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About

Opportunity and Inclusion

Our commitment to equal employment opportunity and a culture of excellence where we understand and value the vibrancy of our community is a core value that motivates and inspires our team. 

As a global law firm with more than 45 offices on five continents, we have built a workplace whose success lies in the skills and talents of its people and their unique experiences that help to foster a robust community where everyone has the opportunity to contribute value. One of our greatest strengths is that these individuals encompass a variety of globe-spanning cultural backgrounds, as well as different lived and learned experiences that allow us to develop truly meaningful relationships with our clients and across our firm, beautifully marrying experience and the ability to provide excellent, well-rounded service. We believe we build better teams, forge better client relationships, and provide better service because of our collaborative team of professionals who possess a vast array of perspectives and ideas that lead to greater depth and creativity of thought and innovation. 

We will continue to listen, learn, and work together to build a culture where everyone is welcome, included, and has the opportunity to demonstrate their skills.

Leading By Example

A firm’s culture is directly influenced by its leadership. Our leadership remains committed to fostering a culture of excellence, where different perspectives and ideas contribute to deeper levels of thought and understanding that help to provide positive outcomes for our clients and within our firm community.

Our lawyers and allied professionals around the world contribute to the inclusive culture we strive to continue building. As a firm that promotes a culture of excellence and growth, we encourage everyone to continue to learn about each other and the communities we serve focusing on respectful curiosity and engagement that lends itself to our individual and collective development as a team of professionals. 

Global Opportunity and Inclusion Hours Policy
Our lawyers and allied professionals around the world contribute to the inclusive culture we strive to continue building. As a firm that promotes a culture of excellence and growth, we encourage everyone to continue to learn about each other and the communities we serve focusing on respectful curiosity and engagement that lends itself to our individual and collective development as a team of professionals. 

Mentorship Programs 
We regularly partner with clients and external organizations to offer a wide variety of mentoring programs for our lawyers. We also offer our own formal and informal mentoring and coaching programs to help lawyers advance into partnership and leadership roles at the firm.

Internal Communities
Across the global platform, our Women in the Profession Committee, Opportunity & Inclusion Committee, LGBTQ+ Subcommittee, Disability Inclusion Taskforce, and Veterans Taskforce refine and create new programs and policies that reinforce our commitment to equal employment opportunity and inclusion. All are welcome on these committees. Our firmwide and local committees, subcommittee, and taskforces partner with offices across the firm to celebrate and honor the varied cultural backgrounds and heritages of our colleagues and friends each year.

Inclusive Support and Benefits
The firm has made impressionable efforts to be thoughtful of our people’s needs in and outside of the firm and to be a leader in our benefits. Our leadership regularly reviews and enhances our gender-neutral Parental Leave Policy to aptly address the needs of our colleagues. In the United States, we offer up to 24 weeks of leave to our employed lawyers. Furthermore, we added a miscarriage provision to support our colleagues in the unfortunate event of a miscarriage at any time during the pregnancy.

We have expanded our benefits to offer an inclusive family formation and fertility health benefit for our personnel and their spouses and domestic partners. Our family formation and fertility health benefit offers our people access to exclusive resources to make fertility care more accessible and affordable for all. Participation in the firm’s medical plans and medical diagnosis are not required to receive this firm benefit.


 

How We Approach Recruitment

Our recruiting practices reflect our commitment to equal employment opportunity and inclusion. We maximize every opportunity to broaden our candidate pool and to ensure that every candidate we interview understands and honors our firm’s values and commitment to excellence. We maintain this high standard of inclusive recruitment through several approaches:

  • Deliver interviewer bias training to all lawyers and senior management.
  • Recruit at a broad array of law schools across the country, including Historically Black College and Universities (HBCU) law schools.
  • Continue our commitment to key national and local recruiting events and programs.   
  •     Provide an inclusive and voluntary self-identification demographic and disclosure form that recognizes identities beyond the standard EEOC race, sexual orientation, and gender identity categories.   
1L Opportunity and Inclusion Fellowship Programs

We are devoted to creating and sustaining pipeline programs aimed at increasing the pool of talent. The firm regularly participates in a variety of programs and partnerships to attract and support top legal talent from wide-ranging backgrounds and is a sponsor of and/or participant in several inclusivity-related events and organizations.
      

We devote several programs such as fellowships and scholarships to first-year law students, or 1Ls each year. This includes fellowships for individuals who have shown a strong commitment to civil rights, equal employment opportunity, and inclusion within their local community and more broadly. One of our notable 1L diversity and inclusion programs is the K&L Gates Power of Partnership program. The program offers first-year law school students a unique opportunity to experience legal work at both a law firm and an in-house setting. The program forges deeper bonds between our firm and client partners while providing meaningful learning opportunities for first-year law students. 

Please click here to learn more about our 1L Fellowship programs or contact Amy Horn, Chief People Officer. 

Conversations About Race
As a firm, we reject racism and social injustice.

As a firm, we reject racism and social injustice. We believe that education is key to activate change; therefore, we are actively hosting a speaker series titled, Conversations About Race to convene voices around diversity.

Watch these powerful discussions.

WE PLEDGE TO FOLLOW THE MANSFIELD RULE

We have consecutively received Mansfield Rule certification by Diversity Lab since our inaugural year of participation in 2020-2021. Most recently, we earned certification plus status for Mansfield Rule 2023-2024. The certification recognizes firms that “have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion and are making meaningful progress on diversifying law firm leadership.”  The goal of the Mansfield Rule is to boost the representation of historically underrepresented lawyers in law firm leadership by broadening the pool of candidates considered for these opportunities.

Read more
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