In recent years, law firm McLane Middleton has prided itself on its growing commitment to fair and inclusive hiring practices, especially in elevating women among its staff.
However, managing director John Colucci says the firm’s drive for diversity has been core to its structure for nearly two decades.
“We actually started a long time ago with diversity, prior to me joining the firm,” he said. “I think our first diversity committee was in 2006. We’ve always had it shared with a partner and with a variety of folks from the firm.”
As the years progressed, the internal group became the “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee,” following naming conventions used by other companies. But as the climate around the term and its implementation in workplaces has been challenged, Colucci, promoted to his current position in January, found clarifying the firm’s stance to its employees to be a top priority.
McLane Middleton was designated a finalist for the Diversity Workforce Coalition’s 2024 DEI Award and honored as a “Diversity Champion” at the organization’s annual Workforce DEI conference last March.
The choice was clear: McLane would stand firm in its resolve.
“I sent out an email earlier in February saying we’re staying the course; we’re not changing anything and we’re doubling down,” Colucci said. “I thought it was important to say that, because people are uncertain right now about what’s going to happen.”
That includes the firm’s leadership like Colucci, who expressed dissatisfaction with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s recent action of sending letters to 20 law firms nationwide on March 17 to investigate their DEI-related practices.
“I think that is a real shame, because if there’s one profession where it’s difficult (to enter) coming from an underrepresented background and having difficult financial circumstances, it’s law,” Colucci said.
Besides, he said he believes attorneys perform their jobs better and develop more creative approaches to their cases with a diverse team. Workplace diversity can also allow legal firms a broader client base, reaching people who benefit from having representing attorneys with the same or similar backgrounds.
Lawyers Peg O’Brien, Ramey Sylvester and Patrick Collins.
Colucci has learned about these firsthand over the years. In one case, a New Hampshire McLane office had a client seeking legal assistance who spoke most proficiently in Farsi, a Western Iranian language. One of the firm’s attorneys was able to accommodate.
“We happen to have a partner who speaks Farsi, so she was able to help that particular client in a very concrete way, and they felt very comfortable speaking with her and sharing their issues,” Colucci said. “It was time-sensitive, and there were cultural barriers, too, that our partner could (address) since she was born in Iran.”
On its website, McLane says it recognizes that “New Hampshire’s geographic location in northern New England can make meeting some diversity goals challenging,” driving the business to get involved with organizations centered around diverse communities to seek out potential applicants. Among them are the New Hampshire Women’s Foundation, Vote Hispana, the Latino Summit and Girls Inc.
That drive led McLane to become the first law firm in New Hampshire to receive Mansfield Rule Certification, which it achieved in 2023 and was recertified last year. The Mansfield Rule and its certification were developed in 2016 by the San Francisco-based consulting organization Diversity Lab, which works with lawyers and firms to create a more equal and inclusive legal profession.
Under the rule, law firms are urged to consider at least 30% women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and people with disabilities for attorney and partner positions, leadership and governance ranks and client pitch opportunities within the firm, according to McLane’s website.
Shivi Karimi, managing director of the Boston office, speaks with Ryan Swartz.
This is not to be confused with setting a specific quota, in which the certification would require firms to have 30% of their staff come from an underserved background.
Instead, by compelling firms to have 1 in 3 important functions held or managed by a diverse candidate, the Mansfield Rule seeks to bring about greater diverse representation in law by disrupting biases in the field.
“It’s almost like having a personal trainer that’s ensuring you think and act all the time to make sure that you’re looking at all of our underrepresented colleagues,” Colucci said. “This rule requires us to go outside the box and think of others, and it’s worked out well.”
For its growing efforts to attract and retain diverse employees and attorneys, McLane was designated a finalist for the Diversity Workforce Coalition’s 2024 DEI Award and honored as a “Diversity Champion” at the organization’s annual Workforce DEI conference last March. The Manchester-based alliance of Granite State businesses offers education, training and networking opportunities related to diversity initiatives.
Qualifying companies are those that have visibly made strides to increase DEI at work, have a senior leadership team to push for inclusive efforts, have a “culture change” approach to diversity — embedding such principles within the core of the company — and actively recruit and advance diverse staff, according to the coalition’s site.
Colucci credits one factor in McLane’s recognition to its participation in the New Hampshire 1L Diversity Internship Program, in which McLane and other Granite State firms seek diverse law school students for paid summer associate positions in their offices after their first school year.
“The goal is to have diverse candidates get their foot in the door at a law firm early on,” he said. “One of those folks has joined us after graduation and has been here two years.”
Because McLane also has Massachusetts offices in Boston and Woburn, Colucci added that the firm has a separate $50,000 endowed scholarship fund with Suffolk University Law School for students from historically Black colleges and universities.
As McLane looks toward the future, Colucci said that equitable recruitment is key, including ensuring that women employees feel heard, understood and confident in their abilities within the firm. He pointed to a long-running initiative that two women McLane partners created, “What’s Her Story?” as a vehicle through which women’s equity has been central to that mission.
The program was first an in-person event at its 2012 launch, and it now also runs as a podcast. It invites women business leaders and entrepreneurs in New Hampshire and Massachusetts to share their stories, challenges not faced by male peers and tips for finding career success.
“I think we’ve made great strides on gender issues,” Colucci said. “Half of our management committee is female, and we’re making good strides as far as making sure that female lawyers feel welcome and have whatever they need to make it to partner.”
This article was featured in 603 Diversity.
603 Diversity’s mission is to educate readers of all backgrounds about the exciting accomplishments and cultural contributions of the state’s diverse communities, as well as the challenges faced and support needed by those communities to continue to grow and thrive in the Granite State.
