Boston, MA. For the 17th consecutive year, Nixon Peabody LLP earned a perfect rating of 100 on the Human Rights Campaign’s 2023–2024 Corporate Equality Index, designating the AmLaw 100 law firm as a recipient of the “Equality 100 Award: Leader in LGBTQ+ Workplace Inclusion.”
The Corporate Equality Index (CEI)—the nation’s foremost benchmarking survey and report measuring corporate policies and practices related to LGBTQ+ workplace equality—is compiled annually by the Human Rights Campaign, a leading LGBTQ+ civil rights and advocacy group. The CEI rates companies on detailed criteria in four central pillars: non-discrimination policies across business entities, equitable benefits for LGBTQ+ workers and their families, an inclusive culture, and corporate social responsibility.
The 2023–2024 CEI includes new criteria that help raise the bar for companies to ensure they meet evolving expectations of allyship. New criteria focus on expanding gender-affirming healthcare and workplace policies, ensuring equality in LGBTQ+ spousal and partner benefits, centering LGBTQ+ intersectionality through training and data collection best practices, and greater scrutiny on corporate social responsibility.
Attorneys at Nixon Peabody have long served as vocal advocates for LGBTQ+ equality through client work and pro bono service. Over the past year, Nixon Peabody has continued to partner with ACLU Iowa and Montana on two separate pieces of transgender rights litigation that have widespread consequences for LGBTQ+ communities nationwide. In Iowa, Nixon Peabody litigators worked with the Iowa ACLU to secure a decisive victory in the firm’s longstanding effort to strike down as unconstitutional the state’s practice of denying transgender Iowan Medicaid recipients’ coverage for medically necessary, gender-affirming surgery. In Montana, Nixon Peabody is working with the ACLU to challenge SB 280, a new law that makes it nearly impossible to amend one’s sex designation on their birth certificate.
“We will continue to draw on our firm’s core values of diversity, equity, and inclusion to identify discrimination and then use our legal skills and experience to overcome it and deliver positive impact for both our clients and our colleagues,” said Stephen D. Zubiago, Nixon Peabody CEO and managing partner.
Nixon Peabody has continued to spearhead its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion with legal industry incubator Diversity Lab and its Move the Needle Fund (MTN). Through MTN, Nixon Peabody has committed to surpassing the national averages of LGBTQ+ representation among its equity partnership by 2025. Nixon Peabody has also earned Diversity Lab’s Mansfield Certification Plus status for the sixth consecutive year, indicating that the firm’s candidate pool—for equity partner promotions, leadership and governance roles, formal client pitch opportunities, and senior lateral positions—comprises at least 30% LGBTQ+, women, and/or attorneys of color.
Moreover, through a recent evolution of the firm’s industry-first Diversity Challenge initiative, Nixon Peabody attorneys can now obtain even more billable hour credit for engagement in diversity-related activities, such as participation in LGBTQ+ organizations.
Click here for the Human Rights Campaign’s full report and 2023–2024 Corporate Equality Index.