Boston, MA. Nixon Peabody LLP is proud to announce that the law firm has once again achieved Mansfield Certification Plus recognition from legal industry incubator Diversity Lab.
Diversity Lab launched the Mansfield Rule in 2017 to increase and sustain diversity in leadership and the pipeline to leadership roles by broadening the pool of candidates considered for advancement. For law firms, the Mansfield Rule requires that at least 30% of candidates for leadership roles come from historically underrepresented groups—including women, racial and ethnic groups, LGBTQ+ lawyers, and those with disabilities.
The rule’s broader objective is to help foster systemic changes that help create long-term diversity, inclusion, and equity in the legal profession.
This marks the sixth consecutive year Nixon Peabody has earned Certification Plus. The Certification Plus category evaluates whether firms have achieved diversity in leadership, not just considered it. To attain this higher level of certification, firms’ advancement and compensation processes must now be transparent internally, in addition to meeting routine check-in, data-collection, and reporting milestones.
“Identifying, developing, and empowering leaders from a variety of backgrounds is so important within a law firm, and we are proud of our achievements in this area,” said Nixon Peabody CEO and Managing Partner Stephen D. Zubiago. “Progress spurs additional progress, and the momentum we have generated over these six years drives our continued efforts to build a firm that is ever more diverse, equitable, and inclusive.”
Over the past six years, Nixon Peabody’s partner compensation committee, practice group leaders, policy committee, and management committee have all achieved 30% or greater diversity, with the firm’s compensation committee reaching 50% diversity in 2022.
Nixon Peabody is one of only four firms and more than 25 general counsel partnering with Diversity Lab for the organization’s Move the Needle Fund (MTN), a collaborative effort to create positive change throughout the legal profession. As part of its participation in MTN, Nixon Peabody launched a workflow management app—the Mansfield Rule for Workflow—that uses technology to mitigate inequity and implicit bias in the attorney work assignment process.
You can read more about Nixon Peabody’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion initiatives here.
