Diversity Initiatives

Mission Statement

The Center for Professional Responsibility’s mission is to provide leadership and guidance to the legal profession and the judiciary by developing and interpreting standards of ethics, professional regulation, professionalism, and client protection.  The Center seeks to foster an environment of inclusion and to identify and remove barriers to the participation of lawyers of color, women lawyers, lawyers with disabilities, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) lawyers in the achievement of the Center’s mission.

Goals

2020 CPR Diversity Equity & Inclusion 3-Year Plan (2020-2022)

Center For Professional Responsibility Diversity and Inclusion Plan (2015-2019)

• Goal 1:  Raise Awareness that ABA Goal III:  Eliminate Bias and Enhance Diversity is Critical to the Effectiveness of the Center
• Goal 2:  Increase and Maintain Diversity in Center Leadership and Membership
• Goal 3:  Increase and Maintain Diverse Participation in Center Educational Programs, Publications, and Other Initiatives

Applications for the 2024 Jeanne P. Gray Diversity
Scholarship are now closed!

Jeanne P. Gray
Diversity Scholarship

The American Bar Association established the Jeanne P. Gray Diversity Scholarship Program in the memory of long-time Director of the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility, Jeanne Gray, and her dedication to diversity. The goals of the scholarship program are to recognize one member of a diversity bar association and to encourage participation of diverse members of the bar as Center members, speakers and authors in Center activities through its Committees; explore ways the Center might work more closely together with the diversity bar; and provide access to educational programming as well as resources of the Center. Please see the Overview for more details and how to apply.

• Overview
• Application
• Past Recipients
  

2024 Recipient -
Honorable Grace E. Lee

Honorable Grace E. Lee has dedicated her career to serving the public for the past decade.  Judge Lee currently serves as an Administrative Law Judge for New York State where she adjudicates proceedings involving federal, state and local public benefits and safeguards due process and justice for litigants in her courtroom.

Prior to her judicial appointment, Judge Lee facilitated the development of laws and policies supporting the welfare of children and families in New York State as an attorney in the Division of Legal Affairs at the New York State Office of Children and Family Services.  Judge Lee also previously served as a Special Assistant for Legislative Affairs at the New York State Governor’s Office, identifying a broad array of pertinent legal and legislative issues impacting communities.  Judge Lee was bestowed the prestigious honor of being appointed as a Special Master in 2022, serving the New York State Supreme Court and assisting in the essential needs of the court. Read more.

News and Resources

Current Projects:

• The Diversity Committee is collaborating with the Standing Committee on Professional Regulation to develop for chief disciplinary counsel and disciplinary adjudicators a survey designed to collect data regarding implicit bias in disciplinary charging decisions and adjudications.  In developing the survey, the Committee sought and received very helpful input from the CPR Diversity Committee and the ABA Center for Racial and Ethnic Diversity.  The Professional Regulation Committee plans to use the confidential survey results to develop programming and toolkits to help disciplinary agencies and adjudicators better understand these issues and take action to successfully address implicit bias.  The Professional Regulation Committee looks forward to collaborating with these and other entities as it develops, disseminates, and promotes these tools.

Past Programs:

• CLE in the City – Thursday, August 2^nd, 1:15 PM–2:45 PM (ETHICS) Model Rule 8.4—Update, Discussion, and Best Practices in a #MeToo World - This timely and topical program will provide information and updates on Model Rule of Professional Conduct 8.4. Rule 8.4 covers attorney misconduct and 8.4(g) has been the topic of serious discussion and debate since its amendment in 2016. Speakers will provide an update on the state by state implementation of the rule and an examination of the various conflicts and constitutional issues regarding the rule, its implementation, its enforcement by regulators, its application, etc. The program will then transition into a discussion of Rule 8.4’s potential application to attorneys in the workplace in light of the nationwide awareness and dialogue concerning sexual harassment and the #MeToo movement. The panel will also provide an overview of best practices and training for law firms revolving around a discussion on the ABA’s ongoing work to provide information and guidance on workplace bias interrupters. 
• National Organization of Bar Counsel Meeting
  Thursday, August 2^nd, , 3:45 PM - 5:15 PM
  Diversity, Inclusion & Cultural Competence in the Regulatory Setting - Increasing globalization brings challenges and opportunities for regulators to recognize the role diversity plays in how we see ourselves, each other and the world, and the importance of interacting effectively across differences. In this session we will look at these concepts both internally, in the regulatory employment setting, and externally, with the attorneys, opposing counsel, complainants, and witnesses who come before us. Panelists will discuss the unique opportunities and responsibilities regulatory bodies have in cultivating and modeling diversity and inclusion as well as cultural competence within the legal profession. 
• Institute for Inclusion in the Legal Profession & Interlaw Diversity Forum– Tuesday, June 12, 2018
  12:00 PM–2:00 PM & 4:30 PM – 7:00 PM 
  Diversity and Inclusion:  A Professional Responsibility?  (held at Clifford Chance & Eversheds Sutherland respectively) - After a compare and contrast presentation featuring staff experts from the Law Society of England and Wales and the American Bar Association about how regulatory arrangements in the U.K. and U.S. facilitate increased diversity and inclusion in the legal profession, lawyers, in-house counsel and other experts explore with discuss how they are seeing this play out in practice.  They will engage attendees in discussion about what in our countries’ professional regulatory frameworks encourages or enables increased diversity and inclusion and where they fall short.  Is there anything missing, such as proactive initiatives that could better do so? Some specific items that will be discussed are ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct 8.4(g) that prohibits lawyers from engaging in discrimination and harassment, data on the required reporting in the U.K on gender pay gaps (including law firms), and views from other disciplines indicating that gender diversity at the board level of entities yields better quality of decision-making. 
• Implicit Bias in the Legal Workplace: Moving from “Who Is Biased?” to “What Can We Do About it?” is available for download as part of the Free ABA Member CLE Series until mid-September, 2017.  Panelists discuss how implicit bias works and how it affects day-to-day decisions and the exercise of discretion in various aspects of the legal workplace.  Read related article. 
• On August 8, 2016 the ABA House of Delegates approved a resolution by the Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility to amend Model Rule 8.4 to bring into the blackletter of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct an anti-harassment and antidiscrimination provision.   
• Talking about the Elephant in the Room:  Working Toward an Inclusive Profession
  By Shannon Green (State Bar of Wisconsin Inside Track, July 2016 Vol. 8, #14)
• Lawyering with Challenges: Disability & Empowerment
  By Stuart Pixley (The Professional Lawyer, Vol. 23, #1)
• 41^st National Conference on Professional Responsibility:  Should the ABA Put an Anti-Bias Mandate Into a Blackletter Model Rule? (May 29, 2015, Denver, CO.) Program materials
• ABA Diversity Resources