For Third Consecutive Year, O’Melveny Achieves Mansfield Certification for Diverse Hiring and Promotion Practices
September 18, 2020
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEW YORK—September 18, 2020—For the third year in a row, O’Melveny has achieved Mansfield Certification and “Certification Plus” status for its ongoing efforts to diversify its ranks. O’Melveny has been recognized by the Mansfield Program every year since the program’s inception.
Mansfield Certification is awarded to law firms that affirmatively consider at least 30 percent women, LGBTQ+, attorneys of color, and attorneys with disabilities for leadership and governance roles, equity partner promotions, formal client pitch opportunities, and senior lateral positions.
“Certification Plus” indicates that a firm has successfully reached at least 30 percent women and minority lawyer representation in a number of current leadership roles and committees.
The Mansfield Rule is intended to boost the representation of diverse lawyers in law firm leadership by broadening the pool of candidates considered for these opportunities. Named for Arabella Mansfield, the first woman admitted to the practice of law in the United States, the initiative grew out of the 2016 Women in Law Hackathon hosted by Diversity Lab in collaboration with Bloomberg Law and Stanford Law School, which counted O’Melveny among its participants.
O’Melveny received its certification after completing the Mansfield Rule 3.0 twelve-month certification program.
“We are proud to have maintained our Mansfield certifications, which reflect our firm-wide commitment to making O’Melveny more inclusive,” said Jared Bartie, O’Melveny’s partner co-head of Diversity and Inclusion. “While we are gratified by the progress we have made, we will continue to engage in the difficult but necessary work of ongoing self-examination and improvement.”
Darin Snyder, also partner co-head of Diversity and Inclusion, added that O’Melveny recognizes that “building a leadership pipeline of women and underrepresented lawyers is essential to making real, lasting change. That is why we are so focused on doing all we can to eliminate inherent bias in our hiring and promotion practices.” In 2019, O’Melveny became the first US law firm to use Pymetrics—a series of objective behavior-based games—to evaluate candidates’ potential while minimizing recruiters’ implicit bias.
O’Melveny is a recognized leader in diversity and inclusion. The firm was recently ranked the #1 Law Firm for Overall Diversity by Vault for the second year in a row, and for the eighth straight year was named to The American Lawyer’s A-List, a prestigious ranking that takes a holistic view of law firms including racial and gender diversity.
About O’Melveny
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Contact:Christopher Rieck
O’Melveny & Myers LLP
+1 212 326 2218
crieck@omm.com