Schwegman in 2023 Law360® Pulse Diversity Snapshot (Portfolio Media, Inc.)
Schwegman Lundberg & Woessner is #25 in its size category in Law360 Pulse’s 2023 Diversity Snapshot, as reported on July 25, 2023. Law360 Pulse is published by Portfolio Media, Inc.
The Schwegman firm was one of the few intellectual property firms in the top 30, and the only firm in the top 30 to focus its practice on intellectual property prosecution.
While the Schwegman firm is glad to be recognized on the list, we do not rest content. We continue to take action. At Schwegman, we have long been actively working on improving diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), both within our firm and within the IP law profession. We are proud to announce that we have achieved Mansfield Certification status for 2021-2023. The Mansfield process provides a framework for keeping track of who we are considering for leadership roles and for other opportunities. This allows us to examine our data so that we can be highly intentional in making inclusive decisions and assessing our actions.
We continue to build on our strengths, which include flexibility, autonomy, and humanity, with a particular focus on mentoring and nurturing our attorneys toward long-term success and career satisfaction. Diversity is considered in establishing client teams and to provide a diverse group of attorneys with meaningful opportunities for client responsibility and advancement with the firm. Our DEI Steering Group is focused on internal diversity training and initiatives, as well as broader community outreach.
We have launched an online certification program (“SLW Academy”) with the goal of providing a meaningful bridge for underrepresented engineering and law students to build proficiency in IP concepts and readiness for a 1L summer position. We also continue to be highly active in the community supporting DEI initiatives. In 2023, SLW sponsored or attended events and organizations supporting diversity, such as Foundation for Advancement of Diversity in IP Law (FADIPL), SCU Diversity and Inclusion Celebration, STEM Inclusion Initiative Luncheon, The Advocates for Human Rights Award Dinner, The Tech Interactive, and many more.
We also continued our annual firm-wide diversity training in 2023 with a keynote presentation by Judy Hissong on the value of “Minding Your Business: How Belonging Matters.” Our prior keynote DEI training has included Gray Area Thinking® (transgender issues) (2018), Mindful Empathy (compassion toward others) (2019), Implicit Bias Awareness (2020), Mentoring, including how to develop psychological safety, trust, and rapport (2021), and Effective Feedback for All: Exploring Challenges and Solutions to Effective Feedback (healthy workplace communication) (2022).
We have implemented Affinity Groups to honor our diverse workforce, to identify the issues that matter to them, and to better understand how best to serve and support their vision. Our hope is that these spaces will become safe harbors for new ideas and create authentic interactions that allow members to feel truly seen and heard. The firm plans to allocate resources, guidance, and support to allow these groups to thrive and have a voice within the company.
We are strongly motivated to continue to act and achieve results.
Diversity has long been a focus at Schwegman. Steven Lundberg, Managing Principal, comments: “We have been very active in efforts for fostering a culture of diversity and inclusion. Diversity can be particularly challenging in our demographic, since our intellectual property boutique firm is focused toward patent prosecution and our clients are somewhat skewed toward electrical and software technologies. While we have gained from a more diverse demographic in our San Jose office, and via our satellite attorney program that allows attorneys to work remotely from their preferred geographic locations, we continue to place great emphasis on diversity and inclusion at all locations and levels of our firm. Providing fair opportunities for everyone is the right thing to do and it is an issue that motivates us personally.”
Trademark Principal Pamela Huff explains, “Education plays a vital role in increasing diversity in the legal field.” Chair of Schwegman’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Steering Group, she continues, “Hosting webinars focusing on diversity and subconscious bias has challenged us to think about what we can do better to include diverse groups and have provided us the opportunity to listen and receive honest feedback on these issues.
“At Schwegman, we’ve accepted the challenge to reflect on ourselves, receive honest feedback, and make the changes that are so critical to advancing diversity.”
Suneel Arora, Schwegman Principal and Board member, elaborates: “Diversity is an ongoing effort that is discussed at every firm Board meeting and considered throughout our recruiting process, and I believe that it is our inclusive firm culture and excellent track record of retaining attorneys that will make our efforts successful and sustainable. We are grateful for the diversity currently present at our firm, and we seek to continue to make strides. We are making conscious efforts towards meaningful change, both in our firm and in our community.”
“At Schwegman, attorneys have the ability to choose which technologies and clients are the best fit for their skills and interests, which is paramount to success, satisfaction, and longevity in our profession,” adds Andre Marais, Schwegman Principal and Board member. “We don’t try to micromanage to achieve over-granular diversity objectives. Instead, we try to focus on recruiting, mentoring, and promoting with a focus on supporting individual team members, which we view as our best path to success for our entire team.”
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