Diversity
Our Commitment to Our Professionals and Our Clients
BuckleySandler LLP is strongly committed to diversity. The firm’s commitment is rooted in the belief that each individual’s unique background contributes a distinct and valuable perspective in our working environment, enriching the day-to-day experience of our professionals and enabling us to better serve our clients. BuckleySandler ensures broad-based diversity within the firm by recruiting, retaining, and promoting professionals with diverse backgrounds including, but not limited to, diversity of race, ethnicity, age, gender, religion, sexual orientation and physical ability.
Our Commitment to Equality
Under current federal law, as well as the laws of some states, the value of health insurance benefits for same-sex spouses or same-sex domestic partners and their families is treated as taxable income. BuckleySandler provides a gross-up payment to offset resulting taxes in order to ameliorate this unfair financial impact.
Converting Our Commitment into Action
BuckleySandler has an active Diversity Committee, comprised of associates, counsel, and partners, chaired by partner Jonice Gray Tucker. The Diversity Committee is charged with providing strategic guidance relative to the firm’s mission of maintaining and further expanding diversity among its professionals.
BuckleySandler participates in diverse attorney recruiting initiatives spearheaded by top law schools and various legal affinity organizations. The firm also is a proud sponsor of the D.C. Roadshow, through which it participates in career development seminars for African-American students at law schools nationwide.
Over 40 percent of our attorneys are women, including 25 percent of our Partners and approximately 40 percent of our Counsel. Approximately 20 percent of our attorneys are members of racial or ethnic minority groups. This commitment to diversity was noted in the Legal Times 150 in an article focused on the hiring of women and minorities in D.C. firms.
Through the Diversity Committee, BuckleySandler sponsors a lunch series to provide an open forum for discussion of issues of interest and importance to attorneys who are members of diverse groups. The Diversity Committee is also instrumental in driving other initiatives that are critical to retaining diverse attorneys.
Outside the firm, our attorneys are active participants in professional organizations that foster networking and interaction among members of diversity groups, including:
- National Bar Association (which serves African-American attorneys)
- South Asian Bar Association
- National Hispanic Bar Association
- National LGBT Bar Association
- Women in Housing and Finance
A number of BuckleySandler attorneys also serve as officers, directors and board members of non-profit organizations which are focused on achieving parity for diverse members of our society, including:
- Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs
- Financial Literacy Foundation
- Youth Leadership Foundation (YLF)
BuckleySandler is a proud sponsor of the 2011 Corporate Counsel of Color Career Strategies Conference and the 2011 Lavendar Law Conference. Partner Donna Wilson, an active member of the National LGBT Bar Association, will be featured as a speaker at the Lavendar Law Conference to be held in Los Angeles in the Fall of 2011.
In addition, in 2010, BuckleySandler was proud to co-sponsor the Washington, D.C., premiere of Thurgood, an acclaimed play about the life of Justice Thurgood Marshall, which ran at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Proceeds from the event benefited the HistoryMakers, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving, developing, and providing access to an internationally recognized archival collection of African-American oral histories.