Breaking barriers: LexisNexis’ journey in advancing DEI, with guest Adonica Black

We delve into the transformative initiatives undertaken by LexisNexis to shape the landscape of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in the legal industry. Our guest, Adonica Black, director of global talent development and inclusion at LexisNexis, shares insights into the organization’s commitment to fostering a culture of inclusion, supporting law firms in their DEI efforts and making a significant impact through innovative programs like the LexisNexis African Ancestry Network and LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation Fellowship. Join our host, Bareeq Barqawi, for a thought-provoking conversation on the current state and future trends of DEI in the legal sphere.

Transcript:

Intro: Welcome to the Reed Smith podcast, Inclusivity Included: Powerful Personal Stories. In each episode of this podcast, our guests will share their personal stories, passions and challenges, past and present, all with the goal of bringing people together and learning more about others. You might be surprised by what we all have in common, inclusivity included.

Bareeq: Welcome to Inclusivity Included our DEI podcast at Reed Smith. I'm your host, Bareeq Barqawi. And today we have the honor of hosting Adonica Black, the Director of Global Diversity and Inclusion for LexisNexis Legal and Professional. Adonica's journey is an inspiring blend of legal expertise, commitment to diversity and inclusion and a passion for justice. Welcome, Adonica.

Adonica: Thank you so much, Bareeq. Very happy to join you.

Bareeq: Thank you. Um So let's kick things off by discussing your role as the director of Global Diversity and Inclusion at LexisNexis. How is your personal and professional journey influenced your approach to fostering a culture of inclusion within organizations?

Adonica: Yes. So my background is a bit unique because I have a legal background. Um I formerly was in litigation before joining LexisNexis. So I have the perspective of both um a practitioner as well as from the business perspective and the value of diversity, equity and inclusion in both arenas. So when transitioning into the business of the law through LexisNexis, um I started actually working with our largest clients. I'm based in the Washington, D.C. area and started working um on very straightforward kind of business development with our clients. And in those conversations and experiences had the opportunity to connect with so many different attorneys in different practice areas and discuss their, you know, the value system that they bring to their practice. And in those conversations uncovered this emerging more explicit value. I think it's the value has always existed but more explicitly stated value around a culture of inclusion in the practice of law and a want to achieve justice. And that really led me on my professional journey towards where I am currently as the global Director of Inclusion and Diversity for LexisNexis as an opportunity arose within the organization to really exemplify those values that have existed in, in myself and in the profession through this specific role.

Bareeq: That's amazing, especially because having that knowledge and background, I think makes you even more equipped to understand different perspectives that come into DEI especially in the legal industry. So LexisNexis has demonstrated a really strong commitment to diversity and inclusion. Can you highlight one or two key initiatives or actions that LexisNexis has undertaken recently to promote that culture within the organization?

Adonica: Yeah, so as a business, we think about our culture of inclusion um through four pillars, what we call um our foundational pillar of making sure that our vision of our culture is strong and our leadership's commitment and accountability to our culture of inclusion is also strong. And then we have focus on external making sure that our external participation with our customers and the external community supports our culture of inclusion. So as a business, our mission is to advance the rule of law. And we like to say we're creating a more just world. And so that ties very well with our commitment and our value system of a culture of inclusion. And then the third pillar is internally, we're really focused on attracting retaining and developing all talent that supports diverse inclusive business processes and our and our business overalls representation of our talent. So that means anyone that is willing to make sure that they're an inclusive leader or a contributor is important to us. And we really focus on our processes to support achieving and attracting that great talent. And then our final pillar is around continuous improvement and assessment because we are very aware that as other fields evolve. D&I also needs to evolve because it needs to reflect the evolution of equity and inclusion as we move forward as a culture. So those four pillows just kind of over arch all of the programming, all of the initiatives and all of the actions that we take within our DEI work.

And so two programs that I could share that I'm really proud of um include our work around developing our talent um into senior leadership. So we've just had completed a program this past year, around, and we will continue, around developing women who have displayed high potential talent in our organization and partnering them with men who are already senior leaders as sponsors and allies to help them grow in their careers. We call that our lead program. We received a gold award um from Brandon Hall, which is a very well respected human capital initiative organization throughout the business world. And in the program itself, like I said, we've paired women with male leaders and we've seen these women go through developmental opportunities to help them grow in their own talent, help make seed in their professional performance and development. And then also we've also developed our male leaders who also have grown more inclusive and more equitable in their leadership. So we've seen great progress and great results from this program because we've been able to help both sides of the perspective in terms of the program develop their skills as a leader and as a contributor.

Another program I'd love to highlight is our partnership with our Enabled employee resource group, which is our employee resource group focused on different differing abilities within our talent force. Our Enabled employee resource group has really led our business to be more inclusive in how we produce our product. So they've actually partnered with our product and technology teams to help make sure that our actual product or actual technology and reason sources that are available to our customer community are accessible and in a couple key ways, um making sure that they're visually accessible and then also making sure that they are accessible for differing needs for different attorneys. And that has been amazing because it really has solidified what we like to call the business case for diversity equity and inclusion because we're able to reach a broader customer base and a broader audience and serve their needs. But also having that varied perspective has allowed us to evolve as a business to make sure that we're building in these inclusive features throughout our product.

Bareeq: Wow, that's incredible work. Um I'm honestly just, it's just delightful to hear that there's uh organizations working on these kind of things, especially when it comes to gender equity and inclusive leadership and digital accessibility, which we actually uh highlighted in another episode on our podcast. So, so given your expertise, what notable trends are emerging in the legal industry regarding diversity and inclusion um especially considering recent challenges and attacks on DEI following that Supreme Court decision on Harvard and UNC.

Adonica: It's interesting where we are as a, I like to say, as a function within diversity equity inclusion. And then of course, where we are as a nation. Um I live in the United States, where we are in the world um globally, all of those perspectives and how these recent Supreme Court decisions have contributed to this. Um from my perspective, the recent Supreme Court decisions very clearly and obviously affect higher education, right? And business in the business world relies upon higher education to produce the available talent to us. And it's disheartening to see the ways in which the Supreme Court has changed what we can expect from higher education without providing any kind of real guidance around how to move forward. So I do see in higher education, um leaders are struggling with how to deal with this and how to continue to espouse their values of diversity and inclusion while being legally compliant. That of course bleeds over into the business world because it, it's persuasive authority in a way and for people who may have wanted to roll back DEI practices to now refer to this decision as a reason to do the same in the business world. And I do think it's very clear just in the way in which the courts and the cases are evolving that this will be addressed in the courts at some point. What I think this has done though is it's created this like forced maturity and DEI work that I think was already evolving and um iterating. But at with this decision, it has really created this point where it's become necessary um to evolve our processes to be inclusive across the board and really strengthen DEI work. And so I've seen from our business, our values remain our commitment to our culture of inclusion remains and it has allowed us to open our aperture and think about structurally making sure all of our processes are inclusive and that benefits everybody that doesn't just benefit people that you may think of as typically diverse talent. I like to think that everyone has diverse characteristics and different dimensions of diversity. So everyone is benefiting from these more strong inclusive processes.

So just to kind of ground that in a in a very tangible way, as a business, we are evolving our recruiting processes to make sure that we are instituting structured interviewing across the board for all roles, for all segments in our business and structured interviewing essentially means that everyone who is applying for a specific role has the same interview experience. So we're making sure that we ask the same question. We have the same kind of cadence of conversations and we have the same objective measurements to measure all of our candidates. So that makes the process better for everybody in my opinion, at least for us to achieve greater outcomes because we'll get the objectively best candidate. And it allows for the elimination of biases that may have crept into the process when it was more subjective. So the changes in the law has really precipitated the need for strengthening our processes and DEI work. And I think that will actually lead to greater outcomes. But there's a lot of growing pains as well. I'm sure, you know, happening right now in, in this area.

Bareeq: Absolutely. It is, you know, it's a great way. It's a great perspective. And I think it's a really optimistic perspective that you brought forth, which is that I know you mentioned like force maturity, which I, I love the way you put that. But essentially it, it forced us all to audit our own DEI programs to see what is effective, what is impactful and to reassess making sure things are aligned with our values because the need is still there. It's just finding out, you know, how can we remain inclusive, remain true to our goals and missions. And then like you said, strengthen that foundation. So let's shift gears a little bit to the LexisNexis African Ancestry Network and LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation Fellowship, uh which I had the great privilege of uh going to the retreat and getting to see it firsthand. Can you delve into the impact of the fellowship program and perhaps even share a success story or two from the recent cohorts?

Adonica: Absolutely. And I'm so excited that you joined us for our, what we call our Innovation Retreat. I'll just give a little background on the program itself. Sure, the LexisNexis African Ancestry Network and LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation Fellowship is an extension of our commitment to eliminate systemic racism in the legal system and build a culture of inclusion and diversity within our own organization. So, the initiative was launched in 2021 in partnership with the Historically Black Colleges and Law School Consortium and it includes all six law schools within that consortium and the National Bar Association, which is the largest professional association of Legal Practitioners um of Black or African descent globally. And the program is focused on developing solutions to address those systemic inequities that exist within our legal system. And so we've had the privilege of working with Reed Smith as one of our foundational partners to support this program. And as you mentioned, we host an Innovation retreat usually in the spring where our fellows meet at our Raleigh Tech Center and meet with our technology and product teams and engineers and really deep dive into LexisNexis, technology and resources and learn how to utilize those resources to address the issue that they're focused on within their fellowship program. We also get the bilateral benefit of our fellows also providing a diverse perspective on the utilization of our tools and technology to our talent and our teams that are able to then like I said, make, build stronger products, representing um our diverse customer base.

So the fellows are organized um into five key areas that I like to call kind of cradle to grave systemic legal issues that uh address address challenges in our legal system, starting with our Gavel League team, which our, our team is focused on developing an app that provides early childhood legal education to the community overall. Because we've done research um empirically and subjectively that has determined that some of the lack of representation in the legal system with regard to diverse attorneys in in the profession, stems from childhood experiences and kind of a lack of awareness or even a diversion to the practice of law. And so that mobile application that they're building is designed to increase literacy and comprehension of the rule of law and critical legal concepts that children encounter. And that also may assist their parents and guardians with their rights and representation as well.

The second project is I, Too, Sing America and that project is focused on uncovering untold us history through the law and creating more culturally competent attorneys. So this is for once you've reached the stage of being in law school and you're getting your legal education. Our fellows, there are focused on creating an accessible repository of inclusive curriculum resources including racially diverse case law that will help increase their awareness of cultural differences and nuances in the law itself and build that more culturally competent lawyer across the board, benefiting all attorneys and future attorneys in law school.

Our third project team is called the Pathways to Practice Pipeline and they're focused on building bridges for HBCU students to legal fields that lack diversity in their representation. So this is the stage where you are, you know, out of law school and you're now in the profession and you're thinking about ascending to leadership levels in the profession, how do you increase the diversity of the professionals that are in practice? Um And they're focused on partnerships with corporate law, the judiciary, um and judicial clerkship opportunities and then large law opportunities as well. So thinking about where do we lack representation and how do we build those pipelines to strengthen the, the talent that is coming into these into the profession itself.

Fourth project, technology solutions to alleviate racial bias in jury selection. This team um is doing really exciting work leveraging artificial intelligence, um machine learning and data analytics to analyze representative juries by jurisdiction and provide data analytics tools to practitioners to help them achieve a representative jury and that constitutional right for their client. So they're analyzing currently, they've analyzed um North Carolina, California, Louisiana and New York. And we're planning to build that that out to other jurisdictions to look at what is a representative jury look like based on your jurisdiction and provide practitioners with a resource to then be able to advocate on behalf of their client um at that level of trial proceedings.

And then our final group is focused on legal clinic, support tools to combat systemic racism in the legal system So we started with kind of cradle and this ends it at grave level where we're thinking about how do we um provide legal clinics with resources to enhance their pro bono work that may contribute to estate planning, um intellectual property, appraisal biases, court proceedings and some other areas, key areas that we're looking at in terms of access to justice and how many people are able to access justice, which is usually through a legal clinic or a low cost clinic to help them achieve um legal representation. So we've got a full spectrum of projects and a really robust team of both fellows and mentors from within LexisNexis building and working on these projects as, as a overall fellowship program.

Bareeq: Thank you so much um for sharing that and for thoroughly describing it, I uh I got to go myself just to, I got a taste of it when I went to the retreat and it was um a really eye opening experience. I mean, we already know that we, we operate unfortunately in a system of, of systemic racism and, and uh and oppression. But to see the ways that the projects in the fellowship were, were based on deliverables and based on um that mentorship piece and being able to uh see what the future could look like and working toward it. I thought it was just uh really great to see um and really impactful.

Adonica: Thank you so much for joining us. It was wonderful to have your perspective and your overall firm support to really help us ground the work that we're doing in practical application.

Bareeq: Yes, absolutely. And actually based on, on that topic, on your, based on your experience, what advice would you give to law firms aiming to enhance their diversity and inclusion efforts? Are there like specific strategies or some best practices that you believe could make a substantial impact?

Adonica: Oh, that's such a large endeavor. I think there's quite a few things that law firms can do and things that I've seen work really well within law firms that I think should just grow in practice. Um So I would start with assessment and goal setting. I think that having very clear assessment indicators around how law firms are performing with regard to their DEI efforts is important. So demographic data, I know law firms do a lot of survey surveys um and capture that kind of data but also deeper dive into things like who's working on what kind of substantive projects who, who has partner support or mentorship sponsorship and trying to quantify those sometimes intangible development opportunities, I think provides a strong assessment of current performance and areas to highlight and focus upon. And I know law firms are doing really great work on evolving how they're looking at developing their diverse talent from just capturing high level demographic data to actually going a line below and looking at substantive um opportunities that has come about for the different demographics and then also what mentoring opportunities. Um And the like that I mentioned, I think of course continuing with inclusive recruitment practices, I've seen Reed Smith, for example, do that very well in reaching out to a diverse set of law schools, not just from typical, diverse standpoints, but also geographically. Um maybe even quote unquote tier wise, so that you're reaching all levels of talent that could bring great perspective to the practice in the firm. I mentioned mentorship and sponsorship. I think having formal mentorship and sponsorship programs and formalizing those opportunities are important because without that, they tend to slip into maybe some biased practices where some achieve mentorship and sponsorship and some don't. So I think kind of codifying those programs and making them inclusively accessible is very key to developing all law firm talent.

And then I think thinking about the culture within the law firm is very important because law firms are interesting because there's kind of maybe two segments of firm employee, right? There's what you have, what you may call the timekeepers and people who are practicing law, and then you have people who are running the business of the law firm and there may be separations in that culture, but creating that kind of one team approach and inclusive environment really strengthens the overall law firm performance. Um So I think those are some really great things law firms can do to support their culture of DEI, I also think flexibility. I know the the practice of law and the profession gets a bad rep for not being um super cutting edge. But I actually think that the practice of law law firms in the legal profession has done very well with extraordinary circumstances in the past few years and adapting to those circumstances. So I'd love to see the continual adaptation and kind of evolution there with regard to flexibility. I don't think we should go back to a previous version of practicing law. I think the flexibility helps grow the practice. And I think it shows in the numbers I law firms are doing well in terms of financial performance and they're growing. So that flexibility, I think is key to that as well.

Bareeq: You know, I was just talking to somebody about this because uh sometimes at law firms, I find it more um blatant to see, but there is sometimes an um a way to approach work that there creates some sort of a generational divide. Um And I think especially since in the last few years, the younger generations are working toward more of a work life balance and flexible model. Um But people that didn't grow up in that struggle to fully understand that because it is not what they knew. So um finding a way to kind of bring people in and create that sense of belonging within the culture, I think is a challenge law firms are facing. But like you said, I think it's something they're addressing and, and kind of working uh forward with and evolving because I don't think things can unfortunately stay the same. Things are, you know, going to have to hopefully improve for the better. And that being said, my, my last question today is uh we talked about it a little bit earlier about the business case. So diversity and inclusion are often touted as beneficial for business. And from your perspective, why are these principles good for business and what tangible advantages can organizations gain by fostering those diverse and inclusive cultures?

Adonica: Yeah, I absolutely believe in the business case for diversity equity and inclusion. There have been so many empirical analysis and studies around how the increase of diversity equity and inclusion that are measured by those indicators we talked about has also correlated with the increase of financial performance, employee engagement, employee retention, um innovation, all of those things that lead to stronger, a stronger business. I also think about just from a practical standpoint where we are in the world, where we are as a kind of a global culture. One of the recent data points that I've heard that really has stuck with me is the wealth transfer that we're facing as at least as a nation. Um and I think likely globally within the next decade as that and and it will be the largest wealth transfer in our in history, right? So as baby boomers transfer their wealth to kind of the millennial generation, that huge transfer of finances will lead to different people having stronger purchasing power. And I do think younger generations absolutely make decisions based on values in addition to finances. And so for a business to be able to succeed into that next generation, businesses need to think strongly about their value system and demonstrate those values because those younger generations are very much evaluating based on performance and action, not just on words. So I think that it's very clear when you think about does a business survive into the next decade into the next millennium, that diversity equity and inclusion will remain a a value system through which people evaluate whether they're gonna be a customer. So to be a successful business, those values need to be authentic and practice and grow.

Bareeq: Well said, I love that especially the the tying the wealth transfer in the generations to come to DEI. Fantastic. Thank you, Adonica for sharing your valuable insights today. It's been such an enlightening conversation on diversity and inclusion and the impactful work you and LexisNexis are doing. And to our listeners, thank you so much for joining us on Inclusivity Included. Stay tuned for more inspiring conversations with leaders shaping the future until next time.

Adonica: Thank you so much. 

Outro: Inclusivity Included is a Reed Smith production. Our producers are Ali McCardell and Shannon Ryan. You can find our podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, reedsmith.com  and our social media accounts.

Disclaimer: This podcast is provided for educational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice and is not intended to establish an attorney-client relationship, nor is it intended to suggest or establish standards of care applicable to particular lawyers in any given situation. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Any views, opinions, or comments made by any external guest speaker are not to be attributed to Reed Smith LLP or its individual lawyers.

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