Our Diversity Commitment and Initiatives
Diversity and equity are essential to the support of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings’ core values, business strategies, professional behavior, and to our relationships with clients and the communities in which we work and live.
Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP is a limited liability partnership in which minorities and women hold ownership interests. The firm’s partners set high expectations and empower individuals within the firm – and always have. We have a strong nondiscrimination hiring policy and actively recruit qualified women and minority candidates. We hire applicants without regard to age, ancestry, gender, color, national origin, disability, place of birth, religion, sexual orientation, veteran status, or any legally protected status. Our culture is one in which the unique talents and perspectives of attorneys and employees are understood, valued, and leveraged.
Evidence of our commitment to diversity can be found more than fifty years ago when Ellene Winn of the Birmingham office became the firm’s first female partner (and the first female partner in a law firm in any major law firm in the Southeast). Today, there are 32 women partners in our firm, and many women in the associate ranks. Women chair practice groups and hold positions on the firm’s executive and other key committees.
To fully appreciate the firm’s commitment to diversity, one has only to look at the “The Birmingham Pledge,” written by our partner, Jim Rotch. The pledge is a statement of belief that seeks to eliminate racial prejudice, one person at a time. Tens of thousands of supporters worldwide have signed the pledge. Since its inception, the pledge has been upheld with a Joint Resolution of Congress and by Presidential Proclamation. In 2006, Jim Rotch participated in a presentation to Congress with the EEOC and spoke on the Pledge. Information about the Pledge can be found at
www.birminghampledge.org.
The firm’s Diversity Committee proudly builds upon this tradition and commits our lawyers’ time to attract, promote, and retain talented lawyers with diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds at every level in the firm. Both through this committee and the actions of the lawyers generally, Bradley Arant Boult Cummings commits time and resources to increasing the diversity of its workforce through many activities, including the following:
- Awarding of minority scholarships at a number of law schools in our geographic markets, including an endowment for the Bradley Arant Boult Cummings/William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation Law School Scholarship, which is the first of its kind in the nation.
- Hosting and participating in panel discussions and programs related to diversity issues, including a recent program for women of color in the legal profession.
- Creating cross-generational mentoring groups for our female lawyers.
- Assisting with mock interviews and a resume writing workshop for minority candidates at various law schools and participating and sponsoring minority recruitment job fairs in our legal markets.
- Sponsoring the 2009 Women in Leadership Symposium.
- Establishing a mentoring program at Cumberland Law School.
- Supporting the Black Law Students Association at various law schools through sponsorships and community projects.
- Conducting a legal clinic in Jackson, Mississippi, for the Stewpot Community Services organization.
- Actively participating in the Defense Research Institute’s Diversity Committee, the American Bar Association’s Woman Advocate Committee, and local bar associations’ minority divisions.
- Providing minority student scholarships for the David Lipscomb University Law Camp in Nashville.
- Undertaking an outreach program, Youth Serve, to provide direct involvement with the education of minority students at risk in disadvantaged communities.
- Hosting minority high school students as summer interns.
- Instituting the Winn Initiative, named after Ellene Winn and designed to help mentor female lawyers in their practice development and assist in elevating them to positions of leadership. In developing the Winn Initiative, our lawyers have participated in national, state and local leadership and diversity programs.
- Sponsorship of the Momentum Women’s Leadership Program in which our lawyers regularly participate
Diversity is about values and relationships. The firm matches its commitment to diversity with its commitment to
pro bono activities by involvement in cases advancing issues and concerns of people from diverse communities and backgrounds. Bradley Arant Boult Cummings is the only Alabama-based law firm that is a member of the Law Firm Pro Bono Project, sponsored by the American Bar Association. As a signatory to the Pro Bono Institute’s Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge, we instituted a formal policy encouraging each attorney to provide a minimum of 60 hours of pro bono work on an annual basis.