal problems, and have assumed the
responsibility to create greater access and capacity to solve
them.
Programs and Staff
Indicators of success -- Salaries and compensation packages are
competitive with other nonprofit and public interest organizations.
Funding allocations reflect the high priority that programs place
on aggressive discrimination-based advocacy and attaining diversity
goals. Programs offer a broader range of services to the community
based on an expanded definition of advocacy, moving beyond
litigation and conventional lawyering.
National Funders
Indicators of success -- Money is available to implement
innovative diversity agendas and model projects.
ACTION PLANNING
Participants drew up an action-plan that could bring about their
vision and in the context of what they anticipate the future will
hold in terms of issues, funding and staff. Their ideas and
initiatives can be implemented at the local and national
levels.
Recruitment and Retention of Diverse Leadership/Governance
Steps are initiated to allow program board membership to reflect
the clienteligible community and include representatives from the
funding community, corporations and other partners. Each board is
required to have a standing committee to monitor board and program
diversity. A national leadership institute is created and begins to
identify, recruit, mentor and otherwise train diverse leaders; its
participants include at least 1-2 staff from each program; it is
adequately funded. Compensation structures in legal services
programs anticipate long-term tenure and include pension plans,
flexible schedules and benefits that reward longevity.
Recruitment and Retention of Minorities
Data on retention and recruitment over the past decade is
gathered and made available by national organizations; these groups
compile and disseminate information on successful diversity
initiatives. Programs begin to conduct exit interviews that seek to
understand the reasons for staff turnover. Programs begin to
establish formal mentoring systems for staff. Personnel policies
will be revised so that they further encourage and support a
diverse work environment and spell out the organization's
commitment to diversity. On the local and national levels,
opportunities for professional development will grow and all staff
members in a program, not just attorneys, take advantage of
them.
Encouraging Discrimination-Based Advocacy
Discrimination-based advocacy is incorporated in advocate
orientation and training sessions. It also becomes a focus at
national training events. State planning addresses
discrimination-based advocacy and the infrastructure necessary to
achieve it. Programs and state justice communities seek guidance on
the intersection of race and poverty from national experts and
focus on these issues in local, regional and state contexts.
Programs develop more opportunities for staff to understand the
discriminatory impact on clients that can result from public
policies. They hire individuals to act as leaders, teachers and
resources in this arena. Training strategies highlight the
centrality of discrimination-based advocacy to our mission.
Developing a Common Definition and Vision of Diversity
A common definition of diversity is developed. It is informed by
federal and state law, census data and innovative models from other
disciplines while acknowledging the breadth of our communities. It
incorporates concepts of power and reduction of barriers and an
affirmative duty to address barriers. Program and justice community
success is tied to and evaluated in terms of diversity initiatives.
All programs commit to addressing internal diversity concerns.
Addressing "Loss of Trust" Due to Perception that Programs Are
No Longer Dealing with Discrimination-Based Issues
State justice communities begin to examine how they set
priorities given changing demographics (census), new technology,
emerging legal needs, commonalties among diverse communities, and
severely marginalized client populations living within in our
service areas. Programs create staff positions charged with working
with special client populations. Programs and their staff members
are encouraged to collaborate with the community and apply bold
strategies in addressing community problems. State justice
communities examine leadership within a multicultural framework and
use the results in staff and leadership training. They become more
creative in raising funds for discrimination-based projects.
Ensuring that Justice Communities Become Diverse, Inclusive, and
Multiculturally Competent and Creating Cultures that Impact a
Broader Range of Legal Issues than We Do Now (i.e., mental health
and racial justice)
National organizations publicly affirm that a hallmark of the
justice community is that it is diverse, inclusive, and
multiculturally competent. A "best practices" clearinghouse is
developed where programs share ideas on diversity successes. There
are regular diversity conferences for state justice community
leaders.
