2020-01-29 01:45:06
NCAJ Honored for Diversity and Inclusion Efforts
North Carolina Lawyers Weekly and South Carolina Lawyers Weekly publications honored NCAJ as a recipient of their inaugural Diversity and Inclusion Awards during a luncheon on December 11, 2019, at the Hilton Charlotte University Place.
The award, given to the organization as a whole, recognized NCAJ’s efforts to “take a close look at how — and if — the organization fosters an environment where legal professionals of diverse backgrounds, with a wide array of viewpoints, feel comfortable and enthusiastic about participating and growing within NCAJ.” Several campaigns and accomplishments sprang from the NCAJ’s renewed support for diversity and inclusion, including two landmark achievements in September 2019: The approval of a new parental leave policy for North Carolina’s state courts and the NCAJ’s inaugural Diversity and Inclusion Conference.
In 2017, the creation of a diversity and inclusion task force jumpstarted the momentum that led to these and many more steps toward greater diversity and inclusion within the organization and in the legal community. The task force became a permanent standing NCAJ committee earlier this year.
NCAJ Receives Golden Limine from Wake County Bar
The annual Wake County Bar Awards serve both as a fundraiser for Legal Aid of North Carolina and an outlet for the musical and theatrical impulses of Raleigh-area attorneys. For its sponsorship of the awards event on October 23, 2019, NCAJ received a coveted Golden Limine Award and a rousing musical tribute set to the tune of the classic Village People anthem “YMCA,” performed by Wake County lawyers. The awards ceremony was held at the North Carolina Museum of History.
Diversity and Inclusion Conference Sparks Discussion of New CLE Requirement
A judicial panel featuring North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Anita S. Earls, North Carolina Court of Appeals Chief Judge Linda M. McGee and Judge Ashleigh Parker Dunston of the 10th Judicial District, moderated by NCAJ Executive Director Kim Crouch, was the centerpiece of the NCAJ’s inaugural Diversity and Inclusion Conference on September 20, 2019, in Cary.
The discussion topics included pervasive gender bias and the possibility of a new CLE requirement that would address matters of inequity — among many other topics.
Earls told the crowd of about 50 attorneys that she is concerned that the gender bias she encountered when she began practicing law in 1988 persists. She recalled that she would often find herself in a rural North Carolina county trying to persuade others in the courtroom that she was a practicing attorney and not the court reporter or a legal assistant.
“I thought that since that was over 30 years ago, that it doesn’t happen anymore,” she said. “But I have recently heard stories from younger female attorneys who have had to pull out their bar cards to convince either a sheriff’s deputy or a judge that they really are an attorney.”
Several audience members recounted similar instances, and one suggested that the North Carolina State Bar adopt a requirement for a CLE that addresses such issues.
Dunston agreed, and pointed to Maine, which requires one annual CLE credit hour that is “primarily concerned with the recognition and avoidance of harassment and discriminatory communication and conduct.”
McGee said she had thought adding a program like the diversity and inclusion conference would be helpful.
“We’re all learning more technology as a result of being required to do it,” she said, referring to the North Carolina State Bar technology CLE requirement that became effective this year. “I see no reason why we couldn’t be required to be focusing on the fact that racism and sexism still occur in the courtroom far too often.”
McGee responded to an attendee’s comment that a new CLE will not necessarily change hearts and minds by recommending that leaders in the profession call out instances of bias when they witness them.
“There is no reason in this day and time that we shouldn’t be bold,” she said. “If we sense it and believe that it has occurred, we should take just a moment to address it right then because unfortunately, there are still a number of people that simply don’t see it. It’s a little difficult to think that’s true, but they don’t seem to.”
“The first thing we really had to get past was getting people to understand that there’s a need for this … Now, we have not only an awareness but an intentional effort to make the organization more diverse and more inclusive.” - Karonnie Truzy
Earls said that when a lawyer decides to speak up about an instance of microaggression, it is actually giving that person a gift.
“You are saying that you are invested in them, that you are invested in them being better citizens of our community,” she said. “They may decide not to take advantage of the gift that you’re giving them. And you have to let that go if they don’t.”
The conference grew from the work of the NCAJ’s diversity and inclusion task force, now a committee, which appointed Greensboro attorney Karonnie R. Truzy as NCAJ’s first diversity officer in 2017. Truzy said the event was part of the committee’s ongoing commitment to bring awareness to the NCAJ’s need for diversity in programming and participation.
“The first thing we really had to get past was getting people to understand that there’s a need for this,” he said. “Now, we have not only an awareness but an intentional effort to make the organization more diverse and more inclusive.”
In addition to the panel, the conference included presentations from nationally renowned experts Lisa Coleman, chief diversity officer for New York University, and Sybil Dunlop, of Green Espel PLLP in Minneapolis, who spoke on implicit bias in the legal profession and ways to confront it.
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