The Roundtable was attended by one law student, one non-attorney technology specialist at a major research institution, one non-attorney technology specialist at a law firm, and one associate at a law firm. For the sake of confidentiality, these attendees will be referred to in the summary below as “Student,” “In-House Tech Spec,” “Firm Tech Spec,” and “Associate.” The discussion covered a range of D&I issues, with attendees describing both their own personal experiences and things they had heard from colleagues at their own institutions as well as from their counterparts at other institutions. The following issues were discussed.

Diversity Guidelines for Outside Counsel: In-House Tech Spec and Firm Tech Spec both commented that in their experience, clients who have diversity guidelines for their outside counsel take those guidelines very seriously when evaluating outside counsel. In fact, both In-House Tech Spec and Firm Tech Spec were aware of instances where clients had moved IP case work away from outside counsel who were perceived as not doing enough to staff diverse attorneys on those clients’ matters. These observations suggest that diversity guidelines for outside counsel can be a powerful tool that clients can use to encourage diversity in IP law practices, and in the legal industry more broadly.

How Clients Measure Progress on Diversity: Related to the issue above, the attendees discussed the issue of how clients are measuring progress on diversity, and in particular how clients quantify how many “diverse” attorneys their outside counsel have. For example, it is well-known that within the broad category of “diverse” attorneys, there is a much bigger problem with under-representation of Black, Latinx, and Native American attorneys in IP law than there is with representation of Asian attorneys. Firm Tech Spec mentioned having heard from some clients that they are specifically concerned about how much progress outside counsel are making in hiring of attorneys from groups who are under-represented in the IP profession.

Value of Contacts Between Junior Practitioners at Firms and Clients: In certain types of IP work, such as patent prosecution, it is common for junior practitioners at firms to have regular contact with their junior counterparts at the client. The attendees at the Roundtable all agreed that such junior-level contacts can be helpful for diversity efforts at both firms and clients, because junior practitioners may feel more comfortable discussing diversity issues with people closer to their own age and/or experience level. This discussion suggests that, to the extent possible, in light of budget, scheduling, and privilege concerns, firms and clients that are seeking to improve diversity might consider fostering contacts between their junior-level IP practitioners.

Importance of supportive messaging from institutional leadership: All of the participants found it very helpful and important that the senior leadership at their respective organizations have made their employees feel safe discussing issues related to diversity, race, social justice, etc. with leadership. Such conversations can be very difficult to have, but it is easier to have these conversations when people see that the leadership of their organization encourages and welcomes them.

Value of a “Go-To” Person/Office for Diversity Issues: While everyone agreed on the value of having organizational leadership be open in support of diversity, as discussed above, the attendees also agreed that it was valuable for organizations to have a known, designated person or office with whom people are encouraged to discuss diversity issues. This is not to say that people should be discouraged from discussing diversity issues with people who aren’t designated for these topics. However, it can be hard to start a conversation about diversity issues, so having a point person or office to facilitate such conversations can be helpful.

Importance of Mentorship: All attendees agreed about the importance of good mentors and advocates for junior diverse practitioners. One concern that some attendees expressed is that junior practitioners often don’t know what it means to have a good advocate, and thus don’t know how to look for one until it’s too late. Associate made the point that, at least in the firm context, junior practitioners who are diverse often make the mistake of thinking that just because they are getting good performance reviews, it means that they have a good chance of being promoted. Those people can then feel surprised and demoralized when they are passed over for promotion because someone else in the organization had an advocate who was advancing their cause within the organization. This situation can lead to a failure to retain diverse attorneys, because attorneys who are passed over may leave for other jobs.

Value of Affinity Groups: The attendees felt that, for organizations that are big enough to have affinity groups, it is valuable to have periodic meetings of these groups. However, it is important that organizational leadership attend these group meetings from time to time and listen to what’s discussed there.

Importance of Getting the Entire Organization Aware of / Involved in Diversity Initiatives: All attendees agreed that it is important for organizations to get everyone involved in diversity-related initiatives, not just subject employees. For instance, some organizations will send diversity-related announcements or content only to subject employees, instead of sending such information to everyone. This practice seemed to the attendees to be of limited value, because for an organization to make any progress on diversity, the whole organization needs to get behind the effort and show practices of inclusion across all employees (instead of segregated handling and communications).

Equitable Distribution of Real-World Training Opportunities: In follow-up discussions after the roundtable, some attendees noted that inequitable distribution of hands-on experience can negatively impact promotion and retention of diverse attorneys. Some organizations will not promote attorneys to senior roles until the attorneys have had a certain amount of experience with specific tasks, such as depositions or oral arguments. If opportunities to gain this experience are limited, and organizations staff their matters in such a way that diverse attorneys are denied these opportunities, then diverse attorneys may be unable to advance within their organizations and may leave for other jobs.