Why organizations need to be ‘disability-confident’… and how to make that happen

The three co-founders of Reed Smith’s disability focused inclusion group share best practices and challenges in building an effective employee resource group for people with disabilities. This comes on the heels of the news that Reed Smith has earned the top score of 100 on the Disability Equality Index, a benchmarking tool that offers businesses an opportunity to self-report their disability inclusion policies and practices. Luke Debevec, Kevin Hara and Carolyn Pepper join co-hosts Iveliz Crespo and John Iino to share their experiences and best practices.

For more information, please visit Reed Smith's Diversity & Inclusion page.

Transcript:

Intro: Hi, I'm John Iino and I'm Iveliz Crespo. 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. 

John: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. Today, we have a great lineup. We are joined by my colleagues here at Reed Smith that have organized and founded what we call LEADRS looking for excellence and advancements for persons of disabilities at Reed Smith. These are the co-founders of our organization and today I really want to talk about how we built this group and its successes. The title of our podcast is building a successful disability competent organization. And these three folks who are with us today are the architects for really all of our success. So let me introduce them one by one. First, we have Carolyn Pepper, who's a partner in our London office. Hi, Carolyn, how are you today? 

Carolyn: I'm great. Thanks. Thanks John. 

John: And we also have uh Luke Debevec. Luke is a partner in our Philadelphia office. 

Luke: Great to be here, John. Thank you. 

John: And finally we have Kevin Hara. Kevin is a senior associate in our San Francisco office. 

Kevin: Hello, John. Thank you. It's an honor to be here. 

John: And of course, as always, I'm joined by our co-host Iveliz Crespo. Hey, Iveliz. 

Iveliz: Hey, John, how are you doing? 

John: Oh, great. Ok. Well, let's just start off and kick it off. Uh Kevin, Reed Smith recently was um given a really high honor uh on the disability quality index for our work. In, in terms of our helping our disabled employees. Can you give us a little bit of a background on that? 

Kevin: Certainly, I, I think first of all, I'd like to say that it's, well, it's a great honor and pleasure to receive that award. It, it shows a couple of things, it shows we've come a long way uh since we started thinking about LEADRS and conceptualizing what we want to do, but it shows we have much left to do because, you know, we can always continue to improve. But I think we can at this point, look back and say we've done a good job of implementing a lot of the dream goals that we had. At the beginning, we started off with big ideas and goals in mind. We, we didn't leave anything out of the realm of possibility even though at the beginning, it was tough to get momentum but it was really a group effort. You know, growing slowly our membership continuing to work hard on what we could to show that people with disability of all types, visible and non visible, mental and physical are capable of extraordinary things. And I think we've borne that out of Reed Smith and Luke and Carolyn and so many others. And John yourself have been instrumental in helping us to achieve that. Receiving the top score of 100 from the diversity and equality index for disability diversity inclusion was something that we've strived for not so much to achieve the awards or recognition, but the fact that we are making progress and really our disability diversity is one of the drivers of what Reed Smith is about. Um not just from a standpoint of doing the right thing but from a business standpoint as well. So I think this has been the culmination of a lot of effort to hold uh panels on best practices, to implement ideas, to help those with disabilities do their jobs better and to recruit and attract people who are talented with disability. But also to recognize that we have those within our ranks already and do what we can to support them professionally and personally. 

Iveliz: Absolutely amazing accomplishment to receive that top score of 100. The title of the podcast today, building a successful disability confident organization. Carolyn. Would you mind telling us what it means to be disability confident organization? 

Carolyn: Sure. I think that there are a lot of companies and firms that would like to hire people with disabilities and to make sure that their workforce reflects the society that's around us all. But I do think at the same time, there is a sense of fear of the unknown with regard to hiring people with disabilities. Questions like will there be a big cost involved in making accommodations? How much support will I need to give? But the reality is really that the cost of accommodations for a person with a disability is often minimal if it's if there's any cost at all. And in terms of support, oftentimes, the changes that are needed are very simple. Things like giving clear instructions, flexible working and these are changes that really cost nothing I think and they don't just benefit people with disabilities, they benefit everybody. So for me being disability, confident is really about overcoming those fears about hiring people with disabilities and and understanding that people with disabilities are a huge asset to your workforce. 

John: It's fantastic. You know, Carolyn, I in conversations that we've had in the past, I know that the idea of LEADRS which is our disability and employee resource group started over there in London. Tell us what inspired you to start the group way back when. 

Carolyn: So. Thanks John. I think what was interesting was listening to Kevin talking about um people with disabilities, being capable of achieving extraordinary things and and I think that very much is behind the spirit of LEADRS when we first started working on this. So it was back in 2012 when the Olympics and the Paralympics were hosted in London and the support in the Para for the Paralympics and the interest in it in the UK here was huge and boosted by one of the key broadcasters in the UK channel four who were supporting and broadcasting the Paralympics and a group of people from the firm went to an event which became known, I think as Thriller Thursday um for the UK, track and field athletes with disabilities and we were just absolutely blown away by what these athletes were achieving in spite of, I think, and despite, and in some cases, perhaps driven on by their disabilities and when we got back to the office, we had a kind of regular meeting to discuss recruitment and staff well being and it suddenly struck us in a way that it hadn't before that we seem to have very few people with disabilities or at the very least people who were comfortable disclosing their disabilities in the firm. And it seemed immediately obvious to us that there was absolutely no good reason for that and that we needed to do something about it. We wanted to harness some of these extraordinary achievements that we were watching out there on the track and field. And what was really great was you know over the other side of the Atlantic, Luke and Kevin were having similar ideas at the, at the same time. So that, that was really fantastic. 

Iveliz: So Luke, Kevin, I understand that you both were co-founders of LEADRS. Um And for those listeners who don't know, LEADRS stands for looking for excellence and advancement of persons with disabilities. And again, that is our employee resource group for employees with disabilities at Reed Smith. So as co-founders, would you mind sharing with us some of the specific steps you took to launch this group? 

Luke: Sure, this is Luke. I'll take this one. I think it was in 2015 that our firm through our global managing partner, Sandy Thomas announced that they wanted to start some employee resource groups uh for various types of diversity. And there was interest in starting a group focused on disability. And the thought was people could announce themselves and, and start a group. And so myself as a new partner and Kevin uh as an associate raised our hands and we met, I guess in early 2015 with a few other people. And we said, ok, let's let's name ourselves. Let's come up with a mission statement and we just built our own agenda. The great thing about this initial meeting was we were able to meet each other and know and find other people within the firm who were experiencing similar problems and support each other. Um And then beyond that, start thinking about, ok, what are some things we can do to improve the firm? What are some things we can do to build out into the legal profession? More openness for people with disabilities and, and mental health stresses. So, you know, we started with small things and identified medium things we wanted to do and then big things. And so we started with a mission statement and kind of announcing ourselves to the world with the press release. We uh sent out notices to other attorneys in the firm, you know, inviting them to join. And we quickly realized that there were folks in London who were, you know, a couple of years ahead of us. And very quickly after that, LEADRS joined in with the London Disability Task Force and became global. After that, we decided we needed to invite all staff and uh LEADRS became a global staff, wide tow Reed Smith group. And I think those were all very important steps to become more and more inclusive. And we, we were very focused on including allies um and people who could support us so that people who didn't feel like they wanted to disclose, could attend and people who had experience with this ability, you know, at the home, but perhaps not themselves could, could join and support us and just staying very open. But at the same time, we immediately knew that this was an issue where we needed to make people comfortable and feel safe. So two of the first things we did was establish some pretty strict rules and they really are only real rules um about confidentiality that the things that we talk about within the group and the things we do are confidential unless we say they say otherwise and that we respect self disclosure. Not everybody wants to identify all of the things that they're doing in the, in the way of accommodations. There, there's specific medical issues, mental health issues. And so we've, we've tried to build a lot of control around self disclosure. And as we expanded LEADRS outwards and started including folks from human resources that made a lot of the pooling of levers a lot easier within the firm. And suddenly we had help with getting people to be able to identify themselves at different levels and feel more comfortable. It was easier for us to, to expand how people could find accommodations and request them. And so, you know, we kept getting buy in for more and more people and I think more people felt comfortable identifying themselves within the firm and saying yes, I could use some help. I either like to join this group or I'd like to support this group or, you know, I just need to confidentially find an accommodation to make it easier to work. Because I think what we've learned is that organizations as large as ours, there's people with disability within them, whether they've been counted or not. And so making it easy for them to find each other and then be supported is I think important, not just for a firm like ours, but for any large organization, you know, and I think once you get a certain amount of people supporting a group like this, you find more people who can pull lovers and make things happen, you know, on an agenda that you put together. And so suddenly, we're including things about, you know, hiring and pay, being intentional about helping people with accommodations, including support for mental health, you know, and wellness. These are all important things and the group has moved bigger and bigger and expanded uh in just five years. 

Iveliz: Thanks Luke. So I hear you saying how important these groups are specifically to build community among people with disabilities at organizations. So this question is for Kevin and Luke, uh many organizations support their employees with disabilities through their, through their HR department um or, and by providing other resources, how has having a business inclusion group or employee resource group specifically made a difference in changing the culture of our organization. 

Kevin: Having LEADRS has really enhanced Reed Smith in a number of ways. It, it's enabled people with disabilities of all types to reach out to others in the firm that they probably would not have met otherwise, whether for geographic reasons or perhaps time differences, you know, I've, I've developed close relationships with Luke and Carolyn. And while I'm on the west coast of the US, uh Luke is, you know, close to the east coast and Carolyn is in London. But yet we've formed these very close bonds and LEADRS has really brought our firm together in that regard. But it's also helped me professionally because, you know, I think it's given me more confidence, it's given me a platform where I, I feel I can be comfortable and, and that has translated into not only feeling more supported, but also being better at my job because I know that there's a sense of empowerment as we work together in LEADRS, um our, our staff and um and attorneys and we really give each other all the support and effort that we can to bring out the best in ourselves. It's not only that, but it's also provided resources for people who have questions from anything when they start at Reed Smith about interviewing or accommodations all the way up to the time of promotions and reviews or if you just have questions about what you wanna do and how to get there. There, there's somebody in our group who can help you with that and, and that's expanded into mentoring as well. So there are so many areas where it's helped to improve our firm. But I think it's also given management an opportunity to show that they support us and they have been instrumental um from, from Sandy, our global managing partner to John, who's our Chief Diversity Officer throughout numerous levels of management on the executive committee um to really support what LEADRS and other business inclusion groups are doing. Um So I think that's really helped leadership as well become better leaders and they've done that. 

Iveliz: Absolutely. Now, Luke is that, has that been your similar experience? 

Luke: Oh, absolutely. I mean, personally and professionally LEADRS has was vital to me and has been, we, I met Kevin um at a time that was extremely difficult for me because of the disability I have and I was struggling with continuing to work. And Kevin was a crucial lifeline and you know, encouraging me to, to keep at it and find the things that I could do and focus on them. And it was just, it was invaluable. But beyond just finding, you know, some friends and support, it helped us organize and take on projects like holding events to discuss our ideas. And now we're doing this annually these big uh diversity summits where we get to talk about uh among other things, disability and mental health. You know, we can encourage people in the partnership and without throughout the firm to self identify and consider joining groups like ours. And I think it was really important for the culture, you know, that at our last partnership retreat, we were able to get up on stage in front of the partnership and encourage people to consider how they can support people on their teams with disabilities and how they can identify themselves and self identify and seek accommodations. And I think our group really expanded at that point and there was a lot, a lot of emphasis from that and on a lot of other important diversity focused points and I, I think it does impact culture when there's people openly discussing and advocating uh about their ideas. 

John: Absolutely, Kevin and, and, and Luke, thank you for all those observations. Carolyn, you, you and I have discussed in the past um the successes in London, in particular, in terms of hiring persons with disabilities. I recall over the last couple of years, our incoming class of trainees, 10% of of the class had some form of disability. And as we've discussed, continuing that momentum, rolling it out into the, into the US as well. What have been some of the challenges and, and what have you specifically recommended in terms of being more successful in recruiting and hiring persons with disabilities? 

Carolyn: So I think for us really getting started is the biggest challenge as it is with many things, you know, just having an, you've got the idea. The next thing is how are you going to go about doing this? So I think finding the right connections in whichever country that you're in to try to connect with people with disabilities and, and, and begin the process of, of hiring people is, is really important. I think that was that took us, that took us probably a couple of years to, to get right. But we've got some great partnerships now and it works really well for us. The second thing I think is really building trust with people with disabilities because I think um for reasons wholly unconnected with their talent and skills and abilities, I think sometimes people with disabilities have not had the best experience with regard to recruitment. And so, if you know, in order to enable people to disclose their disabilities, should they wish to do so? And ask for accommodations, even during the recruitment process, there needs to be trust there. And, and I wholly understand why in many cases, it takes a while for people, people to build that, build that trust with a law firm who, who really does want to go out and make a difference and hire people with disabilities. So I would say those are the, those were the biggest challenges to start with. And, and I think on the side of trust, it, it's always going to be a challenge. But you know, I I hope that the people can see our genuine wish to, to do this and the real drive that our, that our firm and our LEADRS team has behind this. So, and I think, you know, in many cases that has been the case and, and that's one of the reasons why we've been successful in hiring people with disabilities. And I think in terms of advice to somebody who was going to start start up a group within a firm or a company, I think it's really getting the right team together, um, to start with. So looking at a law firm and, and, and similar, similar departments or groups existed within many companies and firms, I think you need a champion in senior management and we're, we're very lucky to have those in Tama Box and Nick BGI, both of whom, um, support, support the work that we do and enthusiastically, I think you need, you absolutely need the engagement of the hr team and that's been mentioned before, but you need the HR team in place, um, to, to, to actually help you to go out there and hire people. So they are absolutely fundamental and we're very lucky to have a fantastic hr team who's been right behind us in, in what we've been trying to do, learning and development. You also need them behind you and, and to be part of your team and your planning, but also coms, I think pr and communications team because you need to, to spread the word, you need to let people know that you're looking to hire people with disabilities and you're looking to help further their careers. So if you don't, if you can't let people, if you don't let people, you know what you're trying to do, you're not going to succeed. So you need people from all of those teams, I would say in, within your group and right behind you working together. And I think that has been one of the reasons why it worked so well for us because we, we've been really lucky to have that. 

Iveliz: I think one of the things that struck me as really impressive about Reed Smith. I'm, I'm someone who recently joined the firm about six months ago was the focus on disability and mental health. As someone who has a hidden disability, I think that my disability is the one of the parts of my, you know, multiple oppressed identities that I think I have had the least comfortable discussing or letting folks know that it is a part of who I am. You know, I as someone who is hard of hearing and also has PTSD, my disability resulted from a a violent crime, right? And as a survivor, I've always had difficulty in talking about my disability and even in employment, you know, what my needs are, I think the biggest difficulty with having, you know, specifically those disabilities is that when you tell people them oftentimes you're always met with. Well, what happened to you? Why? And I felt that when I joined Reed Smith, that wasn't going to be part of the narrative that I could freely discuss, you know, my identity fully, right, who I am, you know, not just my race, not just my gender identity, but also this other part of me, that is very real to me. And that's a part of who I am. And so just knowing that, you know, was something that I, I researched online, but I also discussed with HR about and it was really comforting to know that an organization that I was looking into joining was so focused on these issues when it hadn't been my experience in the past, in any other place that I worked. 

John: So I have a big smile on my face. I know Carolyn, Luke, Kevin I assume you would as well just, you know, the impact that you've had and on someone that has joined the firm more recently like Iveliz and have that all the work that you've been doing, uh having that, that influence on, on someone like Iveliz joining us. 

Luke: Oh, absolutely. Uh This is Luke. I couldn't be happier to hear that we had some impact on your career path Iveliz. Um you know, as a person with a only occasionally visible disability, I'm reflecting back on all of the things you said and kind of nodding my head along the idea of having a disability that might not be immediately visible. It, it's a, it can be a vulnerability or, or an opportunity and there's a lot of uncomfortability I found um that a lot of people have when it comes to self disclosure of these sorts of things. And it's one of the, I think points we share with some of our colleagues in our Business Inclusion group PRISM, where the audience and the, the, the setting of self disclosure can be very important. And I'm glad that we've built a culture where you feel comfortable. 

Carolyn: This is Carolyn. I'd also like to, to second that I think it's fantastic that we, that you come to join us. I, and, and, and I, I think just reflecting on what Luke was saying there, um I remember Alan York, um who leads our prison group saying that one of the things about not being able to disclose things about yourself or not feeling comfortable, it's like wearing a belt that's too tight. You, you, you always, I feel constrained and, and a certain sense of being uncomfortable where you are. And I think that's what we strive to try to get rid of. We want everybody here to feel comfortable being who they are and discussing anything about themselves that they, that they would like to share with people and not to have any form of judgment or to feel uncomfortable about any of those things. So I think that, you know, it's great to hear what you said there. 

Iveliz: Thank you and, and thank you all for, you know, creating a space where this is part of the conversation, right? Because we're talking about normalizing something that has been very stigmatized. So it's incredibly impressive, the work that you have all done to, to change the culture of our organization in a way that makes everyone be able to be their true selves, right? All of them, all of their selves, right? Because, you know, as we all know, our disabilities are just, you know, one facet of our identity, but it's incredibly important for us to be able to have spaces to, to come and exist and, and not just exist but thrive and have support. So, thank you all for that work. You know, what do you see as the future of, of programs? Um And I guess this question for Kevin, so what do you see as the future of programs within organizations with respect to employees with disability? 

Kevin: That's, that's a great question Iveliz and I think in the future programs such as LEADRS need to continue to expand our support because while we are doing a good job, there's always more that we can do, for instance, in the, in the past year or so, LEADRS has branched off its mental health task force because we recognize that mental health was such a vital part of everybody's well being. So we have a separate, it's really sort of a subgroup of LEADRS, but it's also a stand alone group. We we have to give increasing recognition to disabilities of those types because as you know, Luke and Carolyn mentioned, there are so many people who are talented but uh it's hard for them to go about their normal lives, let alone uh do the challenging work that we do at Reed Smith and allowing individuals with mental health and other non visible disabilities I think will become increasingly important because while, you know, for a person like myself with an obvious physical disability, people may know that I need assistance. But if you see somebody who, who doesn't have an obvious disability, there's an unfortunate tendency for people to assume that, oh, you're, you're okay, you don't need any accommodation, you don't need any assistance with um something or you know, they, they might jump to conclusions that you're capable of, you know, any particular activity or work because there's nothing apparent about you, but that, you know, couldn't be further from the truth. We have, you know, as high as 20% of our population in the US and across the world has disabilities and most of those are non visible. And so I think that's going to be important in the future. And I think another aspect that will be crucial is support from management because without, as Carolyn said, our champions in leadership, we would not be where we are today. And the third thing is conscious and intentional effort by members of the groups, you know, you, we can have great support for management. But members of our business inclusion groups really need to have a vision, a direction and use their abilities to seize on that, you know, because we have the opportunity to do that. But you, you really have to be intentional about it and you have to put in the work. It's, it's not something that will happen overnight. But if people continue to work at this, it will have the results that we wanted to. And even more so than the awards, hearing your story of Iveliz, that you came to Reed Smith in part because of what we do. That's much, much more rewarding and much it, it's just a thrill to hear because that's what we're all about Kevin. 

John: That's so insightful and, and so inspiring. I wanna thank you Kevin, Luke, Carolyn for coming in today. Um And, and sharing, you know, your, your experiences, sharing your own stories, Iveliz, I want to thank you for sharing your own story as well. It's just makes me very, very confident and very, very pleased that we are with an organization that is disability confident. So thank you all for coming in. 

Luke: Thanks John. 

Iveliz: Thank you John. 

Carolyn: Thanks John. 

Kevin: Thanks John. It's a pleasure. 

Outro: Inclusivity Included is a Reed Smith production. Our producer is Ali McCardell. This podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, PodBean and reedsmith.com. 

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. 

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