The Diversity Lab has announced that Cozen O'Connor has again achieved Mansfield Certification for the fifth consecutive year.
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Cozen O’Connor is committed to equal employment opportunities for all of its employees and to fostering greater inclusion in the legal profession. We understand the organizational effectiveness that comes from welcoming and valuing difference within the firm, and we know that assembling a team with a rich diversity of perspectives and experiences is necessary to providing the highest quality legal service. As a firm, our goals are to recruit professionals from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences, maximize the unique potential of each employee, and build a more inclusive profession.
To pursue this important mission, Cozen O’Connor has adopted a multilayered approach. Our efforts are led by Lynne Espy-Williams, Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer, Simeon Brier, Chair of the firm’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee, and staff from the recruiting, marketing, and professional development departments.
As part of its focus on inclusivity, the firm offers resource groups tailored to promote the success and inclusion of six self-identifying constituencies: Asian Attorney Resource Group, Black Attorney Resource Group, LGBTQ Attorney Resource Group, Hispanic/Latino Attorney Resource Group, Different Abilities Attorney Resource Group, and Veteran Attorney Resource Group. Cozen O’Connor takes equally seriously its commitment to the advancement of women in the legal profession, and works in close partnership with the firm’s independent, award-winning Women’s Initiative.
The firm became a signatory firm to Mansfield 3.0 in 2019, a pioneering initiative that helps law firms focus on inclusivity and belonging, in part by ensuring a diverse, qualified candidate pool for significant leadership positions and/or appointments. The Mansfield Rule is an award winning idea from the 2016 Women in Law Hackathon hosted by the Diversity Lab in collaboration with Bloomberg Law and Stanford Law School. In 2024, the firm achieved Mansfield status for the fifth consecutive year. The firm is also Mansfield Certified Plus, a designation reserved for firms reporting the outcomes of their inclusive processes.
Cozen O’Connor focuses its diversity, equity and inclusion activities in three key areas: Recruitment & Hiring, Retention & Promotion, and Community Engagement.
Cozen O’Connor is — and always has been — an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, color, gender, gender identity, national origin or ancestry, religion, age, disability, citizenship, marital status, military or veteran status, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited basis. This policy extends to all aspects of the employment relationship, including hiring and advancement.
The firm seeks to recruit law students with a wide range of backgrounds and experiences and is proud to of its Bernard Lee Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Scholars Program. This program is open to first-year law students who have demonstrated a commitment to building diversity and inclusion. Through the program, selected students can summer at Cozen O’Connor and build connections for future employment.
Our recruitment professionals and hiring partners participate in panel discussions on inclusive recruiting and engage in on-campus programs with the goal of increasing our firm’s profile as an inclusive employer.
We understand that recruitment and hiring is only half of the picture. In order to build a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive law firm, real attention must also be paid to helping all firm attorneys and staff stay and succeed. Cozen O’Connor has instituted a number of practices and programs to promote career-long professional development.
Importantly, Cozen O’Connor recognizes the importance of ensuring that our leadership values inclusivity and fosters a sense of belonging. We know that having members with diverse backgrounds and experiences in decision-making roles is a critical way to ensure that all our attorneys and staff are heard and represented. In addition, we believe it is vital for newer lawyers to see attorneys with diverse backgrounds and experiences as members of the board of directors, Management Committee or Hiring Committee, and as chairs of practice groups or office managing partners because it demonstrates our commitment to inclusivity and helps them envision a real pathway toward success.
In terms of programming, Cozen O’Connor hosts a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Summit. Attorneys with diverse backgrounds and experiences from offices across the country are invited to gather along with firm managers and key clients. Research shows that the professional success of attorneys is highly dependent on their connecting with available resources and having a strong community. These summits enable attorneys with diverse backgrounds and experiences to develop sustaining peer networks, receive training on topics from client pitches to the promotion process, and allow them to provide direct feedback to firm management about Cozen O’Connor’s diversity and inclusion efforts. By engaging in this dialogue, attorneys with diverse backgrounds and experiences can share their wisdom and raise their profile.
Cozen O’Connor hosts speaker series, trainings, and panel discussions throughout the year that focus on raising awareness about diversity, equity and inclusion issues, including, for instance, analyses of inclusivity and belonging best practices in other peer firms and corporate America.
Finally, Cozen O’Connor works to foster an internal culture that recognizes inclusivity and belonging as being a mission for all of us. In our language and in our practices, the firm reinforces the fact that we all benefit from building a more just, diverse, equitable, and inclusive workforce.
Both as a firm and as individuals, we are deeply engaged with the communities where we work and live.
The firm operates a multimillion dollar grantmaking entity called the Cozen O’Connor Charitable Foundation. Formally incorporated in the early 2000s, the mission of the foundation is to promote charitable giving in seven distinct areas, one of which is diversity, equity and inclusion. Examples of grantees include the Urban Affairs Coalition, Hispanic Federation of New York, Women’s Way, and Human Rights Coalition, among others.
It is important to note that our foundation guidelines require that requests for money come from a Cozen O’Connor lawyer who is “closely” involved with the organization, meaning they serve as a board member, event chair, or longtime adviser. As such, foundation donations reflect not only a firmwide monetary commitment but also a time commitment by individual attorneys.
Indeed, on an individual basis Cozen O’Connor attorneys are active in a range of bar associations and bar programs that ensure inclusion of individuals with diverse backgrounds and experiences, including as leaders in the Gate City Bar Association in Atlanta, the Hispanic Bar Association in Houston, the Hispanic National Bar Association, the National LGBT Bar Association, and diversity officer of the American Bar Association’s Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Section.
Cozen O’Connor attorneys also provide pro bono services that promote inclusivity and belonging, under the direction of our full-time director of Pro Bono Engagement.
We routinely represent immigrants and refugees through the complicated and often byzantine process of acquiring status that will permit them to live and work in the United States. We protect the rights of military personnel and veterans, assisting them to get the benefits they need and deserve, and representing them in family law, consumer protection, landlord-tenant, and other matters to ensure their rights are protected while they are on active duty. And we represent people with disabilities to ensure that they receive appropriate accommodations in their housing.
Cozen O’Connor participates in pro bono litigation to protect and advance the civil rights of vulnerable groups, including minorities, immigrants, people with disabilities, and the LGBTQ community. For example, the firm was co-counsel with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in a critical voting rights case in Terrebonne Parish, La. The plaintiffs, four individual black voters, filed suit in 2014 to challenge the at-large method for judicial elections, a deliberately discriminatory system used to dilute the votes of black voters, which had persisted in the parish for nearly 50 years. The district court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in 2017 and an affirmative remedy will be implemented. We also were co-counsel with the Pennsylvania ACLU on behalf of intervenors, defending the Boyertown School District’s policy of permitting students to use the facilities that are consistent with their gender identities.
The Cozen O’Connor Women’s Initiative is dedicated to the development and enhancement of professional and personal relationships among our female attorneys and clients. Our long-standing commitment to providing a supportive, collaborative culture for female attorneys formally began in the late 1990s and continues to prosper today, creating a positive environment for the hiring, retention and promotion of female attorneys within Cozen O’Connor. The Women’s Initiative is led by Co-Chairs Calli Padilla and Kristi Zentner, and it has a dedicated Executive Board, Steering Committee, and subcommittees that represents all of the firm’s offices and that reflects the diverse issues confronting women in today’s legal workplace.
Our goals are:
• To educate and support our female attorneys, providing them with the skills and opportunities needed for professional and personal success and to invite all allies to participate in these endeavors;
• To encourage and train our female attorneys in order to pave the way to leadership in the firm and with professional, corporate, nonprofit and civic organizations;
• To create new business opportunities and expand networking relationships with other firm attorneys;
• To raise the profile of female attorneys in the business community;
• To encourage all attorneys in the firm to learn and work together to ensure the firm promotes an inclusive environment with paths for all attorneys to succeed; and
• Through the achievement of the above goals, to support the firm’s ongoing commitment to supporting women in firm leadership positions.
The implementation and achievement of these goals will allow Cozen O’Connor’s female attorneys to make unique and valuable contributions to the success of our firm, and will provide a deeply rewarding professional and personal experience upon which they can build their legal careers.