With the goal of enhancing women senior associates’ leadership skills, McGuireWoods held its 12th Women’s Leadership Development Forum (WLDF) May 2-3, 2024, at the firm’s Washington, D.C., office.

The associate-participants included Nicole M. Allaband, Jessica Barrera, Emily G. Blair, Laura J. Cooley, Megan Italiano, Emily Erb Kelley, Laura Grace Mezher, Alice O’Donovan, Sarah Y. Oh,  Anne Curtis Saunders, Samantha E. Aparicio Wallace, Kelly A. Warlich, Brooke A. Weedon and Madison K. B. Wyche.

Women Lawyers Network co-chairs Ali Baiardo and Elaine Sanderlin Ryan opened the two-day forum with a breakfast presentation, sharing stories and lessons from their individual career journeys. Afterward, a dozen McGuireWoods women partners joined the group for an “Ask Anything” dinner, to provide perspectives on life as a partner at the firm.

After breakfast on the second day with firm managing partner J. Tracy Walker IV, participants enjoyed a lunchtime panel featuring insights from WLDF alums — partners Elissa N. Baur, Anna C. Horevay, Melissa O. Martinez and Ashley B. Matthews.

Continuing the firm’s commitment to attorney development, 15 associates attended McGuireWoods’ 2024 Diverse Associates Leadership Program (DALP), held July 22-23, 2024, at the firm’s Washington, D.C., office. DALP equips top-performing associates of color and LGBTQ+ associates with the tools and leadership skills deemed essential to practice development and advancement into the partnership ranks of the firm.

The DALP participants included Roslyn A. Akel, Camille Bachrach, Christina T. Bassick, Ayana D. Brown, David N. Ezra, Taline R. Gettas, Aria Hangval, Alexander G. Keith, Kristin Lee, Armina A. Manning, William C. M. Matthews, Tolulope H. Olaniyan, Ami P. Patel, Noriya Shahadat and Daniel Withers.

The two-day program opened with welcoming remarks from partner Kenneth Neighbors, chair of McGuireWoods’ Diversity & Inclusion Committee, and Rosanna Koppelmann, director of diversity and inclusion. The program was facilitated by consultant Werten Bellamy, who specializes in talent development for top-performing attorneys at some of the nation’s leading law firms and in-house corporate teams.

Participants broke for lunch and an opportunity to get to know partners and firm leaders in attendance. Afterward, partners shared insights gathered along their career journeys and answered DALP participants’ questions during a panel moderated by Neighbors.

Firm Chairman Jon Harmon addressed the participants between the two afternoon programs, “Building Deep Internal Relationships” and “Elevating Levels of Emotional Intelligence: Making Informed Decisions.” Second-day programming opened with remarks from Managing Partner J. Tracy Walker IV, who led an interactive presentation on the principles of leadership. 

In 2024, McGuireWoods once again achieved Mansfield Certification Plus status after completing a 12-month certification program, from July 2023 to July 2024, thereby fulfilling a commitment to increase firmwide inclusivity and diversity in leadership.

The Mansfield Rule has become the standard by which law firms track and measure whether they have affirmatively considered at least 30% women, lawyers from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, lawyers with disabilities and LGBTQ+ attorneys for top leadership roles, senior-level lateral hiring, promotions into the equity partnership and participation in client pitch meetings. To increase transparency and broaden the slate of talent considered for opportunities, firms that attained this designation have included written advancement processes and
leadership role descriptions, which are clear and accessible to all lawyers who meet the leadership requirements for these roles.

According to an Oct. 2, 2024, announcement from Diversity Lab, more than 360 law firms in the United States and Canada became Mansfield certified for 2023-2024. More than half of those firms, including McGuireWoods, qualified for “Mansfield Certification Plus,” meaning they voluntarily measure the outcomes of their inclusive processes and have achieved positive results.

McGuireWoods already has committed to participating in the current version of the program, which runs from July 2024 to July 2025. Participating in the Mansfield program strongly aligns with McGuireWoods’ strategy regarding diversity and inclusion to focus on leadership. The firm’s Diverse Associates Leadership Program and Women’s Leadership Development Forum were designed to equip top-performing
associates of color, women and LGBTQ+ associates with the leadership skills essential to their development and advancement into the partnership ranks of the firm.

Several years ago, the firm adopted the Rooney Rule when recruiting associates to ensure that women and attorneys of color were candidates for all open positions managed by the Attorney Recruitment. McGuireWoods’ implementation of the
Rooney Rule pre-dated the announcement of the Mansfield Rule. The early adoption of the Rooney Rule helped the firm increase the diversity of its associate population, including increased numbers of women, lawyers of color, and lawyers from the LGBTQ+ community.

In 2022, McGuireWoods real estate and zoning lawyers, land use planners and government relations consultants released Part 2 of an in-depth study of zoning laws and housing segregation in Virginia, outlining specific policy reforms to eliminate discriminatory housing policies that perpetuate racial disparities.

The report, “Zoning and Segregation in Virginia: Part 2 — Expanding Housing Choices for the Future of Virginia,” builds on McGuireWoods’ previous study documenting how zoning was used as a tool to create segregated housing patterns that endure long after the Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibited racial discrimination.

The recommendations in Part 2 focus on changes to Virginia’s planning and zoning laws at the local and state levels to increase housing choices, remove barriers to diverse neighborhoods and increase access to attainable housing.

The McGuireWoods team — led by Tysons real estate and land use partner Jonathan Rak and McGuireWoods Consulting senior advisor James Dyke — details the consequences of residential segregation and the positive outcomes the commonwealth can realize by ridding society of such segregation.

“The purpose of this report is to address the lack of racial integration in Virginia’s neighborhoods and to offer a collection of proposed solutions to this issue at the state and local levels,” Dyke said. “Our intent is not to assess blame or point fingers for past injustices, but rather to recommend specific steps that can be taken to eliminate the vestiges of discriminatory housing and zoning policies.”

The authors said zoning policies will play a major role in closing the significant wealth gap between Black and white Americans and called for “direct and intentional action” by state and local governments and the private sector.

For details, read “Zoning and Segregation in Virginia: Part 2 — Expanding Housing Choices for the Future of Virginia.”

The firm announced the recipient of the 2022 McGuireWoods scholarship at the University of Virginia School of Engineering & Applied Science: rising fourth-year student Justin Ngo.   Ngo visited McGuireWoods’ Richmond office on June 1, 2022, and met with some of the firm’s lawyers, including managing partner J. Tracy Walker IV and counsel George Keith Martin. Ngo’s family immigrated to the United States after the Vietnam War to start a new life. He is passionate about fairness and promoting diversity and believes his upbringing has shaped his independence and resilience.

While pursuing his computer science/engineering degree at UVA, Ngo has taken undergraduate courses in commercial law, media law, election cybersecurity and computer science ethics, which piqued an interest in intellectual property law. Ngo created a website in April 2022 to synthesize personal research on gene editor CRISPR and the legal implications of novel genetic technologies on intellectual disability. For the project, he interviewed genetic engineering and legal scholars and shared recordings on the website. He also designed a social media app to share verified news, petitions and fundraisers, and he is vice president of Alternative Spring Break, for which he organizes more than 300 students to participate in service trips and fundraising.  

“I was delighted to meet Justin and to learn more about his interests and about what he is doing in school,” Walker said. “He is an impressive young man. I am confident that he is going to find great success in law school and in all his future endeavors.”  

The McGuireWoods scholarship is part of a law school pipeline project the firm launched in 2019. In addition to awarding a scholarship each year to a rising fourth-year student interested in law school, the firm has partnered with the School of Engineering to develop and sponsor the school’s Future Leaders Speaker Series, where students can learn about careers outside of engineering.  

Walker, who graduated from UVA with a degree in mechanical engineering, has explained the firm’s focus on engineering students: “Engineering school graduates are particularly well-positioned to do well in law school and to go on to successful careers as lawyers. Engineering schools, like business schools, focus on team-based problem solving, a particularly important skill set for lawyers. It is a demanding curriculum. Students who thrive in that environment have developed strong analytical skills and are poised to do well in law school and beyond.”