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2009 Diversity Leadership Award

2009 Recipient

The inaugural recipient of the Section of Litigation Diversity Leadership Award is Nolan N. Atkinson, Jr.

Nolan N. Atkinson, Jr. is Partner and Chief Diversity Officer at Duane Morris LLP. He is a member of the Trial practice group in the firm’s Philadelphia office. Since his graduation from Howard University School of Law in 1967, Mr. Atkinson has been an active voice on the importance of diversity in the legal field. Under Mr. Atkinson’s leadership, Duane Morris has greatly improved its diversity programming, marketing, mentoring programs and overall commitment to inclusion, across the United States and abroad.

In addition to his work at Duane Morris LLP, Mr. Atkinson is the founder and former chair of the Philadelphia Diversity Law Group, Inc., a consortium of law firms and corporations committed to increasing ethnic and racial diversity in Philadelphia's larger law firms. Under Mr. Atkinson, the PDLG grew from 12 members to more than 30, resulting in, among other achievements, opportunities for 25 first-year diverse law students to gain summer internships with leading law firms and companies in the Philadelphia region.

Mr. Atkinson was appointed in August 2007 as Duane Morris’ first Chief Diversity Officer. In this capacity, Mr. Atkinson leads the development and implementation of programs that foster recruitment of and success for diverse attorneys throughout the firm, both nationally and internationally. One such program created by Mr. Atkinson is the annual Duane Morris Diversity Retreat. The Diversity Retreat attracts minority associates from across the 650-lawyer firm to learn from minority partners and firm leadership and to share their experiences. Programming includes roundtable discussions of retention issues, Q&A sessions on matters that affect minority attorneys and panels on marketing and business development strategies.

Thanks to Mr. Atkinson’s efforts, Duane Morris was one of the first firms nationally (as reported by Vault) to have implemented a formal mentoring system and formal training and professional development program for its diverse attorneys. The firm has received other recognition for its diversity efforts as follows: ranking in the Top Category for Corporate Equality by The Human Rights Campaign Foundation (an educational arm of the nation’s largest advocacy group for GLBT Americans); inclusion as one of the top 50 law firms for women by Working Mother magazine and Flex-Time Lawyers LLC; and recognition by Best Law Firms for Women and Women 3.0 as one of the Top 100 Law Firms for Women.

Mr. Atkinson is also a frequent lecturer and author on the topic of increasing diversity in the legal profession, including his role recently as planning chair for “Recruiting and Retaining Diverse Attorneys,” an American Law Institute-American Bar Association webcast focusing on diversity in large corporations. He was formerly appointed co-chair of the Conference of Minority Partners in Majority Corporate Law Firms, a constituent entity of the Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession of the ABA. In 2008, he was appointed to the Mayor's Advisory Task Force on Ethics and Campaign Finance Reform by Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter. In 2006, Mr. Atkinson received the Honorable William F. Hall Award from the Barristers' Association of Philadelphia, and in 2004, Mr. Atkinson became the fifth recipient of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association's Rainbowmaker Award, awarded to a lawyer who has made exceptional contributions in support of a more diverse legal profession.