DIVERSITY
Our mission at Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd is to provide our clients with efficient solutions to complex legal problems. We achieve that mission by leveraging our most important asset – our people. We genuinely believe that having lawyers with varied backgrounds, skills, and life experiences broadens our perspective and encourages us to think creatively while working collaboratively. We are, therefore, committed to diversity not for the sake of diversity but because we believe that a diverse workforce enriches our workplace, makes us better lawyers and, most importantly, enables us to provide our clients with efficient solutions to their complex legal problems.
Achieving and sustaining diversity, however, is a difficult and ongoing challenge. But we have accepted that challenge and made diversity a priority in our overall Strategic Plan as well as a focus of our firm’s management, recruiting, and day-to-day practices. We know that a true commitment to diversity requires sustained attention and effort, particularly in the areas of pipeline cultivation and lawyer recruitment, training, and retention. We have undertaken initiatives in each of these areas in an effort to increase the diversity of our law firm.
RECRUITING AND RETENTION
Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd recruits, and works to retain, new and lateral attorneys with diverse backgrounds and exceptional legal skills. In support of its recruiting efforts, the Firm has developed relationships with the Southeastern BLSA association, the VAULT Legal Diversity Career Fair, and we have begun recruiting at law schools with higher minority representation. We have also worked hard to ensure that our diversity commitment is reflected in our hiring practices. A few of our efforts include participation in national minority job fairs, such as the VAULT Diversity Job Fair and BLSA Southeast Regional Job Fair and an insistence that our firm’s core interviewer group is comprised of diverse attorneys. In addition, we have historically supported local minority law student organizations and participated in outreach activities to meet local minority candidates in various cities in which we maintain offices.
However, at Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd, we recognize that recruiting alone is insufficient to maintain a dynamic and diverse workforce. Our diverse attorneys, like all of our lawyers, want to be successful and want to experience both personal and professional satisfaction in their careers. Accordingly, our retention efforts focus on providing our younger lawyers with on the job training and helping them establish meaningful professional mentoring relationships that fully integrate them into our firm. In that regard, the Firm has developed various mentoring programs including: Peer-to-Peer integration (new associates are assigned an associate mentor to aid in meeting others and getting oriented during an associate's first year with the Firm; Shareholder Mentoring (new associates are assigned a shareholder advocate to whom she or he can speak about work, firm life, assistance with assignments, or other topics as needed); and a Diversity Committee "Watch" (minority associates are monitored to be sure they are given ample opportunity to work on the Firm's most significant matters for its most significant clients).
We also work hard to ensure that our younger attorneys are fully integrated and involved in the community. Whether it is participating in state and local bar association activities, serving on community non-profit boards, or assuming leadership roles in local religious or civic organizations, our attorneys are encouraged to be active leaders in the community and we work hard to provide them those opportunities.
EVENT SPONSORSHIP AND PARTICIPATION
In an effort to support the professional development and advancement of diverse attorneys in the legal community, Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd has sponsored and/or participated in the following events:
ABA Minority Counsel Association (Member and Sponsor)
DRI Diversity For Success Seminars (Participant)
Charleston Women In Trade (Member, Participant, Sponsor)
BLSA Association Dinner (Annual Sponsor)
BLSA Job Fair (Annual Participant)
Leadership Council on Legal Diversity (Member)
SC Conference of Black Mayors
Diversity Leaders Initiative at the Riley Institute (Participants)
DIVERSITY COMMITTEE
Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd has a standing Diversity Committee charged with implementing the diversity goals outlined in our Strategic Plan. The committee assists in the recruitment and retention of a diverse workforce and helps establish programs, policies, and procedures that support our diversity efforts. The Diversity Committee is led by Ben Alexander in our Greenville office and is comprised of shareholders and associates with a wide variety of backgrounds, levels of legal experience, and geographic locations. Our committee works closely with diversity officers of some of our largest clients and we would welcome the opportunity to answer any questions you may have about the diversity efforts of Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd.