Katya Jestin

• I will strive to ensure that my firm continues to lead the fight for racial justice; and I will strive to make my firm a leader in diversity—both in the legal profession and in society.
• I will personally champion the firm’s new Sponsorship program, in which senior members of the firm support Black lawyers, advocating for them and connecting them with opportunities and client relationships. I will personally sponsor a Black lawyer each year. Metric: Sponsor a Black lawyer each year.
• I will personally champion the firm’s new Work Assignment Program, which ensures new associates have fair access to opportunities to build their skills and do varied work. I will require regular metrics on the success of the program. Metric: Monitor the success of the program, as applied to our diverse lawyers and refine as appropriate.
• I will seek the advice of the firm’s affinity groups and continue to host quarterly meetings with each affinity group leader. Metric: Continue quarterly meetings with affinity group leaders, leave with action items as appropriate and execute on them.
• I will partner with our clients to support their diversity initiatives and meet their goals for diverse representation; and I will enlist client general counsel to support the firm’s diversity initiatives. Metric: Partner with at least two clients yearly to support their diversity initiatives.
• I will meet twice yearly with the Firm’s LCLD Fellow and Pathfinders regarding firm diversity initiatives. Metric: Meet twice a year with Firm’s LCLD Fellow and Pathfinders (current and previous).

• My firm will rotate its Management Committee, ensuring that there is diversity among leadership. Metric: Rotate the Management Committee every three years. This year the Management Committee will be 10% more diverse than it was last year, and in total the Committee is 44% diverse.
• My firm will continue to promote diverse lawyers into the partnership. Metric: Continue to have partner promotion classes that are diverse.
• My firm will continue to recruit at law schools with diverse student bodies and meet with diverse law students, clerks, government lawyers, and laterals in its effort to recruit diverse lawyers who meet or exceed its high professional standards. Metric: We will add at least one new school to our roster and have summer and entering classes that are diverse.
• My firm will extend its Sponsorship Program to include more racially diverse lawyers, pairing each one with a partner to advocate for them and help to connect them with opportunities. Metric: Roll out sponsorship program to other racially diverse lawyers in 2021.
• My firm will enhance its origination credit and other billing processes to ensure they are equitable. Metric: Review and enhance origination credit to ensure equity, including through the introduction of this year’s requirement for each partner to submit a memorandum outlining the contributions of others.
• My firm will conduct regular pay equity analyses of our lawyer compensation and take steps to redress any apparent inequities. Metric: Conduct regular pay equity analysis.
• My firm will assess our key talent management processes, including, recruiting, work allocation, performance feedback and training, with an eye to improving diversity, equity and inclusion. Metric: Manage talent management processes and ensure that diversity, equity and inclusion impacts our decision-making.
• My firm will require practice group leaders to build DE&I goals and initiatives into their annual practice group plans and report quarterly on their success. Metric: Each practice group leader will have DE&I goals specifically stated within their practice group plans and they will be accountable for achieving those goals.
• My firm will create a directory of lawyers who identify as diverse, and circulate it with practice group leaders and others building client teams. Metric: Create and circulate directory of diverse lawyers.
• My firm will evaluate teams assigned to all new matters for diversity. Metric: Evaluate the diversity of client teams.
• My firm will develop client succession plans to identify diverse partners to succeed senior partners in leading client relationships. Metric: Create succession plans for all firm clients.
• My firm will continue to prioritize diversity, equity and inclusion training for lawyers and professional staff in 2021. Metric: Offer diversity, equity and inclusion training for all Jenner employees in 2021.
• My firm will establish diversity based metric goals to allow us to track and monitor of progress in creating a more diverse firm. Metric: Establish short, medium and long term metric-based diversity goals.
• My firm will continue to provide leadership opportunities to diverse lawyers and will regularly evaluate the diversity of our practice group leaders, leadership committees and office managing partners. Metric: Ensure that the firm is both actively considering diverse lawyers for leadership positions and helping prepare diverse lawyers for those leadership positions (through sponsorship, mentorship and other opportunities both internal and external to the firm).

To learn more about Katya, click here.