Stephen D. Zubiago | CEO and managing partner, Nixon Peabody LLP
1. In your new role as CEO and managing partner of Nixon Peabody, how do you plan to champion diversity and inclusion? As CEO and managing partner, I have the privilege of working closely with our firm’s diversity, equity and inclusion director and management committee to expand our firm’s leadership role on this front. For example, our firm is a founder of Diversity Lab’s Move the Needle Fund, a collaborative effort among four law firms, in-house counsel and community leaders aimed at creating a more diverse and inclusive legal profession.
2. How are you attracting diverse talent and promoting equitable leadership? Our firm’s priority has always been to attract, retain and promote talented individuals who embody an array of racial, ethnic, social, economic, religious and personal backgrounds, genders and sexual orientations. … We have an active Diversity Recruiting Initiative, in which at least 20% of the candidates interviewed for lateral associate positions must be from an underrepresented group, racially diverse, LGBTQ+, attorneys with disabilities, veterans, or first-generation.
3. How has Nixon Peabody shaped the firm to reflect its efforts in becoming more diverse and inclusive? This year, we promoted nine attorneys to income partner and seven to equity partner. Nearly 60% of this year’s income partner class are women and attorneys of color, while four of the seven new equity partners are diverse. About 40% of our leadership roles today are held by women, racially diverse, or LGBTQ+ attorneys, and we have a diverse C-suite.
4. What ways has Nixon Peabody woven diversity and inclusion into the firm’s culture? In recent months, Nixon Peabody has continued to host widely attended programs on racial equity, unconscious bias and other topics, while encouraging open dialogue among supervisors and their teams. Programs like these … deepen our understanding of these issues and reinforce our culture.
5. How important is it to actively promote diversity and inclusion inside and outside of your organization? We understand that diversity and inclusion initiatives are hugely important within our firm and the impact they can have on the communities where we work. It isn’t just the right thing to do; it’s also good for the future of our organization when our personnel more accurately reflect our clients and our communities. Next, we are willing to take a public stand on issues that relate to our culture and vision. We have done that recently on matters relating to hate crimes and voting rights.
Cassius Shuman is a PBN staff writer. Email him at Shuman@PBN.com.
