Spring 2014 Do1Thing We want to encourage the Mintz Levin community to continue to create cultural change through actions of diversity and inclusion. It’s simple: we’re just asking each of you to do one thing to support an inclusive environment. Here are some ideas to get you started or help you continue with our mission:

• Attend an internal diversity event
• Join a diverse bar association and represent the firm — speak at an event, join a committee of that bar association, and/or land a seat on the board
• Join a local community organization and meet people with a different set of experiences to promote diversity of thought
• Represent the firm by speaking on a diversity panel at a law school
• Take someone you don’t know well to lunch to learn more about her or him
• Be an advocate for your diverse colleagues
• Represent the firm in your community (learn about the community and tell our story)
• Initiate a community service project to benefit a nonprofit that promotes diversity in the legal profession, works for equality, or serves a multicultural/diverse community
• Host an office jeans day or small event for a cultural or religious holiday

Do1Thing Testimonials

Here’s how a few of our colleagues have already stepped up to “Do One Thing.”

ML Strategies: Led by Joe Hammang and Andy Shin, ML Strategies is partnering with BIO and the National Minority Quality Forum to develop a program to increase immunization rates in minority communities. The ML Strategies role will be in policy, strategy, and government affairs. The five largest vaccine R&D firms are potential partners and outreach to these firms has begun.

Christina Frangos: I was recently elected to the Board of Project STEP, an organization that addresses the underrepresentation of certain racial and ethnic minorities in classical music by identifying musically talented children from Boston area communities and providing them with comprehensive music and string instrument instruction.

Michelle Gillette: I joined a group in Silicon Valley called “The Club,” an organization dedicated to helping women accelerate their leadership journeys by providing an environment that inspires and tools that empower.

Karen Lovitch: I joined the board of directors of DC SCORES, a 501(c)(3) organization. DC SCORES builds teams through after-school programs for over 1,450 low-income DC youth at 42 schools by instilling self-expression, physical fitness, and a sense of community. DC SCORES has implemented an innovative model combining poetry and spoken word, soccer, and service-learning year-round. The organization has worked with over 7,000 students since it was founded in 1994, and it aims to serve every child in the District deserving of a team who does not have one. It is the only organized after-school soccer league for public elementary and middle school students in the district. The vast majority of children served by the program are minorities. In 2012, the ethnic breakdown of all students enrolled in the organization was 72% Black, 14% Hispanic, 10% non-Hispanic White, and 4% other races.

Elizabeth McCann: After Typhoon Haiyan hit last November, my sister-in-law’s family was in an area that aid groups could not reach. Pam felt helpless being so far away, but she didn’t let the distance hold her back. Pam ingeniously put together a network of family in the US to collect donations, and family in the Philippines located in accessible areas to deliver the aid, which was then distributed to those in need through the local church. One item that people needed was summer clothing. When I told my colleagues in the Marketing Department about Pam’s aid network, they gave four boxes of clothes to the cause.

Dave Salisbury: I attended a mixer hosted by the Minority Bar Coalition in San Francisco. Representatives from several Bay Area bar groups were in attendance, including Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom, the Filipino Bar Association of Northern California, the Asian American Criminal Trial Lawyers’ Association, the Korean-American Bar Association, the Asia Pacific American Bar Association, and the California Minority Counsel.

Gabe Schnitzler: I serve on the board of the GLOW Foundation, a nonprofit aimed at empowering under-resourced students and their families to afford and complete college. GLOW partners with school districts and nonprofits to increase college success rates of under-resourced students by providing financial literacy and college financial planning curricula as well as access to scholarships, matched savings accounts, and mentors. I recently invited my colleagues to attend the foundation’s first annual fundraiser.

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We hope you’ll give some thought today to what you can do. And once you’ve identified one thing and accomplished it, please contact one or more of us to let us know. We’d love to hear about your experience and to express our appreciation for all you do to make our firm, profession, and community more welcoming and inclusive.

Diversity Committee

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