Inclusiveness Program

Beyond Diversity: Inclusiveness in the Legal Workplace©

The Inclusiveness Manual is the foundation for CLI's innovative inclusiveness program and the solution for sustainable diversity.

CLI's Inclusiveness Manual is the only resource of its kind for the legal profession - providing concrete steps on how to create an inclusive workplace to increase the retention and advancement of diverse and female attorneys. The Inclusiveness Manual was specifically created for law firms, legal departments, law schools and nonprofits to provide solutions for long-term diversity goals.

Preview the 2013 edition introduction at www.legalinclusiveness.org. The complete edition, plus other valuable resources, is available by subscription (free for CLI Members).

Six-Step Inclusiveness Program

The six steps outlined in Beyond Diversity: Inclusiveness in the Legal Workplace are as follows:

Step One: Laying the Internal Foundation
Engaging in an inclusiveness initiative will have a lasting impact on all aspects of an organization's work and will affect everyone in your organization. Therefore, it is important to take the time to lay the proper foundation for the initiative. It requires highly strategic decisions in creating an inclusiveness committee, engaging leadership of the organization, cultivating white male allies, and designing strategies from the outset regarding how to combat apathy.

Step Two: Creating an External Support System
Succeeding in an inclusiveness initiative requires the development of an external support system, including creating an external advisory board, seeking assistance from consultants, and garnering support from organizations such as CLI and specialty bar associations. These external resources can help create an accountability mechanism and a sense of urgency for achieving stated goals.

Step Three: Integrating Inclusiveness within Your Organization
Integrating inclusiveness within your organization is only possible with a comprehensive understanding of what inclusiveness is and how it can work within your organization. This step involves developing diversity dialogues, examining the organizational culture, gathering and analyzing information, making the case for inclusiveness, and developing strategies for identifying and eliminating structural and organizational barriers.

Step Four: Integrating Inclusiveness into External Relationships & Communication
Creating an inclusive organization is not just an internal process. Communicating about your inclusiveness initiative externally plays an important role in the overall inclusiveness initiative. Do your communication and marketing plans, your website, and your recruiting and hiring techniques align with your inclusiveness goals?

Step Five: Implementation
An inclusiveness action plan takes all the knowledge your organization has developed and provides goals to embed and infuse diversity and inclusiveness throughout the organization. Measuring success in achieving those goals is also a critical element for a successful inclusiveness initiative.

Step Six: Effort & Success: The Inclusiveness Network
Learning from others who are also engaged in inclusiveness initiatives is an important component for success. CLI developed the Inclusiveness Network (IN) as a way to assist legal organizations formally implementing the Inclusiveness Manual. IN member organizations work collaboratively and share information about their successes and challenges throughout the implementation process. This group format has proved to be a powerful way to shorten the learning curve and achieve greater success more quickly. To date, there are nearly 30 legal organizations participating in CLI's Inclusiveness Network (see the list of organizations below).

Inclusiveness Network

CLI's Inclusiveness Network is a powerful and effective model for legal organizations - taking diversity to the next level.

The Inclusiveness Network is open to law firms, corporate law departments, and government law offices. Under the guidance and support of CLI, Network members formally implement CLI’s Inclusiveness Manual. They work collaboratively as each organization individually embeds diversity and inclusiveness principles. Representatives from each member organization attend quarterly meetings where they learn about inclusiveness, report on their organization’s progress, and share their successes and challenges as they make changes to create cultures of inclusion.

Case studies for Inclusiveness Network member organizations are a valuable component of CLI's Inclusiveness Manual, which is available by subscription at www.legalinclusiveness.org.

Inclusiveness Network Overview.

IN08 Cohort

Eleven legal organizations – two corporate law departments, two government legal offices, and seven law firms - began implementing the CLI Inclusiveness Manual in 2008. IN08 members include:

IN08 Inclusiveness Network Members in January 2011

IN11 Cohort

Nine legal organizations – two corporate law departments and seven law firms - began implementing the CLI Inclusiveness Manual in January 2011. IN11 members include: