Venable LLP is dedicated to providing the highest quality legal services to all clients. We are committed to inclusion, openness, and support for all of our lawyers and staff, as well as for our clients and our communities. To meet these standards, we welcome lawyers and staff from all racial, ethnic and cultural backgrounds. We pledge to maintain these high standards in all of our recruiting efforts and professional development initiatives.
We are proud of our record in recruiting, retaining and promoting minority and women lawyers within the firm. Fully 186 of our 573 attorneys (32%) are women, including 51 partners and 103 associates. Sixteen of our partners are minorities. We are especially proud of the fact that our minority associates comprise 14% of all associates, and we continue to nurture and develop this talented group of attorneys. In addition, our minority paralegals comprise 12% of total paralegals in the firm. Among our non-legal staff, 40% are minority. While these percentages represent a strong commitment to diversity, we continue our work to expand the size and scope of our women and minority professional and non-legal staff groups.
Minority Recruiting
Venable's Hiring Committee makes a concerted effort to interview minority candidates who have demonstrated factors of success, including academic achievement and other credentials. For the past two decades, all of our entering classes of associates and summer associates have had significant minority representation. Both in 2005 and in 2006, minorities represented 20% of our entering associate class. In our effort to identify and attract minority candidates, we place a strong emphasis on efforts such as on-campus recruiting at law schools and job fairs with significant minority populations as well as outreach efforts to minority student organizations. In addition, Venable has been an active participant and contributor to the Minority Corporate Counsel Association. Venable attorneys also are well represented in the National Bar Association, as well as the American Bar Association's Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession.
Minority Retention, Mentoring and Professional Development Programs
Venable has two active retention, mentoring and development programs in place, both of which assist our minority retention, mentoring and professional development efforts. The first is our Preceptor Program, in which all first- and second-year associates are assigned to a Preceptor, typically a partner or senior associate, who is responsible for the new lawyer's training and integration into the firm. Each new minority lawyer, like his or her majority colleagues, is matched with a lawyer who has accepted responsibility for that new attorney's initial success at Venable. In addition, the Venable Success Network is focused specifically on giving our minority attorneys a strong network of colleagues within the firm. Developed several years ago, the Venable Success Network hosts social gatherings of minority lawyers and their spouses several times a year. Through dinners and other events, the attorneys develop relationships and come to support each other, contributing to each other's profile within the firm as well as with clients and community leaders.
Management's Commitment to Diversity
Leading minority partners and attorneys play key roles on the firm's management committees, including Legal Personnel, Associate Evaluation, Hiring, Compensation, Partnership Selection, and Diversity. We continue to recruit, develop and promote highly skilled lawyers, paraprofessionals and support staff with varied perspectives and a wide range of racial, ethnic, cultural and social backgrounds. The firm's executive management team and Board continually review and approve a wide-range of programs to enhance further Venable's effectiveness in recruiting, retaining and developing minority attorneys and professionals.
Strategic Alliance with Brown & Sheehan, LLP
As part of our ongoing commitment to diversity, Venable has formed a strategic alliance with minority-owned law firm Brown & Sheehan. This strategic alliance is designed to assist both firms in meeting client service needs and providing clients with an even more diverse pool of legal professionals. Both firms will maintain their independence but will also work as co-counsel on various designated matters such as litigation, labor and employment, public finance, business transactions and real estate.
Management's Commitment to the Minority Community
Venable values the opportunities it has to work with the minority community, and our attorneys devote their personal time to special projects within the community. As one of many examples, Venable worked to establish a museum-quality exhibit in our Washington, DC office honoring Mary Church Terrell, a prominent civil rights activist and leader in desegregating Washington's dining establishments in the 1950s and the namesake of our Washington, DC office. The exhibit is housed in the gallery space of Venable's Washington, DC lobby and is located in the neighborhood where Mrs. Terrell fought to end segregation. Venable Partner Robert Wilkins was instrumental not only in the establishment of the Mary Church Terrell exhibit but has also dedicated a significant amount of his time over the past five years to the development of the proposed National Museum of African-American History and Culture. Congress passed legislation authorizing the museum and has authorized initial appropriations of $30 million for the museum. The Smithsonian Board of Regents has selected a site for the museum on the Mall and fund raising is underway. Venable's dedication to the minority community extends to our pro bono work as well. For example, our attorneys successfully represented Dr. DeWayne Whittington, the first African-American superintendent of schools in Somerset County, Maryland, in his civil rights lawsuit against the school system.
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