Keys to recruiting diverse legal talent

Merle Vaughn, national law firm diversity practice group leader at Major, Lindsey & Africa, shares her experiences in recruiting diverse talent. She tells co-hosts  Iveliz Crespo and John Iino how leading recruiters have found success, how diverse individuals can maximize their opportunities and how employers can improve their recruiting practices.

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

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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 a goal of bringing people together and learning more about others. You might be surprised by what we all have in common, inclusivity included. 

John: Hi, everyone. Welcome to the podcast. Today, we're gonna have a lot of fun. But before I introduce our guests, I want to welcome our co-host Iveliz Crespo. Hey, Iveliz. 

Iveliz: Hey John, happy to be here. 

John: So today I say we're gonna have a lot of fun and because our, our guest is Merle Vaughn. Merle is a great friend. We've had a lot of fun together. We've done so many events and so I'm just really looking forward to this. Merle is the National Law Firm Diversity practice group leader for Major, Lindsay & Africa, the well known world renowned legal recruiting firm. So, Merle, so great to have you on our podcast. 

Merle: Great to be here. Thanks for having me. 

John: You know, Merle, I know you're, you're a legal recruiter. But before we, you know, get into uh your specifics around that. Tell our audience a little about yourself and you and I have had certain a lot of conversations as well. But you know, what was your journey and what drives your passion for diversity, equity and inclusion? 

Merle: Great question. And it depends on how long you have as well. I, I uh divulge but just in a nutshell. I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. All of my family is from there and most of them are still there. My, my parents were two of the few who actually made the brilliant move to California and that ha that partially formed who I am because hearing the stories of what my mother and father went through as young people, both of them brilliant, they actually met in grad school, which is unheard of. My father was born in 1921 and my mother was born in 1926. They both went to historically Black colleges and then ended up in grad school in Oklahoma where they actually had to sit behind a rope during class. So those are the, those are the kind of stories that I grew up hearing about. My father went to Tuskegee and learned how to fly. And when he had to go to the service, he, he was not allowed to go into the Air Force even though he had the highest score on the Air Force test because he was the in the N word. And so, you know, just those kind of things and then fast forward to, to us moving to California and growing up in Compton where both my parents were school teachers and they believed you should teach where you, should live where you teach. Started out a great environment. By the time I was in high school, it was scary and I was a really good student. I skipped sixth grade and I, and I ended up going to USC at the tender age of 16 in order to get out of Compton. And so, you know, a very mixed exposure from Oklahoma to Compton to USC which you know, where I had never been around really that many white people before in my life. And just, just that experience. And then the final thing is I went to law school only because I after USC I was a salesperson, I sold computers when I was in San Francisco and I was outside only outside salesperson in the country for Texas Instruments, the only black salesperson in the country for Texas instruments outside. And I was the top salesperson at the tender age of 22 or 23 won a trip to Europe. And when I got back, I turned this little unknown client that they gave me that nobody had ever sold anything to call computer land into the biggest account in the company. And it became national. I won the trip, I won the award my face was plastered all over everything at the annual meeting. And I came back and my manager called me in the office and said, you're too inexperienced and too young for this account. We're taking it away from you. And they moved a white guy from Arizona to San Francisco to take over my account. And, you know, there are other things that I can talk about. But that was the thing when I just decided, you know, both my parents had master's degrees. I should get a uh advanced degree. My husband talked me into going to law school instead of suing Texas Instruments, which was a great decision on my part. And I wanted something that nobody could take away from me unless I did something really stupid, right? You, you go to law school, you pass the bar. If you don't do anything dumb, nobody can take that away from you. And so that's really kind of what started my journey on this idea of equity and inclusion and just fairness. You know, I've always been all about the underdog and, and standing up for the underdog. But that kind of, you know, you have an experience like that and hopefully you realize that maybe you should help other people. 

Iveliz: Absolutely. I love that story. You know, I think my favorite part of these podcasts is really listening to people's powerful personal stories, right? Hearing how these, you know, injustices that we face through our lives. Have shaped who we are and have, you know, led us on this quest for equity and fairness like you just said. So thank you so much for sharing that because every time I hear these stories, it leaves me feeling so inspired to continue doing this work and to see you and John do it so successfully. It just it's it's such an inspiring thing to see. So John has been talking at Nauseam, I guess about all the work that you're doing and Major Lindsay and I know that your plate is probably very full. So I was going to ask you to start sharing, you know, some of those initiatives that you're leading. But I think let's let's narrow in a little bit because I know that you're doing a lot. So let's start with how employers can be more successful in recruiting diverse talent. We've obviously seen that there's been an increased focus by employers in recruiting diverse employees, especially in light of the events of this past year. And of course, the Black Lives Matter movement. So what have you, what are some of the things that you've seen that have had an impact? 

Merle: Well, I'll, I'll start by saying that there's definitely been an uptick in the con in the conversations and the outreach and the number of people who are quote unquote woke to the idea that something needs to be done and, and I commend them for reaching out and wanting to explore what can be done and, and I, I try to meet them where they are. Right? I mean, there are big firms and small firms that have done nothing because they haven't had to, there are firms that have done a lot and, and want to do more. And so I try to meet them where they are. I, the first question that I asked them is why, and I, I kind of make them tell me, you know, have them actually verbalize what, why we're having this conversation. It's for some people will just beat around the bush, you know, and not say the word diversity or not use the term black or Latinx or, you know, and, and I try to get them to, to feel more comfortable actually having the conversation and get them to understand that it's, it's ok to, to do it even if you kind of mess up, you know, it's ok to, to, it's, you're better off getting used to this idea that people are different and, and that's a good thing and then I talk to them about what they're already doing. And, and my question is always, what are you willing to do differently to get a different result? Because we all know if you do the same thing over and over again the same way and expect this a different result, um It's not gonna happen and in fact, some would argue that it's insanity and, and that's with respect to pro the process. It's with respect to integration in your firm. It's respect to how you assign work to individuals who you choose to spend your time with, you know, all of that stuff. But in terms of the process for bringing in diverse talent, you know, I just tell them that it has to be intentional. You know, it needs to be intentional and it, it has to be done differently from, from what you're used to doing. It's, it's not, you know, what can you do for me? You know, I'm a big firm, I'm a law firm. I've been doing this for a long time. Why should I hire you all of the people that you would, that you would like to get laterally, their firms want to keep them. So what, what do you have to offer them that makes it worth their while to take this risk and also understand that the devil they know is better than the devil they don't a lot of times. So hopefully that kind of answers your question. 

Iveliz: Yeah, absolutely. I love that. You mention intentionality and I think, you know, that's a great place to segue into my next question regarding how has the Black Lives Matter movement, how has the events of this past year impacted how intentional some of your clients or some of the folks that are interested in diversifying their workforces? How does it impact the intentionality piece? Are you seeing people be more intentional? 

Merle: I am but not everyone. And so I would, I've never looked at the percentages of the, the number of, of folks I've talked to compared to how many actually end up doing searches. But it's not that high, you know, after the murder of George Floyd, you know, my, my phone was ringing off the hook and, and I talked to everybody and, you know, I'm known as the mother of tough love. So, you know, I'm sure I turned off of several of them with my candor, but that's also intentional, right? But I will say that I am working with some firms that are being very intentional that have not let up and, and you know, and I'll say I'm working with a firm now that had, when I first started talking to them a few months ago, I had no black partners. They now have one black partner. I have a black group in front of them and they're being very intentional. They're not being defensive, they're not making excuses, they're owning it, that's what's necessary. And, and that has to start from the top, that has to come from the top. People like me and folks like, you know, John and people who like us who are really invested in this, we can only do so much. Our colleagues have to buy into this, right? And they're, they're gonna buy into it if their firms are being intentional about what will happen if they don't buy into it. 

Iveliz: Yeah, absolutely. I often think that uh when we're talking to folks about recruitment, they seem to think, you know, it's a, it's a concept of if you build it, they will come. So if you put the job description out there and you have, you know, your, your mission statement that says you're committed to DEI, that's it. Right? That's it. You've done all that you can um, but you have to continue building it, right? You have to continue building a culture where people can come and thrive because otherwise you're going to be back at the same issue within two years. Right? You're gonna lose that talent because people aren't going to want to stay where they're not feeling like they can bring their true selves to work. 

Merle: Exactly. And let's be honest about this. We don't need a lot of Taco Tuesdays. You know, we don't, black folks don't need to have people come in and talk to them about what it's like to be black. The statements are nice but their words, I've noticed a uh these days that a lot, what a lot of firms are leading with is they want to talk to me. Well, tell your candidates that we have a great, you know, pro bono program and I think that's great and it's especially good for associates, right? Who may not otherwise get to take depositions and all that kind of stuff. But I'm not gonna tell a part, a black partner or a Latinx partner that, you know, well, they got a great pro bono program, you know, that's insulting, you know, they wanna know how is your firm going to offer a platform that's gonna help me grow my practice just like every other partner wants to hear. You know, and I'm very, I'm very candid about those things and, and, and so culture, culture is not, you know, what kind of events you can have and who you can trot in. You know, the the biggest names you can trot in. That's not culture, culture is belonging, culture, culture is treating people the same, treating everybody equitably and not being afraid to do that, not being concerned about what kind of backlash you're gonna get from the people who are used to being treated better. 

John: I would like to follow up on a lot of things you said. But first on culture, how are you able to assess the culture of the organizations that, you know, you're putting candidates into or what recommendations do you give to your candidates to be able to assess the culture of an organization? Because it is as you say, so important, making sure that as Iveliz said, you don't want to bring someone in that they're gonna leave in two years. And so, so much of that is driven by culture. So how are you and your candidates able to assess a culture of an organization. 

Merle: Well, I mean, you know, the first thing is you can just ask them, how many diverse folks do you have and how, you know, how many diverse partners do you have? That, that's part of the culture. And if they don't have a lot of have that many diverse partners, then you know, the question is that I, I asked him is, is there buy in from practice group leaders? Because that's really, really gonna matter. I don't want to work with a practice group leader or for a practice group where the leader is not really buying into this idea that diversity is gonna make their practice better. And so the way I evaluated is by actually having a conversation with them, you can't hide people, people can't hide. The other thing is when you have, there was a firm, I was talking to them and they were just making excuses and well, you know, we've tried and there's no pipeline or there's nobody in the pipeline and those are just excuses. You can tell. But I will tell you that especially since this summer, uh candidates have gotten much more confident with the questions that they asked. They wanna know why do they not have any black partners if it doesn't necessarily bother them that they don't, they just want to know why they want to hear what the answer is. I've had candidates who have asked me black male candidate told me that he wanted to speak to every minority female partner. Because from his perspective, how women are treated by a firm tells you everything you need to know. I thought that was brilliant. They ask how many associates are in the pipeline to make partner who are diverse? How crowded is it? How are they making their decisions? They ask really good questions and it's just my job to get the answers. 

John: That's great advice. I know on our last podcast, the organization said to all candidates, can we introduce you to folks in particular that you'd like to meet just to provide that opportunity? And so if it's persons of color, you know, women of color partners or whatever it is, it's, it's great to be able to do that. 

Merle: Yeah, I'm working with a firm right now where I, when I introduce candidates, I will say I have this great diverse candidate and I will say, and it's easy to tell if somebody's Black or Latinx or whatever, but you can't necessarily tell if they're LGBTQ+, right? And I'll say I'll tell them because from my perspective, if that's gonna be a problem for you, I don't want my candidate to go there anyway. I'm working with a firm right now who got back to me and said, we want them to meet this person, this person, this person and oh, by the way, we want them to meet this person because this is, this person is a lateral and they're out and we want them to have a conversation about what their experience has been. 

John: Absolutely. You talked earlier that example of saying, hey, but we've got a great pro bono program to, to a diverse candidate. I mean, I guess whether that's a macro aggression or a microaggression, you know, what are some examples that you've seen over the years of just firms that just aren't getting it? That's something you shouldn't do in the recruiting process, whether it's a microaggression or even something more egregious. 

Merle: Oh jeez, I mean, that, that was definitely one of them. I've had them say things like, well, my, my biggest pet peeve is that, you know, we're looking for someone who fits our qualifications, you know, we, we don't wanna lower our standards. I mean, that's a super duper aggression, right? That's not just a macro or micro aggression because the assumption is that in order to bring in folks who are gonna add to diversity, you will have to lower your standards. I, I hear a lot less of that but I, but I still hear it in less aggressive ways. And my response to that is I have a feeling that if you looked at the bios of the, the leaders in your firm, particularly the more senior leaders in your firm and you looked at where they went to school and all that, you might actually be a surprised to find out that based on your current standards, they would not get hired. And that's, that's a fact. 

John: Yeah. No, we, we, we did that analysis a couple of years ago about our leadership and our top brain maker and, you know, they, they go to tier one, tier two, tier three schools and the majority of them went to tier three schools. So what does that tell you where we should be recruiting? 

Merle: Right. Absolutely. 

John: You know, you and I have talked about it, you know, on a number of occasions about some of the candidates that, uh, diverse candidates that you put into firms and you frankly had to coach them a little bit about the interviewing. And I remember the one you talked about the candidate who went in there and, um, kind of froze for the 1st 10 minutes because of question that he got initially and you have to call back the, um, recruiter and say, you know, let me tell you what, what's going on there. I think you need to understand that. So, what are some of those, that event or just other advice that you've given to, you know, your candidates as they go into interview? 

Merle: You know, I try to, I just try to prepare them to really, to have a succinct elevator pitch, you know, to, to really know their, their resume, really understand what they do best and be humbly boastful. The thing that you'll find about diverse lawyers and, and you know, whether it's gender or ethnicity or otherwise is we tend, I say we, but I've never been like this but we, we tend to not wanna brag about what we can do and we want the work that, you know, the paper to speak for us or here's the, here's the one thing I tell them, don't undersell, this is what diverse folks tend to do is undersell. They, they always say, well, I want to undersell and overdeliver. And I'm like, dude, if you undersell you're not getting in so that you can over-deliver. Now, I'm not saying make stuff up, you know, clearly everything that you say you you have done and can do should be accurate. But the idea that you shouldn't be a little bit baggy and a little bit boastful is undermining your opportunities and the, the the folks who are getting the opportunities are actually over selling and I wouldn't say oversell, but you certainly should not undersell. 

Iveliz: Absolutely. And just out of curiosity, I, I know that John mentioned diverse candidates and specifically, specifically, I'd, I'd like to switch the conversation to touch a little bit about advice that you've given to women of color on how to be successful in these job searches, but also in their careers as they navigate these spaces, right? That as we've seen from the ABA reports from, from countless other surveys that have been done are not necessarily as inclusive as they could be of these particular groups. 

Merle: One of the, the first thing that I think women, the mistake that I think women make is that we tend to, like, be almost too honest. I mean, not that you shouldn't be honest, but there's certain things and this counts for some men too. But one of the things that, that I talk to women about, especially, you know, when I'm talking to people who are, are in their career, they might want move because they feel like they're being mistreated. For example, a woman will say I need to, I, I need to be able to leave to go to my kids soccer game or I need to be able to leave to go do this X, Y, and Z and so I'm gonna go talk to my firm and I'm gonna tell them that I'm willing to go part time. I'm like, hold up, wait a minute. You know, this is, this is not the answer because you're a professional. It shouldn't matter what time you're getting these things done as long as you're getting them done. I can guarantee you that your, your male counterpart is leaving to go to the soccer game. And as a matter of fact, he's coaching the soccer practice in the game and he's not telling, he's not asking for permission to do that. He's probably staying up late at night to get his work done, which you're gonna do too. So why should you make 80% of the money or whatever, you're willing to give up to do the same work because you're still gonna end up doing the same, same amount of work. So, stuff like that. I talked to a woman the other day who was saying she's just kind of tired of doing the same thing and she wanted, she was thinking about like leaving the firm and going in house. And I said, you realize you're gonna make a lot, lot, this is an equity partner. You're gonna make a lot less money. You know that? Right? It's like, yeah, but I said, and I said, well, why don't you do something different at your firm? Why don't you start something, raise your hand to do, think about something that really resonates with you, start a podcast. Do, you know, do something that you feel is gonna be helpful to people that's gonna help you get up in the morning, but you don't have to give up something that you're really good at and your income in order to be happy. And she was like, wow, that's a great idea, you know, and so I've talked a lot of people off the ledge, a lot of people off the ledge because some of them there just isn't a better opportunity out there for them. Some people, you know, I'm just trying to, to advise them that everything that you're saying is happening to you isn't necessarily about race or gender. It's about your chosen profession. And a lot of times it is about race and gender. And if, if that's the case, then we need to, we need to get you out of there. 

John: That's amazing. We all, it's like, uh, you know, your profession being recruiters, so being paid to place people out of companies, but to be able to keep them all off the ledge and within the company, that's just, that's just amazing that it was your coach as much as, as a recruiter. And that's fantastic. Before we close, I wanna give a quick plug for your own podcast. You know, you mentioned that as I know, you know, you have no problem being yourself and that's why I love you. The fact that you do this podcast BS Beyond Stereotypes, but tell us more about that and, and your goals for uh for your podcast. 

Merle: So thanks for that, John. Yeah, it's called BS Beyond Stereotypes. My company wanted people to do podcasts and I had been thinking about it, but I couldn't figure out how I was going to pull that off on my own. And then they came to me and said you should do a podcast. I waited about a year and waited until the pandemic and I said, ok, if I can call it BS beyond stereotypes, I'll do it. And I said, sure, we don't care what you call it. The idea behind it is to talk to folks, particularly lawyers, primarily diverse lawyers but not exclusively about their authenticity, how they manage to be successful, wildly successful based on what that means to them and remain authentic. I've talked to some like awesome people. Um Most of them are my friends because I collect people. Um But you know, a couple of them have been referred by, by others, but I've talked to, there's a brother who's a partner in Chicago who decided he wanted to be barred in the UK. And he went and made that happen. I realize this because I follow him on Instagram. And there's this picture of him with his white wig and you know, and all that, it's like his name is Stephen Hunter. It's a fascinating story, but that wasn't the most fascinating story he had, once I talked to him, I just talked to, I talked to a friend of my daughter's who's uh Puerto Rican, but she identifies as white. She's from Alabama, grew up in Alabama, went to Yale with my daughter and then law school and then went back to Alabama to practice and she's queer and I wanted to talk to her about what does that even mean? And when I was growing up queer was not something that was okay to call people. And so we talked about that and she's amazing and she talked about her how the fact that she appears white and appears female gives her privilege and that her diversity is invisible. And what that feels like, and then I just interviewed, it's coming out next week, the, the GC John, who, you know, of the Jacksonville Jaguars who is an Indian young Indian woman. She's fascinating. And John and I had her at one of our events, our Mansfield event. So go check it out. It's, I think it's really cool. 

Iveliz: Oh, absolutely. You know, I encourage everyone to listen in, I think being authentic for me specifically in some of these spaces is one of the hardest things to maintain, right? Particularly when you come into an organization and you, you don't look like most of the people that work there. Your name isn't pronounced like most of the people that work there. And so it's often really hard to maintain that authenticity. So it's really inspiring, you're giving people a platform to highlight authenticity because oftentimes I think it's so hard for people to maintain that. 

Merle: And my goal is for people to understand, to be you, right? Just, just be you, everybody else will adjust and you can be proud of who you are and you can still be successful. You don't have to become somebody else. 

Iveliz: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining us, Merle. We're going to close out. It's been a privilege to hear you, join us and speak truth to power. I encourage everyone to listen to Merle's podcast and to stay tuned to hear and follow Merle on social media so you can learn about all the amazing things she's doing so. Thank you again, Merle. It's a privilege to have you. 

John: Thank you. 

Merle: Thank you, John, my diversity husband. I appreciate you. You guys are wonderful. Thank you. This has been fun. Thanks for having me. 

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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