LEXPERT MAGAZINE
|
JULY/AUGUST 2017 49
DIVERSITY
A TOP PRIORITY
"[Poonam Puri from Osgoode
Hall] told her personal story.
… Just hearing how she
didn't think it was obtainable
and seeing the success she
attained in her career…
is a motivating factor to other
people in the audience."
- Kari Abrams, Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP
Law firms continue to take
action to address their
diversity shortfalls
By Sandra Rubin
In 2011, Legal Leaders For Diversity was
launched in Canada with a mission state-
ment that said its members value the per-
spectives, ideas and experiences that diver-
sity provides, "whether grounded in gender,
race, sexual orientation, disability, cultural
background, religion or age." ere are
currently 90-plus corporate signatories,
including some of the largest names in cor-
porate Canada, who have pledged, among
other things, to promote it themselves, con-
sider it in hiring and purchasing practices
and to encourage Canadian law firms to
follow their example.
Has it worked? A study released at the
end of 2016 by the Canadian Centre for
Diversity and Inclusion suggests, among
other things, that a white male has "over
seven times the odds showing for Racial-
ized Woman Respondents" of making eq-
uity partner.
While Stewart McKelvey, in Atlantic
Canada, is among the many law firms that
signed a pledge, and places diversity and
inclusion "at the top of our agenda when
it comes to recruiting," achieving equity is
not an overnight proposition, says Karen
Bennett-Clayton, the partner in charge
of recruiting in the Halifax office. "You're
recruiting from law schools and the law
schools have to bring the students into the
school first, then they have to be attracted
to your firm to apply."
Stewart McKelvey does what it can to
help. For example, it partners with the Uni-
versity of New Brunswick on $200,000 in
STUDENT
RECRUITMENT SPECIAL
PHOTO:
SHUTTERSTOCK
