Schiff Hardin has a proud and long tradition of supporting attorneys of diverse races, ethnicities, and national origins. Lawyers of color head up practice groups, manage offices, and serve on the firm’s governing committees. Twenty-five percent of the firm’s associates are diverse.

We also work hard to make our profession more diverse. In 1999, the firm created a permanent endowment at Loyola University Law School for annual scholarships that are awarded to top-performing diverse first-year law students. We also underwrite an annual fellowship for Hispanic law students through the Hispanic Lawyers Scholarship Fund of Illinois. Our writing coach held a workshop for 1L women lawyers of color through the Diverse Attorneys Pipeline Project. And we house the Just the Beginning Foundation in our Chicago office and support it in other ways as well. JTBF runs educational programs designed to encourage diverse young adults to pursue legal careers. 

We also host events and our lawyers volunteer with Posse, a highly respected college admission and persistence organization that provides millions of dollars in scholarships and support to diverse high school students. Networking opportunities inside and outside the firm are numerous. Schiff Hardin lawyers actively participate in organizations that connect the firm and diverse lawyers and law students. For example, we support the Black Women Lawyers’ Association of Greater Chicago, Inc. (“BWLA”). The Firm has supported various BWLA events the past several years, including spring fundraiser luncheons, national summits, and roundtable discussions.

Our attorneys also play prominent roles in bar associations, and our firm sponsors numerous events. We support bar organizations in every city where we maintain an office, including the following:

Black Women Lawyers' Association

Chicago Committee on Minorities in Large Law Firms

Cook County Bar Association

Corporate Counsel Women of Color (CCWC)

Filipino American Lawyers Association of Chicago

Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys

Hispanic Lawyers Scholarship Fund of Illinois

Hispanic National Bar Association

South Asian Bar Association

Institute for Inclusion in the Legal Profession

Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA)

National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA)

National Bar Association

National Employment Law Council

National Immigration Justice Center (NIJC)

North American South Asian Bar Association (NASABA)

San Francisco Bar Association, Justice & Diversity Center

We have a national reputation as a leading law firm for LGBT workplace equality. Two recent awards stand out. The Human Rights Campaign Foundation's Corporate Equality Index gave us a perfect score and highest ranking based on our policies and benefits for LGBT employees for the sixth straight year. And we were ranked by Equality Illinois as a leading law firm for LGBT lawyers in Illinois. 

Our LGBT lawyers are active on LGBT matters both inside and outside the firm. The chair of our LGBT Diversity Subcommittee, Clay A. Tillack, was elected to the board of directors of Equality Illinois in 2014. Clay ran our firmwide summer associate program for the third year in a row in 2016.

We also perform significant work or offer meaningful support to the ACLU of Illinois; AIDS Legal Council of Chicago; Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund; Equality Illinois; and Human Rights Campaign, among others. Finally, Schiff Hardin reaches out to and supports LGBT law students. For example, Schiff Hardin sponsors Northwestern University’s OUTLaw organization and our lawyers serve as mentors for law students from several law schools. 

We know that many of our lawyers and staff balance demands outside the workplace with their work. For this reason, we offer flexible, part-time arrangements to lawyers, along with generous maternity, adoption, and parental leave programs. The firm’s Professional Development Partner, works closely with associates on staffing and workload issues, including reduced hour arrangements, leaves of absence, and flexible work schedules.

We also have several groups dedicated to helping our attorneys and their families. The Schiff Hardin Parenting Group sponsors educational programs – it’s brought in a parenting coach to talk about communicating with children and a college counselor to discuss the admissions process. It also provides a forum for the firm’s working parents to network with one another, share referrals, and talk informally about parenting.

And in 2014 some new moms created a spin-off group.  The New Moms Group organically grew out of an informal conversation at a networking event among a handful of women and turned into a firm-sponsored inclusion network of associates and partners that meets regularly to address topics relevant to parenting young children.  The New Moms Group checks in with women who are transitioning in and out of maternity leave and discusses topics including advancement during this phase of life, nanny pay and taxes, flex time/part time schedules, business development opportunities for the New Moms Group, and pumping in the office (e.g., ensuring all attorneys have locks on their office doors).  The New Moms Group also maintains FAQs for Schiff’s new moms (or aspiring new moms!) to highlight firm resources , explains HR logistics for maternity leave, and addresses common issues and concerns for new moms. 

We created a Veterans Subcommittee for two principal reasons. First, we want to pay particular attention to veterans in hiring. Veterans’ unique experiences enrich our firm and bring value. To that end, we hosted a recruiting reception for law students from Midwestern law schools who are veterans or veterans’ spouses, and we sponsor Northwestern Law School’s Veterans Law Association. Second, we want to retain the veterans we hire. We know that active duty veterans and reservists may require specific accommodations to help fulfill their military commitments, including flex-time arrangements and hour reductions. We accommodate those commitments and consider veterans’ needs when we make decisions that could affect them.

We are strongly committed to ensuring that our lawyers with mental, physical, and sensory disabilities have every opportunity to have full and rich legal careers – and that they feel comfortable discussing their disability if they so choose. This subcommittee has overseen several projects designed to improve physical accessibility in our Chicago office, above and beyond what the law requires. Specifically, we have built accessible bathrooms for physically disabled visitors and staff and created a guide for people with disabilities to navigate the Willis Tower. We are working hard to identify additional improvements in our offices nationwide to enhance accessibility for all our employees and guests, including using technology to accommodate people with hearing impairments.

We also cosponsored a benefit for DARE2TRI, the country’s first paratriathlon club. We seek out additional opportunities to support people with disabilities in all of our offices.