2024 Hackathon
100+ Law Firm & Legal Department Leaders Band Together as a Community to Tackle Tough Equity and Inclusion Challenges in Law
SAN FRANCISCO (June 11, 2024) — More than 100 law firm partners, legal department leaders, and industry experts are joining forces in a shark-tank style pitch competition to solve some of the most challenging DEI issues facing the legal industry as part of Diversity Lab’s “Moments to Movements Hackathon.”
These leaders are working together in small teams over five months from March to July 2024 – with guidance from in-house team leaders and DEI experts – to collaborate, ideate, and offer sustainable and scalable solutions to the following Hackathon challenges:
- Community — How can we defend and fortify DEI across the profession and in each organization to withstand downturns, leadership changes, anti-DEI rhetoric, and other headwinds?
- Inclusive Talent Systems — How can we improve workplace practices and processes to ensure fair and equal access to high-quality work, sponsors, and business/clients to level the playing field for all talent, including historically underrepresented lawyers?
The team’s solutions will be pitched live to a panel of influential judges and an audience of 200+ leaders at NYU School of Law on July 11, 2024. The pitches will be evaluated on their potential for impact, adoption, and progress measurement. Teams earn extra points by incorporating remote working, accessibility, and law firm and legal department collaboration into their solutions. The winning ideas will be further developed by Diversity Lab and piloted with the participating law firms and legal departments.
Throughout the five months, the teams have been supported by the Hackathon Chairs – Courtney Carter from Jenner & Block and Alan York from Reed Smith – and the Pitch Event Hosts, David Glasgow and Kenji Yoshino from New York University School of Law’s Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging. Several prominent groups and leaders are also offering their expertise to the teams, including the Association of Law Firm Diversity Professionals, SEO, Street Law, New York City Bar Association, Paula Edgar, Leopard Solutions, Institute for Inclusion in the Legal Profession, and more.
Diversity Lab’s past Hackathons – the 2016 Women in Law Hackathon and the 2018 Diversity In Law Hackathon Series – have a history of delivering impactful initiatives. The 2016 Hackathon culminated in the creation of the Mansfield Rule, a data-driven, behavioral science-backed certification process that has now been adopted by 400+ law firms and legal departments in the US, UK, and Canada.
Mansfield early adopter law firms have doubled the racial and ethnic diversity of their leadership in contrast to the minimal gains experienced by non-Mansfield firms. And firms report that their leadership ranks are also evolving to meaningfully include LGBTQ+ lawyers, women lawyers, and lawyers with disabilities as a result of Mansfield.
Several of the 2018 Hackathon winning ideas have also generated positive results, including:
- Diversity Dividends Collective — 40+ legal departments are working with Diversity Lab to collectively measure and partner with their outside counsel firms to improve diversity on their teams and in leadership, positively impacting 620 client teams from 320 firms to date. This winning idea was designed to streamline and boost the impact of the massive number of DEI surveys that law firms receive annually from their clients.
- Inclusion Blueprint — More than 300 law firms have leveraged the Inclusion Blueprint as a roadmap of inclusive talent practices that can be measured at both the firmwide and practice group levels to ensure equal distribution of opportunities for growth and advancement.
At such a critical time for the community to come together to support and advance DEI, the Hackathon Chairs and a past participant offered the following comments.
“Defending DEI is a community effort. We are encouraged by the large number of firms and their clients who have answered the call to leverage collaboration and design thinking as part of Diversity Lab’s 10th Anniversary Hackathon to ensure that the legal profession continues creating opportunities for all current and aspiring legal minds. Our hard work and support of these efforts has not waned at Jenner & Block so we are thrilled to partner with others who share similar values.” – Courtney Carter, Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Jenner & Block
“Although headlines suggest that some organizations are retreating from their efforts to create more inclusive workplaces, we are not experiencing that in the legal profession or in our interactions with our clients. It’s quite the contrary as noted by this Hackathon and its 100+ participants. Reed Smith is clearly not alone in its persistence and passion for a diverse and inclusive workplace.” – Alan York, Partner and Global Diversity Chair, Reed Smith
“Participating in Diversity Lab’s 2018 Hackathon was instrumental in my journey to my current role as Managing Partner. The Hackathon process involves structured learning on topics including design thinking and behavioral science and developing a deeper understanding of what drives inclusive cultures. I was able to bring this knowledge and experience back to Saul Ewing, where I am proud to say we are continuing the important work – despite the headwinds – of fostering an inclusive culture where all lawyers can thrive, and our clients can benefit from the diverse experiences of our talented lawyers and business professionals.” – Jason St. John, Managing Partner, Saul Ewing
Hackathon Law Firm & Legal Department Participants
| Hope Abramov | Thompson Coburn | Ena Lebel | Pittsburgh Legal Diversity & Inclusion Coalition |
| Martinique Aguero | Zendesk | Kristin Lee | Morgan Lewis |
| Helena Almeida | Automatic Data Processing | Becky Lindahl | Katten Muchin Rosenman |
| Daniel Attaway | Womble Bond Dickinson | Andrew Lolli | Armstrong Teasdale |
| Scholastica Baker | McDonald’s Corporation | Angela Machala | Winston & Strawn |
| Stanley Ball | Intel | Caitlin Mattler | Beazley |
| Andrew Barkan | Fried Frank | Nicole McCluney | Wolfspeed |
| Laura Baucus | Dykema Gossett | Shannon McNeal | Davis Wright Tremaine |
| Jenna Bedsole | AutoZone | Sebastian Meis | Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz |
| Beth Bernstein Connors | Blank Rome | Amy Melican | Tapestry |
| Bobby Moore | Baker McKenzie | Judith Mercier | Holland & Knight |
| April Boyer | K&L Gates | Caroline Miller Smith | White & Case |
| Karen Brown | Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center | Brandon R. Mita | Littler |
| Kati Bynon | Beazley | Kathleen Molamphy | ICL Americas |
| Melissa Cabral | Epiq Global | Michelle Nickel | Toyota Motor Credit Corporation |
| Victoria Calderon | Edison Electric Institute | Stephanie Niehaus | Peloton |
| Pablo Castro | Cisco | Erin O’Neil Ashby | PGIM Real Estate |
| Vincent Cesare | Nixon Peabody | Maureen O’Neill | Consilio |
| Tom Chen | Haynes Boone | Evan Parness | Covington & Burling |
| Kalisha Chorba | Jacobs | Barbie Reinard | Amazon |
| Kristen Coleman | Segal McCambridge Singer & Mahoney | Amanda Rosania | American Express |
| Jeremy Creelan | Jenner & Block | Sonya Rosenberg | Neal Gerber Eisenberg |
| Kate Currie | American Express | Nate Saint Victor | Engine No. 1 |
| Naana Danquah Jefferson | SLB | Samuel Shwartz-Fenwick | Seyfarth Shaw |
| Roger Denning | Fish & Richardson | Amie Siebert | Zip Co US |
| Danielle DeVito-Hurley | Gunster | Ashley Smith | Amtrak |
| Darshak Dholakia | Dechert | Brandy Smith | Lincoln Financial Group |
| James Edwell | Consilio | Ashante Smith | Troutman Pepper |
| Ashlei Ferguson | Microsoft | Jennifer Stancil | Beazley |
| Maya Gandhi | The New York Times | Kaitlyn Stone | Barnes & Thornburg |
| Jennifer Goodwin | Victaulic Company | Rita Tendolkar | American Express |
| Jason Halpern | American Express | Nichole Valeyko | Merck |
| Letoyia Horton | Beazley | Carla Varriale-Barker | Segal McCambridge Singer & Mahoney |
| Joseph Jean | Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman | Joeann Walker | Con Edison |
| Joshua Stern | WilmerHale | Eric Watson | Pagaya |
| James Keller | Saul Ewing | Scott Wells | Tradeweb |
| Rose Kenerson | Euclid Transactional | Jay Williams | Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe |
| Peter Lam | Extreme Networks | Jennifer Windom | Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel |
| Jenny Lane | Airbnb | Melissa Zujkowski | Flex |
| Sarah Markenson-Bussel | U.S. Bank |
Hackathon Team Leads & DEI Experts
| Tienne Anderson | Chief Counsel, Department of Global Pediatric Medicine | St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital |
| Miko Brown | Founder & President | Project Ganesha |
| Monya Bunch | Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion | WilmerHale |
| Yoonhwi Cho | Senior Diversity & Inclusion Manager | K&L Gates |
| Chad Cole | Social Impact & Sustainability Manager | Jackson Walker |
| Gianni Dimos | Vice President & Senior Counsel | American Express |
| Sherrie Farrell | Chief Diversity Officer; Member | Dykema |
| Christina Graham | Senior Counsel | PNC Bank |
| Norma Jackson | Chief Diversity & Attorney Development Officer | Thompson Coburn |
| Sylvia James | Chief D&I Officer | Winston & Strawn |
| Sharad Khemani | Vice President & Senior Division Counsel | Stryker |
| Sang Kim | Senior Legal Counsel | Accenture |
| Deanna Kwong | Director, Office of Operations, Legal, and Administrative Affairs | HPE |
| Marlon Lutfiyya | Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion | Neal Gerber |
| Kelly McLain | Managing Associate General Counsel | Cargill |
| Cory Myers | Assistant General Counsel; Legal, Regulatory & Compliance DEI Advisory Council Chair | KPMG |
| Rosa Nunez | Director of Diversity & Inclusion | Foley Hoag |
| Satra Sampson-Arokium | Chief DEI Officer | Dechert |
| Whitney Smallwood | Director of Diversity & Inclusion | Fish & Richardson |
Hackathon Pitch Event Judges
| Sharifa A. Anderson | Senior Vice President and Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer | Fannie Mae |
| Jim Chosy | General Counsel | U.S. Bank |
| Mo Cowan | Chief Legal Officer and former US Senator | Devoted Healthcare, Inc. |
| Inga Goldbard | General Counsel | GV |
| Jeff Jaeckel | Vice Chair | Morrison Foerster |
| Vernā Myers | Founder and CEO; DEI Pioneer | The Vernā Myers Company |
| Ruth Umoh | Journalist & Editor of RaceAhead | Fortune |
| Daniel Yi | Lecturer & Board Member | Harvard Law School & Corporate Legal Operations Consortium |
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About Diversity Lab: We envision a world where the leaders are as diverse as the workforces and communities they represent. For more details, visit www.diversitylab.com.
Our Work: Diversity Lab designs, tests, and measures the outcomes of science-based and data-driven talent practices that allow for fair and equal access to advancement opportunities.
Our Focus: Our primary focus is on leaders in law since they often rise to positions of influence in government, boardrooms, courtrooms, and beyond. The more diverse our leadership, the more inclusive and equitable the decisions for the benefit of the entire workforce and society.
Our Impact: Inclusion is the goal, greater diversity — in leadership and beyond — is the result.
A link to the press release can be found here. For inquiries, please contact Aurelia at aurelia@diversitylab.com.