Diversity & Inclusion

Our holistic D&I framework is underpinned by four pillars that impact every aspect of our culture:

D&I is woven into the fabric of who we are. Each of our skilled, dedicated lawyers and professional staff has their own unique story to tell that enriches, enlivens, and uplifts our culture and work for clients.

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We seek out and welcome opportunities to join in common cause with important organizations working toward a more diverse and inclusive industry and global community. Below are just a few examples of how we partner for change.

Select from the organizations below to learn more.

At Morgan Lewis, the career development of our lawyers is a top priority. This involves close attention to the work assignment process to ensure that our all of our lawyers receive the right opportunities and exposure, as well as paying for and encouraging them to attend and actively participate in external programs that enhance their professional development, while also providing networking and leadership opportunities.

Over the last decade, the ML Foundation has provided financial support to promising law students in an effort to promote diversity, and thereby strengthen the legal profession and improve its contributions to our communities. Giving now exceeds $3.3 million, with 97 scholarships awarded since 2014.

Learn more about the 2024 class of ML Foundation grant recipients

Our Diversity & Inclusion Committee turns commitment into action. The committee helps actualize our holistic D&I approach by bringing together firm leadership and influential partners with senior diversity, talent, engagement, and recruiting personnel who meet regularly to ensure that we are strategically focused on diversity—in recruiting and hiring, in firm leadership, and throughout the Morgan Lewis culture. Our D&I Committee reports directly to Firm Chair Jami McKeon and reviews all diversity efforts with her.

Morgan Lewis has a number of internal affinity groups that serve as resources for our diverse lawyers and professional staff, as well as providing opportunities for allies to listen and learn about the experiences of their diverse colleagues. Each group meets regularly, shares information, and enables group members to gain valuable insights from more senior leaders.

Our affinity groups and their missions:

Morgan Lewis women are dynamic, determined, and successful. Our commitment to supporting our women lawyers is embodied by our ML Women initiative, which harnesses the strength of our women through partnership with our clients, creating opportunities to come together around a shared industry or practice and develop skills that catalyze the next generation of women leaders, ceiling smashers, and game-changers

Every day, our women lawyers deliver remarkable results for our clients—garnering recognition from the legal and business communities.

What’s one piece of advice that’s helped you in your career? Select from our lawyers below to find out how they answered.

Learn More About ML Women

In the somber aftermath of the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer, Morgan Lewis launched Mobilizing for Equality to determine what more we can do as a firm to more directly, effectively, and aggressively mobilize against racial injustice. Firm Chair Jami McKeon and Grace Speights, leader of our global labor and employment practice, lead working groups across the firm curating and taking action on substantive racial and social justice projects.

Our Mobilizing for Equality Leadership Task Force comprises 20 members from all ranks of our firm and around the globe, and encompasses 14 working groups—each tackling racial injustice from a unique angle. Each working group has four or five leaders and dozens of individual volunteers.

Mobilizing for Equality: 2021 Inaugural Report

Our inaugural MFE annual report shows that we have made great strides toward our ambitious goal of focusing the immense resources of our firm toward creating a more racially just society. The report graphically illustrates some of our meaningful projects and highlights the great work of our hundreds of volunteer lawyers and professional staff, many in cooperation with clients who share our dedication to this effort.

View the report

Below are our Mobilizing for Equality working groups. Select to learn more about their mission.

Our innovative, award-winning pro bono practice spans all of our offices around the globe. Our lawyers contribute more than 125,000 hours to pro bono representations each year, and we are particularly focused on these efforts as part of our dedication to combat racism and advance equality. We partner with clients on pro bono matters involving voting rights, criminal justice, minority-owned small businesses, immigration, and housing preservation, to name just a few. In addition, we share our experience in helping launch, develop, and nurture successful pro bono programs at our clients’ organizations, offer training for clients’ pro bono teams, and connect clients with relevant pro bono organizations from our extensive network.

Our workplace culture consulting and training lawyers tailor our D&I services by listening to each client’s unique needs—drawing on our experience in developing diversity initiatives and aspirational goals, providing tailored advice on anti-harassment approaches, and drafting workplace policies. We also offer a broad spectrum of training solutions that can be customized to each client’s particular requirements to transform the workplace into a diverse, inclusive, and respectful environment. Our highly interactive training programs are designed to educate all levels of management on issues including implicit bias, workplace harassment, and creating a culture of respect. We also help clients build and implement their own in-house training programs.

Every year in June we host our Community Impact Week with our lawyers and professionals around the world participating in more than 150 community service and pro bono events. We offer opportunities for clients to partner with us on location-specific initiatives, such as service days in local communities, as well as firmwide webinars and educational events on relevant topics. We are also available to assist companies in building a community impact week of their own.

Our thought leaders help clients in their goals to achieve greater racial equity within their own organizations by participating in their internal panel discussions, hosting webinars on topics of interest or importance, or sharing advice on the most recent legal changes impacting the conversation.

Leveraging our experience creating our own internship and scholarship programs, Morgan Lewis assists clients in building such programs from the ground up—from recruiting diverse candidates, to structuring and helping run the program, to retaining diverse talent. We can also pair these opportunities with scholarship programs, or create an independent scholarship program.

Using knowledge gained from our own successful internship and sponsorship programs, Morgan Lewis partners with clients to create or refine their mentoring programs that pair senior mentors with diverse junior mentees, to give mentees a sounding board for advice, tap into mentors’ knowledge and experience, and learn skills to advance their careers. We also partner with clients to create or refine internal sponsorship programs for their organizations that pair successful senior employees with diverse, junior employees with high potential, whereby the sponsor actively seeks out opportunities for the individuals they sponsor, highlights them for opportunities or recognition, and works to elevate their status to ultimately get them promoted.