Tanya “Toni” De Mello, Assistant Dean for Student Programming, Development and Equity at Canada's newest law school, talks to us about the promise and the future of the profession. We look at how legal employers can adopt lessons learned from her leading role in creating an inclusive and innovative academic community – and her revelatory PhD research into recruitment in the legal sector – in their efforts to cultivate more equitable and diverse workplaces that attract, empower and inspire the best work from up-and-coming leaders in law.
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Hiring and EDI - How to Get it Right
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Strategies for Retaining Diverse Lawyers
Shifting the Cultural Mindset at Your Firm or Organization
Diversity for Solo, Small and Mid-sized Firms
Cultural Competency as Your competitive Advantage
Have feedback? Email us at pod@oba.org with your thoughts and comments.
Charlene Theodore:
Hello, and welcome to the Work that Works podcast. I'm your host, Charlene Theodore.
Charlene Theodore:
Before I begin, I want to acknowledge that I'm recording this episode from the Dish With One Spoon Territory. I'm grateful to the original owners for taking care of this land, and I recognize the treaties that govern it. Knowing that our listeners span the country and are tuning in from other areas with their own treaties and unceded territories, I encourage you to continue learning more about the Indigenous history in your community. It is important history, and a story that continues.
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Charlene Theodore:
Up-and-coming leaders in our legal workplaces – the ones who will continue to shape the culture, the policies and the practices as we modernize – are themselves shaped profoundly by their educational experience. How do the lessons future change makers of the profession learn in law school, lessons about inclusion, collaboration, constructive communication, and celebration of difference, contribute to a diverse, productive, and profitable organization? I'm OBA President, Charlene Theodore, and this is the Work that Works podcast.
Charlene Theodore:
I'm pleased to be joined today by Toni De Mello, Assistant Dean for Student Programming, Development and Equity at the Ryerson Faculty of Law, Canada's newest law school. In her role, Toni works collaboratively with administration, faculties, associations, unions, and student groups to engage in programming, service delivery, and curriculum development, that really operationalizes diversity, equity, and inclusion on campus.
Charlene Theodore:
Needless to say, she knows a lot about achieving a balance within the context of sometimes competing priorities, that balance we're all trying to attain through Work that Works. She's also a human rights lawyer, certified coach, mediator, and a sought after speaker on EDI topics ranging from anti-racism to imposter syndrome.
Charlene Theodore:
I have a feeling there's a lot she can teach us about creating the kind of inclusive and innovative spaces that will work for and bring out the best in future lawyers. Welcome, Toni, thanks for joining us.
Toni De Mello:
Thank you for having me.
Charlene Theodore:
So, let's get into it. I've looked at your career and your career path, and inclusion and equality feature prominently in your current role, as they have in your previous roles in academia. Can you tell us a little bit about how your legal and international experience connects to your work in those areas?
Toni De Mello:
Sure. I'm a human rights lawyer by trade, and I actually started doing humanitarian assistance. Initially, I did grassroots work in Toronto. Growing up here in the shelter system, I worked a lot in shelter, and a lot with at risk youth and young parents. And I ended up doing humanitarian aid, where I worked for the United Nations and Geneva at a head office, then in a regional office in Western Africa, and then during the civil war in Columbia, in a field office.
Toni De Mello:
And I thought that was going to be my life calling. And my family needs brought me home. So I decided to work with refugees and displaced people, but in Canada. So I went to McGill Law, and was much closer to my family and loved it, loved working in law, loved human rights law.
Toni De Mello:
And increasingly, I realized that the university environment actually had a lot of richness to offer the kind of work I wanted to do. So educating the thousands of students that go out and serve our communities, the opportunity to research and think about those issues, and to partner with tons of members of the community in business, nonprofit, and government, to do some of the work that was so important to me. So I found this nice niche, I think, between university education, and legal education, and human rights, that's really important to me.
Charlene Theodore:
That's great. One of the things, the big things, that happened in 2020 and yes, some good things did happen in 2020, is Ryerson Law launched. And they had embedded in the core and the ethos of this law school that they were going to do things differently with respect to equality, diversity, and inclusion. And you've been part of launching a new school right from the beginning. I wonder what you learned through that process about creating collaborative spaces, and navigating healthy conflict in a way that leads to constructive communication?
Toni De Mello:
That's such an important question. So I first want to give a shout out to Ryerson. So my previous boss, when I was the Director of Human Rights for four years at Ryerson, my previous boss, Dr. Denise O'Neil Green, a prolific figure, the first Black woman, vice president of equity, first vice president of equity in any institution in Canada, and the first Black woman to be in that role, really guided me on the work around Ryerson. And I know has been instrumental in sort of making EDI, as we call it, a part of the core values of Ryerson.
Toni De Mello:
The law school, I think, represents exactly what you said, a really focused effort to say, "We want to think about diversity and inclusion in a different way. We want our student body to look more like the community." I've been shocked, I've been working for over 20 years now in EDI, and 10 years in the legal industry, and I'm often shocked when I walk into law schools and I can count on one hand the number of Black people-
Charlene Theodore:
On one hand.
Toni De Mello:
... Like not a few hands. And again, we're making assumptions about who identifies as Black, but on one hand, in a law firm, I can often count on one hand the number of Black people. Indigenous people, I usually can't count one. I rarely meet one. And so, thinking about what it looks like for the profession to start producing a student body that will then become the professional worker that represents the racial diversity of a city that is as racially diverse as Toronto.
Toni De Mello:
And not just racial diversity, we talk a lot about gender diversity, and I care about that deeply, but I find that, that's very high on the list of diversity. And when we care about it, racial diversity is important, socioeconomic stats and looking at people that might come from different class backgrounds, the legal profession is one of the most elite and exclusive professions in the world and by trade and design in some ways.
Toni De Mello:
And so what does it look like to have people who are first-generation to go to college or to go to professional school? What does it look like to have folks that are immigrants? What does that look like to have accents that are different from Anglophone or Francophone Canadian accents? And I don't mean British or European accents or Australian or White South Africans. Those accents are sometimes represented, but there are many accents around Asia, Latin America, African continent that we never hear.
Charlene Theodore:
Caribbean, I've got to mention, Caribbean accents.
Toni De Mello:
Caribbean huge. Huge. So thinking about that, I think is really important. So we also have a Black woman as Dean who's a Canadian Dean, Donna Young, that was very deliberate and intentional. She's extremely skilled, and brings proven experience over 30 years of experience in law, a really powerful researcher on race and sexual violence, the intersections of those two things, a scholar, an educator, somebody that has law school experience from the US.
Toni De Mello:
So one of the things that I think has been really powerful and our president Mohamed Lachemi talks about this is, I believe the law school represents something Ryerson thinks about a lot, which is the transformational power of education. That it's not just about getting a degree, but what does it look like for Ryerson Law to change the legal profession? And we went into it with that and we are fighting hard to do that. It's very hard in COVID, I can tell you. But that was part of it.
Toni De Mello:
But to answer the second part of your question, which I think is really important, I have to say, I've rarely been asked this, so thank you for asking it. How do we think about collaboration, but in a way that we are able to have conflict, constructive communication? The legal profession is one, I think that is by design, very adversarial.
Toni De Mello:
It has created in many people's minds, when we watch stuff on TV, movies, this sort of hostile environment, that if you badger somebody enough, you will be able to get to the truth. We are known as lawyers that can be uncivil at times, right? And so what does it look like to have confrontation, but to do it in a way that's respectful, constructive, that's healthy? I love that we're thinking about healthy conflict.
Toni De Mello:
And one of the ways in which we are really doing this is thinking about what collaboration looks like. What does it look like to work with people from different parts of the world, different parts of your city, different parts of the industry, to know them better so that where we disagreed, there's a mutual respect and a treatment of the other person with dignity? What does it look like to disagree and have an argument or have conflict that's positive?
Toni De Mello:
Over 70% of Canadians are actually very conflict averse. I joke about how my friends at a restaurant in Canada will get the wrong order and not complain.
Charlene Theodore:
And we'll send it back.
Toni De Mello:
I've been here my whole life, but I'm like, "But you didn't order that." They're like, "It's okay. It's okay." And you're literally eating something that you paid for that incorrect because you're so worried about the possibility of conflict.
Toni De Mello:
So how can we teach people to say you and I might disagree and how do we disagree in a way where we're not humiliating each other? Where there's a space for your voice and for mine? And that maybe we don't come to an agreement at this point, but later. And for me, it's sort of centering that idea of dignity of the person. And for me, that's the core of human rights. So I'm going to bring that, which is, you listen, you learn and you know the person, but you treat them with the dignity you hope that you would be treated with.
Toni De Mello:
And we're trying to build that into our curriculum, into the ways in which our students interact with professors and the way in which professors interact with students, but thinking about what that looks like and how that can also change the profession.
Charlene Theodore:
Well that's so profound to me, Toni, because the reason why I wanted to start this podcast and the reason why we have the great community of listeners that we do, is because several factors have forced legal employers, whether they're in-house or in private practice, to rethink the way that they do work. Right? One of them is, of course the obvious, the pandemic, when people are just starting to rethink work as a physical space, work allocation, our relationships with each other, because we've all been thrown into the situation. So it's brought the issue to the forefront.
Charlene Theodore:
But the other factor, of course, is after the murder of George Floyd this summer, there was greater attention globally on not just systems and how the inequity inherent in kind of all of our systems, specifically on anti-Black racism. And so the reason why your answer resonates with me is because our listeners are, in effect, doing some of what you and your team had to do in the lead up to build Ryerson. When, in many ways, starting from scratch in terms of how we re-imagine our workplaces and get it right from an equity lens.
Charlene Theodore:
And so, because one thing we always speak about is the new cohort of more diverse lawyers that have different expectations and providing workplaces where they can thrive and become leaders and carry on these practices or legal departments. And so to know that you're using that collaborative human dignity centered approach, so that's what the new students are being taught. That's what they're going to come out from. What I'm hearing is that's also the approach you had to use in building your own workplaces within academia. So I think that, that's really great and that's a really valuable takeaway.
Charlene Theodore:
So speaking of ecosystem, every workplace setting, whether it's in academia in-house or in private practice, is really its own ecosystem or community. And I think that they work best when each person feels an equal sense of belonging, agency and value or recognition. Based on the work that you've done throughout your career, I wonder if you could give us a sense of what some of the barriers are to really full participation and engagement that you've seen taken away in legal academia, and how have those efforts to remove those barriers left more of the community feeling empowered?
Toni De Mello:
I think that's such an important question. And I love that you also talk about what is it to empower people? We often talk about the barriers without talking about what's working. I want to make a comment based on something you just said that feeds into this, which is about George Floyd. And we know that Black people are being killed at the hands of our system regularly, institutionally, systemically. For the one George Floyd video, the first thing my father said is, "There are hundreds of men that are being killed and we don't have a video."
Toni De Mello:
You know, Black Lives Matter is now being seen in a different light. And I think COVID is part of that. People were home, they weren't running to soccer and weddings and weekends, and everybody was home and feeling that sort of sense of isolation and injustice that saw in a different way in COVID. And then you see the murder of these men.
Toni De Mello:
And in fact, the Black Lives Matter movement started in 2013 when Trayvon Martin was killed. But there wasn't a video of that, of a young boy just walking through a neighborhood with a hoodie and gets killed and nothing is done. Very little was done. And that's how that movement started. And so we're now seven years later, and there's finally a reckoning that does feel different, right? It's been a movement and it's come from decades and centuries of people, especially Black people doing the work, but there's a movement.
Toni De Mello:
What I noticed, and this is part of my answer. When we think about the barriers to full participation, I think there has been such a lack of willingness to have awareness. So we'll do the one equity training that people love to bring me in to do. And it's like this lovely check box and you get your credits and then you're good because you're not a racist because you did this lovely training.
Toni De Mello:
Now people are saying, "We want more training. We just want training every week." And what I found after George Floyd is people started doing their own learning. So they may have done a training here or there, but people were reading Robin DiAngelo, Bill [Cooke's 00:14:07], Cornel West. They were starting really trying to understand what was going on. And my answer is the biggest barrier is not that you don't have awareness. I think it's part of it. It's moving that awareness to action.
Toni De Mello:
You can read Robin DiAngelo, all you want. And I love her and I love Cooke. And I love the thinkers that are talking about anti-Black racism and having us think about it differently. But if you never had a Black person in your house before COVID, if you don't have Black colleagues that you spend time with or mentor, or are mentored by, if there isn't the actual action that comes out of awareness, you can speak the talk and it's beautiful, right. But there will be very little change.
Toni De Mello:
And so the one thing that I think has been done to empower different, and to really shift barriers, is to have the hiring of racialized Black and Indigenous people. And not hiring in the junior levels where we see this all the time, so reception catering, right?
Charlene Theodore:
Yeah, yeah.
Toni De Mello:
And to have them there. But so what does it look like to have leadership? What does it look like that the last two bosses I've had, are Black women? I've never known that in my entire life. And part of that move was deliberate, that I did want to work for another Black woman that's a leader. And so what does it look like for racialized people to mentor White people? Instead of often we'll have, if it's a woman, we want a woman to be mentored by a woman. What does it look like for women to mentor young men? For racialized people to mentor young White students, white professionals?
Toni De Mello:
And the other thing that I think we really need to think about in terms of empowering is, they need to see themselves in the faculty. They need to see themselves in the board of directors. They need to see themselves in the partnership. You know, I've worked with over 1,500 companies in north America. And again, I can count on... Is it one hand? It might be one hand. At max, two hands, how many the head, head, head of the company, the chair, president is a person of color. On one hand Black or Indigenous together, by the way.
Toni De Mello:
So what does it look like to see yourself in the leadership and to know that, that's a possibility for you? And then what does it look like to do the work at the lower level? So having community groups. We have everything for communities of practice in academia, where you come together to talk about these things, to having affinity groups or community groups we call them, having young Jewish lawyers meet, having young Muslim lawyers meet, having young Black lawyers meet; [CABLE 00:16:22], [SABA 00:16:22], these kinds of organizations can give people a voice where they may not feel a voice in the broader context.
Toni De Mello:
It may give them opportunities to see leaders that look like them, that have life choices like them, that have cultural histories like them, that have accents like them, from the Caribbean, from Asia, from the African continent that give them that opportunity?
Toni De Mello:
And then the last is to do the work right down the pipeline and think of what it looks like to have more scholarship, think of what it looks like to have more opportunities where we go into high schools, not just universities, and have representation of our organizations? Whether they be universities or corporate organizations or nonprofits that younger and younger people see that as a place that might be a pipeline or a pathway for them.
Charlene Theodore:
So much work has gone into, from the ground up, from idea to implementation, to realization, has gone into making this a deliberate, inclusive in all regards race, gender inclusivity of thought, socioeconomic status, that's gone into making it an inclusive academic workspace and your service, which is your service to your stakeholders, your students are also mirrored on that. I'm wondering if you could give us one example, something that sticks out to you, that you've employed and implemented in the academic setting that you think would really translate well into other workplaces? So the private practice or in-house council setting.
Toni De Mello:
One of the things I have seen work well, and I want to say it works well, but it's longer, it's messier and it's more challenging and has more conflicts with people.
Charlene Theodore:
Which is the best way.
Toni De Mello:
Right. So works well doesn't mean we're like kumbaya, holding hands-
Charlene Theodore:
It's easy, right?
Toni De Mello:
Right. I think we think when it works well, it means I think it's harder, is engaging users or the people that are impacted by a decision in the decision-making. So I've seen that done extremely well by strong leaders in the university context of engaging students. And sometimes students who don't always know the background, or don't know the faculty perspective or the work perspective, and may be quite adamant about certain things. And then maybe frustrated if you don't take their feedback or if they don't feel they're heard. To do that in a consultative way where you actually build a relationship with the people that are experiencing or will have been impacted by your decision, I think is transformative.
Toni De Mello:
And if I use one small example, if we look at hiring, firms bring me in all the time to talk about how to improve their hiring. So I spent the last 10 years talking to people who have gone through legal hiring about their experience to racialize people, to say what's working and what's not. And so I bring a response of my personal experience, but I actually think in making decisions about your hiring, ask the people who have been through your process, what's working and not working. And in a way where they feel safe that they can give feedback.
Toni De Mello:
Very often we make decisions about articling students and we don't ask articling students. We make decisions about the advancement of women in law, and sometimes those decisions are made predominantly by men on a compensation or equity committee. And I'm thinking, "How do we engage the views and the experiences of the people that are actually going to be impacted by this?"
Toni De Mello:
And so I know that that sounds basic, but I have rarely seen that happen. In fact, people will often say to me, "Speak for Black people for us." And I'm like, "So I'm not Black. I can tell you the experiences of the Black people I've spoken to. I'm racialized, but I'm not Black."
Toni De Mello:
And so it's really important that if you want to hear the experiences of Black people, I'll bring you what I've heard, but that you speak to Black people. Right? And I think that, that's worked really well in Ryerson. Does it? I think it doesn't come without great pain and toil and time, but I feel it's worked really, really well to start engaging people more in the decision-making. We often see a very small elite group making decisions that have very broad and important-
Charlene Theodore:
Wide-reaching, yeah.
Toni De Mello:
Yeah, wide-reaching.
Charlene Theodore:
So let's drill down on that a little bit, because I'm really interested in how that might work if we could imagine how that might work in practice. So hiring has always been the hot topic. How to get it right? And it's even more so now, how to get it right from an equity framework? And so you talked about articling students specifically, if I were to kind of try and pare it back, this example, are you saying that you have an incoming class of articling students or you reach out to your associates that were former articling students, maybe they're either at their third year and maybe based on what you know now, how would you improve the articling hiring student process? Or, do you reach out to people that weren't hired back to talk about their experiences to see where they landed? How would that work in practice?
Toni De Mello:
I would look at both of them. So I always look at those that didn't have a good experience, because I think they will tell you where there might be gaps that are systemic, that are based on gender, sexual orientation, creed, class, race. So I always look at who did it not work for? The example I often use in education is, most teachers become teachers because school was really great for them. They did well in the education system. So they're not always great at teaching people who struggle in the education system. So what does it look like to bring in people that say, "It didn't work for me and here's why"?
Toni De Mello:
So I found articling very challenging and not for reasons of competence. I was highly competent. I had 10 years of experience, I'd worked in multinational firms. I was a consultant. I'd worked in audit. I'd worked for United Nations. I had a degree from Princeton and I found articling very difficult, and it wasn't the work. It was the sense of belonging that, I didn't feel a sense of belonging.
Toni De Mello:
I found the hierarchy very oppressive. I found the elite ways in which we spoke to people and excluded them from not only the work, not only the work, but from actual like social events. I couldn't believe how much work allocation in law firms was done based on who you like. Somebody came up to me and said, "I'm going to give you work because we went to the same undergrad." And I said, "That's a terrible reason to give somebody work." And they didn't know what to say. I've heard people say, "We've watched the same hockey match," and then you become friends through that, and then you're giving work.
Toni De Mello:
So I think part of it that I've really thought about it, we need to talk to people who didn't have a good experience. I also think what you're saying is important, though. It's important to talk to people who are a few years out, because they'll give some experience and they might feel more safe because they're in the firm, they made it in. But what students are experiencing now, you and I have not experienced, Charlene.
Toni De Mello:
I have not done a Zoom interview to get an articling position. I do not have bandwidth issues right now that many of my students... I had a student say to me in March, "Our family is sharing a very small home. And so I might have to go into the bathroom to write my exam. Can I have break?" I was like, "I'm sorry, what?" That's not an experience I have right now.
Toni De Mello:
So thinking what it means that some people, while they're doing an interview like this, if you have children that are right beside them, and they're trying to navigate both being professional on an interview and dealing with having children, so you're going to have that in the articling process. And you can take two years out, three years out, that's not the experience they have.
Toni De Mello:
So thinking of a powerful way to do that, and my guess is it's not going to be law firms that do that, but what does it look like in these law schools to engage in maybe a third entity that can get some information so that we can make these processes better? Because, what we're seeing is that the process is really having an impact on certain communities. We're seeing that racialized people are much less likely to get on an articling position.
Toni De Mello:
And then when they do get articling positions, they still don't feel like they fit. That even once they're in, they don't feel like they belong. And it's one of the reasons I left corporate law. And it's lovely because now, there's a lot of big Bay Street firms that try to bring me in. And what I say to them is, "Instead of bringing me in, keep the wonderful people you have there, don't lose them. Right?"
Charlene Theodore:
Yeah, no, that's really, really valuable advice, especially as we are looking forward to, at some point returning to work, it's a reminder I think, of the necessary check-in on what that was like, and being able to adapt and pivot in what your onboarding looks like, right? Because, the onboarding... It has to reflect the actual experience of the articling students and what the deficits were and what the challenges were. When we finally, finally, finally get to come outside and all of us see each other in person.
Charlene Theodore:
We've talked a little bit about curriculum, but I'd like to just talk a little bit more in-depth about how you have been evolving the law school curriculum to help what I really think is level the playing field for everyone to have equality of opportunity and equality of access, and make their own way in the profession with the supports that they need.
Toni De Mello:
So part of my role is I do everything that involves students, so everything from their careers to admissions, to their student experience. And I work very closely with the Associate Dean, Dean Graben and Dean Hudson, who are much more focused on faculty curriculum and the high level stuff that faculty does. We work very collaboratively together.
Toni De Mello:
And when I say that I've seen, that has really worked, is thinking about what it looks like to give a comprehensive legal education. And so, yes, we talk about ethics in law, which every law school does. But we also talk about what it looks like to bring your whole self to work. So one of their intensives was around career and law. We had an intensive course on what does it look like to come in and have your resume reflect some of the diversity that you bring and to hold that up in a proud way?
Toni De Mello:
What does it look like to bring your lived experience into the classroom? So you're not just giving data or case law, but you're also talking about your lived experience? What does it look like that in the very first week the students were with us, we taught a case, the Associate Dean Graben and myself co-taught a case, and the case we chose was Dafonte Miller's case about a Black man that had alleged that he'd experienced police brutality.
Toni De Mello:
So the very first case that our students read was a case that's topical, contemporary, and talked about rape and abuse of system, instead of just like, "Let's pick a case that's in the canon that everybody uses that's quick and easy [inaudible 00:26:06]." Right? We were like, so what I have loved, and I really want to credit Dean Young, Dean Graben and Dean Hudson with this is, it's not just about these little one-offs, but how do we put that into our curriculum at every step?
Toni De Mello:
How do we put Indigenous law in the curriculum? Not just as a standalone course, but how do we put Indigenous law in property, in contracts, in constitutional law? How do we embed these things so that they become a part of what students are learning every day? I always say there's like an EDI question on every survey that companies do. What does it look like to have EDI in every question around performance, around client management, around work allocation? Put it in every single question and that's where I think we're really, really making a difference.
Toni De Mello:
And our faculty, when I tell you they're committed to this, I'll be on an Admissions committee meeting with the faculty and their comments are, "What are we doing to make sure our admissions processes are bringing in more people of color, more women, more LGBTQSI folks, more immigrants, more first gen?" But also one last thing I want to add that we're doing that I love, and I'm proud of is thinking about how law and technology can be integrated.
Toni De Mello:
So how do technological solutions help with access to justice? And I'll say this cause I'm so proud of it. The LPP, which is a wonderful program at Ryerson, was doing Zoom meetings and recording their stuff on video way before COVID.
Charlene Theodore:
The OBA is a long-time supporter of the LPP program. And we also, within our own work in the OBA in terms of governance, meetings, education, advocacy, we've been on Zoom. We've been on Zoom for years, so we all embrace it.
Toni De Mello:
And I have to say, I'm going to give the OBA a huge shout out because when COVID was at its worst for me, the first lockdown, the OBA health and wellness moments that came out were, like I literally, as soon as they came out, I looked at them. So whoever did that, I just want to say it was very, very important to many of us in law that we're receiving them regularly.
Charlene Theodore:
Thank you. We know we have an amazing team and the feedback that we got about those emails, I think it was a two minute mindfulness break. It's been our plan for several years and our effort has focused on really serving the whole lawyer. So moving beyond, "Let's get together to discuss this latest case." And so we did the mindful minutes emails, just like, "Take two minutes right now and focus on this."
Charlene Theodore:
We did the health and wellness challenge, we did fitness classes together. I started a wine club with the OBA. We're having a mocktail [inaudible 00:28:27] club. We've got a book club. We now, our [Wins 00:28:30] Lawyers Forum started the parent and caregiver network. It's great to hear that, that feedback is working and we've long been partnered with the LPP and now, Ryerson Law too.
Charlene Theodore:
Like you say, I think we both have kind of the same goals in mind to go beyond, this is what fits in this box when it comes to serving lawyers as an association or serving students. And we're trying to expand that based on that again, that human dignity centered principle, we are whole people within the context of our professional or academic careers.
Toni De Mello:
And one thing I think it really gives is, access to people that may not have had access. The webinars are giving access to people in rural communities or who can't come to Toronto. What does it look like to be able to fill out a form online instead of having to come in and fill it out? What does it look like to be able to present from the comforts of your own homes? Especially, I think of people with disabilities that have to commute sometimes two or three, four hours to get to court, what does it look like that you're able to do that from a space that works for you?
Toni De Mello:
And so I think using technological solutions to increase access to justice is actually a very strong EDI response, because what it does is bring more people into the fold so that they're able to access justice. What we have to recognize is that this shift of technology that has happened at breakneck speed, also is going to leave out a lot of people, not everybody has the same bandwidth. The digital divide in our country, especially in rural communities, in terms of your ability to get on Zoom, to have good wifi access, people that are living in basements are telling me it's embarrassing, or in very crowded towers. All of these kinds of things are things we have to think about as we shift into this technological provision of services.
Charlene Theodore:
You know, I really love the idea of that career intensive, and not just the fact that there is one, but the focus on the self as opposed to, this is what firms want, this is what firms expect right? Specifically for Black women. When I was going through law school and going through those hiring processes, we heard a lot about what we needed to change. Everything from our clothing to the natural hair that grows out of our head. And so I like that there's a career intensive, but specifically that it's focused on authenticity and lived experience combined with the standard qualifications of what one needs to start their career.
Charlene Theodore:
Let's talk about the flip side, though. If you were to offer a career intensive for law firms, how can today's firms lean in to the interests and needs of tomorrow's leaders? What would you like to see on kind of the wishlist or to do list for law firms so they can prepare for the next generation of lawyers and what they want out of their workplaces?
Toni De Mello:
Yeah. So I do this intensive all the time with law firms and they asked me, they're hungry right now, "What can we change? What can we improve? We want to be competitive." And the first is we're being pushed right now into diversity. So increasing transparency around everything from salaries to how many Black lawyers have you hired? How many Indigenous lawyers have you hired? How many women are your partners? All of these kinds of questions. There's a push, not just from the public in general, but there's a push from clients.
Toni De Mello:
So you have 150 general councils in the US sign a letter saying, "If you want to be our law firm, we need you to diversify." So people will often say to me, "Our clients sometimes aren't diverse. And so we pick lawyers that'll work well with those clients." That's not what we're seeing. We're seeing clients push the other way.
Toni De Mello:
Big banks like RBC and CIBC, TD, are saying to law firms, "If you want to work with us, diversify your firm." So there's a push. What I ask the law firms is, "What is your [inaudible 00:32:02], why do you want diversity? Outside of it looks good on a poster theme? Outside of that's what they're asking we have to do, outside of we know what's the right thing. What is the real reason that you want diversity of thought, leadership and experience?
Toni De Mello:
And I think they need to start there because I actually often say there's not an issue around capacity or possibility. Look at the revenues that these firms make. It's around will, right? I once said to a chair that I'm very close to, he said, "I want to see results fast." I said, "Then tie it to people's performance."
Toni De Mello:
If you tied diversity hiring to people's performance, you would have a diverse workforce in two years. If my salary was tied to how many people of color I bring in, in two years, you'd have diversity. So how do we incentivize this in a meaningful and thoughtful way?
Toni De Mello:
And what I would like to see is, and often law firms will say to me, "I don't have the pipeline. When we see the candidates, it's the law schools that are the problems, it's the high schools." And I say, "I wonder which entity has money, time and influence that could influence the pipeline, maybe law firms."
Toni De Mello:
So law firms, instead of putting your name on a lounge for students, what does it look like to continually support panels that talk about radical change in law? Just change your processes? And by the way, many law firms are starting to do this and have done it.
Charlene Theodore:
They are, they are.
Toni De Mello:
I want to give credit, I'm not going to start naming, but they are doing this. I work with a law firm that said, "We took alcohol out of our process after you came in and talked about it."
Toni De Mello:
And while I think alcohol can be great for some people, for many people, it's a real obstacle to the interview. They have to figure out how to drink, how much to drink, what to order, how drunk to get, while interviewing for a job. That's bananas to me. And so, one of them said, "We took it out and we took it out at a cost for us because we were worried we wouldn't compete with other law firms that offer these wonderful kind of cocktail parties."
Toni De Mello:
And so I think starting to really question also what your processes are and whether those processes meet your needs. So obviously my focus is hiring and retention, specifically hiring. And often I find we've created a hiring process that's great if you want to date somebody, but it has nothing to do with whether or not the person's a good lawyer.
Toni De Mello:
So when I was hired, all of the firms hired me and they were like, "She's so funny. You know, she had us laughing, roaring. She had confidence." I don't know if that means I can write a good Factum. I don't know if it means I'm a good litigator. Whether or not I watched the same sports as you or go to the same cottage area as you, does not define my ability to be a lawyer.
Toni De Mello:
And if I could take out one thing, is that Interest section on the resume is ridiculous. "Yoga, backpacking in the summer, I like knitting." What I'm hearing from people that don't always feel like they fit, is your interest has to align with the person that's hiring you or you don't get in. So you start making up interests that align with them. And this continues and propagates, once you're there.
Charlene Theodore:
That starts the in-authenticity and thought starts the career dissatisfaction, and starts kind of that cliff. If you charted that clip drop off, whether it's people leaving after five years, women not coming back from mat leave or parental leave, it starts at that hiring process. Yeah. Then that's really important.
Charlene Theodore:
Toni, I wonder how you think the law student experience, I mean, I know what mine was like. And I found mine quite challenging. Personal disclosure, I was a mature student when I went to law school. I went to... Very proud to be a graduate of the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University, but as one of the two Black people admitted in my year, it was a huge culture shock.
Charlene Theodore:
Number one, from being a mature student, having a career, living my life in Toronto, to having to adjust to going into that program and not being able to work, when you're used to... I'd been working since I was 14. It was just a huge culture shock and kind of being the only one and being in such a competitive space by yourself, as a Black person and a racialized person, was challenging.
Charlene Theodore:
But I didn't have, I think, the emotional bandwidth to kind of step outside of the marathon that is law school, and question it and try to affect change on that level. I'm wondering how you think the law student experience has changed since you were there? And you know, how you think those recent developments in education have influenced how students actually operate in practice?
Toni De Mello:
You know, for Ryerson, it's going to remain to be seen because we're so new. And I have to mention that all of this is now happening within the backdrop of a global pandemic where everybody's home. So Dean Young did everything she could so that we were the only faculty that was able to be on campus in September. And the rest of our system was online, but they made an exception because it was the launch of Canada's newest law school. And it was so difficult.
Toni De Mello:
Many students couldn't come in for just one class from where they were commuting. Many students were nervous to move and then know that the law school might shut down which, of course, it did because public health asked us all to shut down in October. It was so challenging. You had some students in person, you had some students online, you had professors trying to record, but also be really present with their students.
Toni De Mello:
You had us trying to engage with students and really create this community. But at the same time, being really careful because we didn't want there to be a spread of COVID, that we would potentially have contributed to. So to talk about what's happening now, without talking about COVID, I think is impossible, because you can't extract them.
Toni De Mello:
But what I have seen in general, even before COVID, is there is a shift where law school students have more of a voice than I felt I had. It was interesting to hear you say, "I didn't have the emotional bandwidth," because I went to law school 10 years ago. And like you, I went as a mature student and I had 10 years of international work experience and a master's from Princeton. And two months in, I was like, "Maybe I'm too dumb for law school."
Toni De Mello:
So I was trying so hard to be like, "Do I actually belong here because I'm not getting it." Right? And I wasn't doing as well. I'd always had A pluses and I wasn't getting a A plus, and so I thought, "Maybe I'm not smart enough to be a lawyer." That I couldn't think about, "What do I think we should shift about mooting? What do I think we should do around clicks?" I don't even know what that is.
Charlene Theodore:
Yeah. You know, I was a leader. I was active in the Canadian Black Law Student's Association. I was president of my third year, but it was like, you're leading within the same kind of box that they give you. I'm not glad that you felt the same way too, but I'm glad that it's not a unique experience.
Charlene Theodore:
And I think it speaks to the work that other law schools have to do to really be a more welcoming and supportive place where students can really thrive.
Toni De Mello:
And I would say ours is not exempt from that. So even when you were saying before, we were talking about, we tell our students to be authentic, there's the tension there, because we also want our students to get jobs. And I can't change every law firm overnight. If I say to every one of my racialized students, "Be yourself, wear cultural clothes that you feel comfortable in, wear your hair any way you want." And then none of them get jobs. They're not going to come and say, "Thank you so much. I was authentic and I can't work."
Toni De Mello:
So there's a tension that we talk about. And I think the difference with Ryerson isn't that we're doing it perfectly, because I will promise you my students will tell you, we're not. The difference with Ryerson is we are honest about that tension. That we both want you to get a job in a place that unfortunately is very homogeneous, very elitist, very White males fists. Great. All of those things exist and people in the firms are talking about them, and we recognize that there's a game there.
Toni De Mello:
I mean, we call OCI, speed dating. That's a problem for me. If any interview question is something you might ask on a date, please don't ask it. That would be my answer to every law firm, right? That being said, we also want to find ways in which they can feel authentic or at least feel their whole self. And so I think part of it is figuring out how do we change the environments, both in law firms and in law schools, so people feel more welcome and feel a stronger sense of belonging?
Toni De Mello:
It's interesting for me in academia, we've seen a huge predictor of academic success. Family income is a big one, just so you know. So having tutors, not having to work while you're in school, having a quiet place to study. So family income is a big predictor of academic success. One that they didn't expect that is coming up more and more, is a sense of belonging.
Toni De Mello:
The more students feel like they belong, the better they do in school. And it turns out in my research around labor, the more somebody feels like they belong in an organization, the less likely they are to leave. The more likely they are to put up their hand in a meeting, the more likely they are to give a controversial opinion that might shift the way that organization and law firm work. And so you want people to feel they belong. And for them to feel that they belong, they need to hear that their identity are a part of what makes them valuable.
Toni De Mello:
They're not there in spite of the fact that they're that, or they're not there because they're the one X person from that community. But that, that identity re-shapes the way that the company or firm operates. And when people feel like that, they put their hands up.
Charlene Theodore:
You know, I had a guest on this podcast who I interviewed, Anthony Morgan.
Toni De Mello:
Oh, he's a good friend of mine. We went to law school together.
Charlene Theodore:
Oh, you guys were in school together?
Toni De Mello:
We're in the same class. There's like 10 people of color at McGill. And we were like real close and Anthony and I are quite close.
Charlene Theodore:
He's great, he's great. And it was just such a great conversation. And one of the things that we talked about is social inclusion, moving beyond or kind of taking a deeper dive into what inclusion means, as it relates to retention of racialized people in the workplace. And he described social inclusion. He gave some examples of when we're around the proverbial water cooler, if I live in a neighborhood where there was a shooting last night, am I going to be able to feel comfortable talking about, "It was a stressful night," the same way that you might say, "I live in a really highly affluent area in the city and there was a huge fire on my street."
Charlene Theodore:
Am I going to be able to give voice to that in a way that's appropriate, obviously for work? And are you going to feel comfortable having those conversations with me? I want to know, just based on your extensive, like education and experience in recruitment and interview processes, what your thoughts are on creating that sense of social inclusion?
Toni De Mello:
I think there has to be a deep dive into awareness of the ways in which we're exclusive to begin with. When I'm working with lawyers, and I say to them, "I want you to look at your interview process. You're taking me out for dinner. What restaurants are you taking me to? You're asking me to drink. What does that mean for people who don't drink? What does it mean if you come from a religion where drinking isn't part of that religion? What does it mean if I'm on medication and I don't want to drink? What if I have some challenges with alcohol or a history of abuse? What processes do you have in place that have made it so that people already don't feel socially included?
Toni De Mello:
So what I found in my doctoral research is the main three things we talk about in hiring, and when people first are onboarded are sport, and just so you know it's not all sports, it's hockey, golf, baseball, sometimes football, it's almost never soccer. And it's only recently basketball. We talk about cottages a lot, so cottages and what you do for leisure time. So elite vacation.
Toni De Mello:
So students will say to me, I travel all the time, but when I would talk about my travel to visit family or the places I went, they weren't interested. And when somebody else talked about scuba diving in the Maldives or backpacking in Europe, they were so interested, right?
Charlene Theodore:
What experiences are valued?
Toni De Mello:
What are valued? And then the third one was around how you actually spend your leisure time? So what do you do on the weekends? So everything from home renovations to going for a hike or currently, some people will talk about cross country skiing, for example. Who's in and who's out? So social inclusion for me, where it starts at is saying, "What processes have we created that by definition, the process excludes you if you don't drink, or if you've never eaten at one of the top restaurants in Toronto, and you're just freaking out the whole time?"
Toni De Mello:
And then what are the kinds of things I'm saying or doing that I'm asking you to be like me? I'm asking you to dress like me, look like me and think like me. And the example I often use with firms is, if somebody tells you, "You have amazing taste in music," they just mean you have my taste in music. When I saw your background, I thought it was a background, I was like, "I love your..." because that's my taste in design.
Toni De Mello:
So we often think the things that we do aren't just good, but they're the best way to do, the best way to be. So if I'm always on time for a meeting and I always turn on my camera, I love people who do that, because that's how I operate. In fact, there may be many people that make incredible contributions through the chat function. They may not turn on their cameras for a variety of reasons. Some of them are personal, right?
Toni De Mello:
And so trying to think of ways in which the way I do things isn't always the best way. And the example I use that actually lands with lawyers is, we often talk about race, but let me talk about something that's a bit different, personality. So you might notice, Charlene, that I'm an extrovert?
Charlene Theodore:
Yes.
Toni De Mello:
And all of our interview processes really favorites. And it turns out that some of the best staff I've ever hired are introverted. They're slower thinkers, they would say. I'm not thinking... they process differently. So they're not slow as in they're not quick, but they process differently. So I have found that when I think about ways to make my interview and my retention and onboarding processes serve introverts, they come in more to my teams. I learn more, having an agenda makes the difference, putting questions in the chat function so they can read them while I'm talking makes the difference. Giving somebody a little bit of time before they answer in a huge group that's boisterous, makes a difference.
Toni De Mello:
And what's changed about that isn't just that they tell me they feel more comfortable, but I'm better at my job because, I have learned from introverts and I didn't use to hire them. And now I have tons of introverts that work for me that say, "Toni, I love that you jump in, but can we have an agenda and maybe some more structure?" And I say, "I don't like that." And they say, "We know."
Toni De Mello:
But because of them, I am a stronger lawyer and I'm a stronger-
Charlene Theodore:
Leader.
Toni De Mello:
... leader. And so I ask you to think about the things that come easily to you. And I want to say this and be really clear about it. I do real well in interviews. I love dinner and I love drinking at parties, but I can tell you that has nothing to do with whether or not I'm a good lawyer.
Charlene Theodore:
That's really insightful. And I think it's a useful takeaway for people to adopt. I want to take a little bit of a deeper dive into how we recruit and how we hire, specifically in the context of COVID and us being kind of forced onto screens. The reason why is because I am someone who is on the management team in my office and talk about what is going to stay virtual? What has really benefited us having it in the virtual space and what we may return to in person?
Charlene Theodore:
I was speaking with Debbie [Burke-Benn 00:46:29] yesterday, and we talked about how employers are using town halls as a great communication device or idea exchange of ways to talk about race. And we talked about the idea that town halls can be even more effective when they're done virtually, because people can create safe spaces, comfortable spaces at home, for people who are shy or introverted, they don't have the added kind of call it maybe burden, of getting up in front of their colleagues and standing up in a huge town hall.
Charlene Theodore:
And I'm wondering if you are seeing any advantages to the hiring and interview process, doing it virtually versus returning to a standard and hopefully improved, but in person, in a boardroom process, for hiring lawyers and law students?
Toni De Mello:
A little early to tell. I've been doing a lot of reading and research, it's early to tell because people are just starting to do this. There's some anecdotal stuff and some articles that I'll share, some insights. The power of online is that you don't see people's full body. And so people are saying because you cannot see how tall I am, how big my waist is, there's a bunch of things. You know, the Zoom filters can make you look a certain way.
Toni De Mello:
They make me look a lot less tired, I'm going to tell you. They can hide age and there's a whole bunch of things that it's allowing. I'll tell you this, I had worked virtually with certain people in the faculty of law that had been hired. And then when we went in, in September, I was surprised how many people were shorter or taller or thinner or whatever.
Toni De Mello:
I was surprised. I was like, "Well, what's that about with me? Why did I make an assumption about this person's height? Why am I surprised that they look younger than I expected?" So there's been some advantages around the ability to kind of curate a profile on these video platforms that can give you kind of a finesse. You can put a background on that can make you look more polished, all of these kinds of things.
Toni De Mello:
Likewise, I think the negatives around it, and something I really want to mention, especially around town hall, is we have an assumption that the power dynamic does not translate in the same way to online. And we haven't actually seen that. Where we have seen it is, people can Chat. People can privately talk. So I give these trainings in organizations and firms, and I'll get private messages to say, "Just so you know, this is happening here every day."
Toni De Mello:
And then if there's a thousand people on the call, I'll say, "Just so you know, I'm getting private messages that people among you are feeling this, and they don't feel the power to speak up. So if you think it's not happening in your organization, it is."
Toni De Mello:
It allows you [inaudible 00:48:49] in small breakout groups, that you might not have in a town hall. It gives people some power to speak. So what we are seeing is some of the power that exists when we're in person is being reproduced in Zoom, because you can unmute and talk whenever you want. You can interrupt people. So certain people are interrupted. What we see is certain people use the raise your hand function. And what I see predominantly, because I do this literally weekly, is women and people of color, racialized people use the raise your hand. And then often people who have always spoken without raising their hand speak, and those people are just waiting to be called on.
Toni De Mello:
So I'll say, I'm going to hold you, because we've had three people raise their hands. Or, I'll mute everybody and I'll only take people that have raised their hand. Often, I'll say, "I want somebody to answer, but it can't be the head of HR. And it can't be the chair of the firm." Because often they're the first to answer and they set a tone.
Toni De Mello:
And so those power dimensions are reproducing in Zoom because we unmute. So one of the things I've said is, "Use the raise your hand function and use it in a way that's respectful." If somebody's spoken twice, what I'll say is, "We've heard from you twice. I'm going to take you in a bit, but I'd like to hear from everybody else before we hear from you again."
Toni De Mello:
The other thing that I'll do is, I'll say, "We're going to Round-robin and I'm going to ask Charlene's going to speak first. Then we're going to have Andrea speak. So how can we do it so that they might not speak, but what does it look like to give them that opportunity to say something? And so having a roster can help, and saying, "Everybody's going to contribute," but don't be fooled that the power that exists in a room doesn't exist on Zoom.
Toni De Mello:
And in some cases it's work and I'll put myself in this. I often interrupt people on Zoom. And I realize now, I'm a talker. I'm an interrupter and I have a lot of power on a call. So now when somebody else is talking, I mute, because in the second it takes me to go to mute, they keep talking and I realize they weren't done. And when I'm not muted, I find I'm constantly interrupting people.
Toni De Mello:
So please don't think I'm targeting a group. I'm one of the worst offenders. And so trying to think about the power you have, and how you can use these platforms to self-monitor and self-regulate can make a big difference to others.
Charlene Theodore:
It's really interesting and exciting that you are looking into these things. It is early days, but I like to discuss these things because we are going to have to all look at, and we're all in the midst of trying to figure out, what workplace 2.0 looks like. What our workplaces look like. And we need to make the right choices, I think.
Charlene Theodore:
Informed choices from an equity lens about how we use the technology that we've been relying on exclusively, how and how much we integrate it back into our workplace processes that include hiring and recruitment. So I would love to continue to hear your thoughts on this, as you kind of get a little deeper into research and get more feedback.
Charlene Theodore:
Toni, one of the things that I like to do when I'm doing this work is, is expectation setting or table setting. This is long complex work, as you said before, this did not start with George Floyd. It's been going on for way too long. And you know, so I find that people who are engaging in this kind of structural workplace change from an equity lens, my advice to them is to manage the expectations that this is complex work that's going to take a long time and will have to be continually sustained over the life of your company or organization.
Charlene Theodore:
But I also acknowledge that there are things that employers can do that can have an immediate impact. There are always wins along the way to this longer journey. So I guess what I'd ask you is, what are some key practices that hiring managers can adopt in legal workplaces that can have that immediate impact while they continue to do the longer work?
Toni De Mello:
Oh, I would say be very targeted and deliberate. We have a phrase at Ryerson where we say, "If you are not intentionally inclusive, you will unintentionally exclude." This stuff doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't happen organically. Like when people say, "It's happening slowly, slowly. The slowly is [inaudible 00:52:47] century. And I always think of Dr. King's book, Why We Can't Wait, is we have to be really intentional. You have to set goals and you have to measure them.
Toni De Mello:
I'm amazed that every organization knows that, that which we don't measure, we can't name. But we rarely measure equity. We're like, "Are we trying? Yeah, we have a poster. We did one podcast. It had a Black woman on it. So we're good. Right?" How do we do it deeply? And how do we do it meaningfully? And the way I would say that, and I don't have time to go into the details of everything we can do in hiring. I've given quite a few tips, but what I will say is to be very intentional, and to not do it in [inaudible 00:53:22].
Toni De Mello:
To say, "We're going to have a conversation like this. And now we're going to start hiring." Midway through your hiring, have a de-brief of what's going wrong, midway through your hiring, I've asked people to do hiring in pairs and at the end of each interview, talk about what you think your biases might've been. So is my bias I really liked your kitchen, I love your hair. We both have cool glasses? Like already, we're in this interview and I'm like, "I want to hang out with Charlene."
Charlene Theodore:
Same.
Toni De Mello:
Right. My guess is that comes up when I'm interviewing. That guess is when I'm hiring, I'm thinking, "I want to [inaudible 00:53:51]." So I'm doing it too. And we need to question that. And I need you to say to me, "You asked something that I want to know why you asked the students that question." So making this something that is consistent, constant and deliberate will change your hiring.
Charlene Theodore:
And I think just further to that also, if you're doing those regular check-ins and you're doing well, reward your team. Reinforce that behavior, because we focus a lot on the obstacles, but not so much kind of the celebrating the rewards.
Charlene Theodore:
Well, Toni, it was so lovely to chat with you.
Toni De Mello:
It was amazing.
Charlene Theodore:
Thank you for giving us your time today.
Charlene Theodore:
As Toni reminds us, if you're not intentionally inclusive, there's a good chance you'll unintentionally exclude people. And that begins right at recruitment, with an undeniable impact on retention. We know we want to foster diversity and we know with a pandemic disrupting the workplace, the time is right for rebuilding. So how can we be more targeted, deliberate, and consistent in making our practices more inclusive and equitable, starting with how we hire? You can't improve what you haven't measured. So ask for feedback.
Charlene Theodore:
A dignity centered and collaborative approach to change means engaging users or people impacted by a decision in the decision-making itself. Even if it takes time to do it right, find out what the hiring process was like. Not just for those who were offered a position, but for those who weren't. Ask your articling students how their overall onboarding and work experience was? And use this data to pinpoint systemic biases or gaps.
Charlene Theodore:
Move from advancing EDI as a standalone goal, to achieve component and marker success in all your organizational processes and priorities. Law firms and legal employers hold great influence when it comes to making the legal profession more representative of the public we serve. Whether it's through contributing to a pipeline, through scholarships or panels that will make the path to law more attractive and achievable to young people from different backgrounds, or whether it's incentivizing, meaningfully and thoughtfully their diversity hiring, by making EDI efforts part of a lawyer's performance reviews.
Charlene Theodore:
A sense of belonging is strongly correlated with success in school and at work. Consider how comfortable your employees are bringing their whole selves to work and what you can do to encourage that within a welcoming and engaging workplace?
Charlene Theodore:
When hiring and allocating work, remove shared personal interests as a criterion. Recruitment is not dating. You're looking for a qualified lawyer, not someone to go to a baseball game, a play, or a cottage getaway with. Wining and dining candidates is something we're all used to, but it's apt to exclude those who have dietary restrictions or who don't drink for religious or health reasons. In fact, you would be wise to remove alcohol consumption from your recruitment process altogether.
Charlene Theodore:
Socioeconomic diversity is just as important as racial diversity in building strong teams. And activities or socialization that are elitist or exclusionary will drive away talented contenders. Inclusion means encouraging authenticity and combating homogeneity.
Charlene Theodore:
Technology can do a lot to improve workplace participation and access to justice. But when it comes to interviewing by video conference, there's a good chance that power imbalances as [these 00:57:30] witness in person will reproduce themselves in the virtual world. Those used to dominating the conversation face-to-face are equally apt to unmute themselves and talk over others on Zoom while others, often women will use the raise hand feature and wait to be called on.
Charlene Theodore:
Make sure everyone is given a chance to speak by asking all to raise their hand in a respectful fashion, or by conducting a Round-robin style discussion. As Toni reminds us, engaging and collaborating with diverse teams makes us better colleagues, better lawyers, and better leaders. As together, we create a more accessible, innovative and effective legal profession. It is how we create better workplaces, and it's how we can best serve our clients.
Charlene Theodore:
We'd love to hear from you. Rate and review and follow a link in the episode description for additional resources.