Baton Rouge’s law firms have been early and quick to embrace diversity and inclusion in the workplace, arguably the most of any sector in town. Not only is it the right thing to do, they say, but it makes business sense, too.
Chiefly, having a legal team of different races and backgrounds gives attorneys the chance to fine-tune their messaging in order to sway a broader audience to their client’s side, says Dennis Blunt, a partner at Phelps Dunbar.
“If you have different voices in a room who are able to tell you how a particular message would play to a certain segment of the population, you can avoid being tone deaf, and you have a better understanding of the winning message,” Blunt says. “But if you lose a juror with a comment that’s likely unintentional but comes from a lack of understanding as to how that message will be received, you’ve just lost that juror and you don’t get them back.”
It’s a sentiment reflected by Richard Cortizas, a partner in the New Orleans office of Jones Walker, which also has a large presence in Baton Rouge. In an email, Cortizas says diversity is necessary for his firm’s workforce to reflect its client base, adding that, from a strategy standpoint, “better decisions are made when a diverse group is brought together to determine how to solve a challenge.”
The presence of Southern University’s law school has helped Baton Rouge somewhat buck a national trend of Black lawyers being vastly underrepresented in the profession, some local legal professionals observe. Still, recruiting diverse talent is often easier said than done, and there’s still room for growth.
Just six of the 91 attorneys at Kean Miller’s Baton Rouge office are Black, or some 7% of the firm locally. But the firm in recent years has made intentional efforts to attract a more racially diverse workforce, says managing partner Linda Perez Clark.
Fifteen years ago, Kean Miller realized that law schools weren’t graduating enough Black attorneys for as many firms as were interested in recruiting them, creating a pipeline problem. After tracing the root of the problem back to not enough Black students enrolling in law schools, Kean Miller developed its own homegrown pipeline—called Kean Miller Connection—that allows a diverse group of college students to spend two days at the firm each summer, introducing them to a variety of legal professionals.
“Our hope is that they walk away knowing they’re invited and welcomed here,” Clark says, noting three alumni of the program now work for Kean Miller. “It’s very purposeful.”
Being intentional is key to successfully fostering a workplace culture of diversity and inclusion, she says. Like other firms in the Baton Rouge area, Kean Miller has a diversity and inclusion council that meets regularly to address issues.
“You have to be willing to roll your sleeves up and do the hard work around diversity and inclusion,” Clark says. “A statement on a website is not going to get you there. You have to take the risk, invest in people and be upfront on the topic.”
Blunt, who is also president of the Baton Rouge Bar Association, is organizing a panel discussion for Bar members on the business case for diversity in the legal profession. Meanwhile, Louis A. Martinet Legal Society, a local specialty Bar association composed mostly of Black lawyers, is currently collecting data on diversity at area firms, which it will use for a larger project.
