Since it was founded in 1992, Payne & Fears has built a practice that draws strength from the diversity of its members and provides opportunity to individuals of all backgrounds. We understand the value of different experiences, perspectives and cultures. We believe that a diverse workforce expands our base of knowledge, skills, and cross-cultural understanding, which in turn enables us to support our diverse and changing client base. The firm maintains a Diversity and Inclusion Team to drive our dual goals of responding to the needs of an increasingly diverse workforce and developing proactive initiatives to make our firm and profession more inclusive.
Our long-term strategic planning and succession planning emphasize greater diversity, and results show in recent hiring and promotion decisions. As we have grown, we have expanded our efforts to recruit and retain a diverse workforce. In our early years, we used our small size and close communication to facilitate flexible schedules for attorneys – including at the partner level – who chose to spend time on pursuits outside of the practice of law. As we recruited at law schools, we used our summer associate program to hire a more diverse group of associates. We have recruited (and retained and promoted) re-entry candidates, veterans, and others who bring a broad spectrum of life experiences to the firm.
Payne & Fears is committed to developing the talents of each individual member. One of our core principles is to meet the needs of a diverse group of attorneys without demanding any sacrifice in the quality of those attorneys’ opportunities.
Client feedback validates the growing push for greater diversity from outside counsel legal service providers, and we would like to do our part in helping them achieve their diversity goals, as well as our own. We work with our clients to continuously improve our diversity blueprint and have made commitments to report back on our progress on an annual basis.
To learn more about Payne & Fears’ commitment to diversity, please contact Sarah J. Odia, Chair of the Firm’s Diversity & Inclusion Committee.