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Husch Blackwell Sanders LLP is committed to recruiting, developing, retaining, and promoting talented lawyers and staff with diverse backgrounds and experiences. At Husch Blackwell Sanders, diversity encompasses a variety of characteristics, lifestyles, and perspectives, including race, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, education, and family and marital status. We firmly believe that our inclusive environment is essential to both the quality of our client service and the personal satisfaction of our lawyers and staff. The result of our commitment is a team of lawyers and staff who are diverse as individuals but unified by our enthusiasm for serving our clients through the practice of law in our communities.
Husch Blackwell Sanders is recognized both nationally and locally for dedicated efforts to promote diversity:
- Top rating of 100% in 2009 Corporate Equality Index, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation (2009)
- Equal Justice Award, Legal Services of Eastern Missouri (2009)
- Top 100 Law Firms for Women, MultiCultural Law Magazine (2008, 2009)
- Top 25 Law Firms for Native Americans, MultiCultural Law Magazine
- Best 20 Law Firms for Diversity, VAULT (2008)
- 2008 Recognition of Workplace Equality for Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual and Transgender Employees and Lawyers, the Human Rights Campaign of Kansas City
- Best Places for Women to Work, the St. Louis Daily Record's Tenth Annual Women's Justice Awards (2008).
- Washington University Black Student Association's 2008 Law Firm Diversity Award.
Minority and female partners have senior leadership positions in Husch Blackwell Sanders’ management, which fully supports the wide variety of initiatives coordinated by our firm’s Diversity Committee.
Our firm and our individual lawyers are also actively involved in promoting diversity within the legal profession. We are signatories to the diversity commitments and action plans of our local bar associations, including the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association’s Diversity Action Plan, the Peoria County Bar Association Diversity Pledge, and the Omaha, Nebraska Diversity Commitment. Our lawyers and staff have played key coordination and leadership roles for the Heartland Diversity Legal Job Fair in Kansas City, Missouri and the St. Louis Diversity Job Fair, we also participate annually in the IMPACT Career Fair for Students and Attorneys with Disabilities, Lavender Law Career Fair, Rocky Mountain Career Fair, Cook County Minority Law Student Job Fair and Southeastern Job Fair (Chattanooga office).
Diversity and inclusiveness make us a stronger firm and better able to understand our clients’ needs. That is why we are not satisfied with our status quo. We instead are committed to pursue, promote, and enhance diversity at Husch Blackwell Sanders.
Affinity Groups
Women Lawyers Affinity Group
True North: Women with Direction is a Husch Blackwell Sanders sponsored initiative that showcases dynamic women, enhances leadership potential and established relationships for professional women in the community. Husch Blackwell Sanders lawyers and area business women interact at events and also benefit from enrichment programs on leadership topics.
Family Affinity Group
Husch Blackwell Sanders recognizes the unique stresses the practice of law places on young lawyers, their spouses and their families. To support parenting lawyers and their families, Husch Blackwell Sanders attorneys started the informal affinity group called The Mamas and The Papas, which gathers for monthly coffees and periodic events with children.
LGBT Affinity Group
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Affinity Group promotes inclusiveness for the firm's LGBT lawyers. Working with the firm's Diversity Council, the Group helps to ensure that Husch Blackwell Sanders maintains an LGBT-friendly environment. The group hosts periodic social and networking events, and members of the LGBT Group, in conjunction with our Human Resources Department, gained approval for domestic partner benefits in 2007.
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