Original Webinar Date: March 1, 2023
On behalf of the Board of Governors Profession, Public Service and Diversity Committee, view this installment in our Lunch and Learn Series. The topic is “Best Practices for Promoting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.” Volunteer leaders share best practices and their experiences in promoting DEI in their respective ABA entities.
The ABA's Coalition on Racial and Ethnic Justice (COREJ) has been tackling the school-to-prison pipeline issue for years. In 2023, COREJ released the Halting the School-to-Prison Pipeline Advocacy Toolkit to aid stakeholders in enacting local and state change.
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The ABA's Council for Diversity in the Educational Pipeline presents the Community College Toolkit in furtherance of the Council’s goal to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in the educational pipeline to the legal profession. The purpose of this Toolkit is to provide guidance and resources to those associated with community colleges who are interested in either creating a pathway program to law school or enhancing an existing program.
The ABA has developed three 21-Day Habit Building Challenges, which each include a syllabus comprised of short daily assignments (e.g., readings, videos, podcasts etc.) designed to educate and make participants more aware of the historic and current challenges impacting unrepresented communities. Learn more about the challenges.
An ABA toolkit comprised of video clips from the ABA’s four-part Black Lawyers in America Webinar Series teamed with facilitation guidelines, discussion questions, and continuing resources to assist employers with uplifting Black lawyers' experiences in the workplace and ending practices of implicit bias and anti-Black racism in the legal profession and educational pipeline. It also provides resources and tips for Black lawyers.
An ABA report and toolkit designed as a guide to improve conversations in the workplace about gender, race, and ethnicity so that all women can work together in combating the barriers to advancement in the legal profession.
An ABA report that provides results of a national survey of more than 4,200 lawyers on how they had been impacted by the pandemic and their expectations for how their practices will evolve in the future. This includes best practices for employers to address emerging diversity, equity, and inclusion challenges confronting the legal profession and the justice system.
Implicit bias occurs automatically as the brain makes quick judgments based on past experiences, stereotypes, background etc., which can perpetuate discrimination. Psychologists at Harvard, the University of Virginia, and the University of Washington created "Project Implicit" to develop Implicit Association Tests or IATs—to help educate the public about and help them measure these implicit biases. The IAT tests are anonymous complimentary tools that can be used to examine your own potential biases in many areas, such as, race, gender, ethnicity, overweight, age, religion, disability, and sexual orientation.
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Once identified, we have awareness of and can begin to employ best practices and techniques to try and interrupt any negative impact caused by such biases. The ABA has several implicit bias resources to help identify best practices and techniques. A few select resources include: Implicit Bias Videos and Toolkits for judges, prosecutors, and public defenders; “Interrupting Racial and Gender Bias in the Legal Profession” research report; Implicit Bias Initiative; and Joint Committee on Fighting Implicit Bias in the Justice System.
An ABA report, in partnership with the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, designed to reduce the effects of bias in law firms and in-house legal departments. The survey data was prepared by the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California-Hastings. The report contains toolkits with recommendations on how legal employers can make changes to their business processes to interrupt bias in the workplace, including hiring, assignments, performance evaluations, compensation etc.
A series of implicit bias training videos, developed by the Diversity and Inclusion 360 Commission, targeting key players in the judicial system: judges, prosecutors and public defenders. The videos are accompanied by a toolkit that offers additional resources and materials that can be used in training programs for those groups of professionals.
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An ABA guide designed to increase awareness of implicit biases, regarding persons with disabilities, and to offer techniques to help mitigate these biases.
The ABA Section of Litigation developed this Toolbox for use in exploring implicit bias and approaches to “debiasing.” Some of the materials are the Section’s own; others are taken from additional sources. Two have been particularly helpful. First, this work relies greatly on the Building Community Trust Model Curriculum and Instruction Manual developed as a Joint Project of the ABA Criminal Justice Section, Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, and Council on Racial and Ethnic Justice. With enormous gratitude and respect for their work, we acknowledge our colleagues’ generous sharing of approach, knowledge, and materials. A second leading source for information and training materials is the pioneering work of the National Center for State Courts, which has also piloted a Toolbox approach.
The legal profession is generally perceived as lagging behind other professions and industries in the area of diversity and inclusion (D&I). Although there are many notable exceptions, women and minorities are often under-represented at law firms and in-house law departments, particularly in leadership positions. They also often receive lower compensation than non-diverse attorneys and are excluded from, or overlooked for, other important law firm and law department roles, opportunities, and benefits.
An ABA toolkit that provides legal employers with the materials needed to present a successful training program to educate employees about being better allies to their LGBTQ+ coworkers and address the unique challenges faced by LGBTQ+ individuals in the workplace.
This program increases diversity in judicial clerkships by bringing together hundreds of diverse law students with judges and former law clerks for three days of panel discussions, research and writing exercises, and structured networking events.
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The program educates women lawyers about the science behind grit and growth mindset - two important traits that many successful women lawyers have in common. By providing the tools to assess and learn these traits, the program enhances the effectiveness as well as the retention and promotion of women lawyers.
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This toolkit provides information, insights, and advice gathered from women of color partners in national law firms as well as an examination of law firm practices.
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This toolkit provides bar associations and law firms with resources and solutions to play a critical role in eliminating the gender gap.
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This toolkit provides law firms, in-house counsel, individual lawyers, and bar associations with recommended policies, practices, and actions for achieving gender equality.
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This toolkit assists organizations with planning meetings and events that are accessible to persons with disabilities, including checklists and recommendations for all phases of a meeting or an event.
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This toolkit is an interactive web-based tool designed to educate high school and college students about how to become a lawyer - focusing on preparation for law school, the law school experience, and different career paths for law school graduates.
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This toolkit is a brochure that educates and encourages dialogue amongst teachers, parents, students, and other stakeholders on three invisible barriers or non-cognitive factors that adversely affect student performance: implicit bias, stereotype threat, and growth mindset.
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