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S3E03: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion with Iveliz Crespo RLAW'14
16 Plays3 years ago
Co-Dean Kimberly Mutcherson is joined by Iveliz Crespo RLAW'14, the Global Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Advisor at Reed Smith. Iveliz shares their journey and a bit about their vision for a truly equitable industry. Read more about them here.
The Power of Attorney is produced by Rutgers Law School. With two locations minutes from Philadelphia and New York City, Rutgers Law offers the prestige and reputation of a large, nationally-known university combined with a personal, small campus experience. Learn more by visiting law.rutgers.edu.
Production Manager: Margaret McCarthy
Series Producer: Nate Nakao
Editor: Nate Nakao
--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/rutgerslaw/messageRecommended
Transcript
Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace
00:00:02
Speaker
You have to come up with new practices. The old way of doing things, we're not working. We aren't supporting a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace, so we need to move away
Introducing Kim Mutcherson and Evie Crespo
00:00:10
Speaker
from them. My name is Kim Mutcherson. I am the co-dean of Rutgers Law School in Camden, and this is the power of attorney.
00:00:19
Speaker
I have another alum guest today, and I'm super excited to talk to them. And it is Evie Crespo. Do you mind if I use your nickname? Because that's what I'm used to, OK? They are 2014 graduates of the law school in Camden and have had an extraordinarily interesting career since then. So I'm looking forward to walking through that. Thanks for being here, Evie. Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Dean Mutterson. I'm excited to be here.
00:00:49
Speaker
Great.
Evie's Motivation for Studying Law
00:00:50
Speaker
I always like to start by asking people their origin story. Given all the things one could do in life, you decided to earn a law degree. So tell me about that. Why did you decide to become a lawyer?
00:01:05
Speaker
Yeah, so I grew up in Camden, New Jersey, which is, interestingly enough, where Rutgers Law School is situated. And I don't know how much of our listeners know about Camden, but Camden has been a city that has historically had high poverty rates, high crime rates, has been victims of overpolicing, I think, and some zealous policing. And so it's a unique neighborhood, an environment in which I grew up.
00:01:32
Speaker
being on the side of living through what oppression is and what it means to be poor and what it means to go without resources.
00:01:41
Speaker
And I think growing up really did influence my decision to become a lawyer. I never really had the verbiage for being a lawyer. I'm the first person in my family to graduate high school and then eventually go to college and then become a lawyer. So I think when I was initially younger and thinking about what I'm going to do as a career, I didn't have the verbiage for lawyer. I had the verbiage for what I felt was right and what I felt was fair. I've always had this intrinsic sense of fairness.
00:02:08
Speaker
And I knew growing up when I saw the things that people experienced because they were poor, because they were black and brown, and feeling like that wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that these people had to experience this solely because they had circumstances and because of their backgrounds and identities. And so that really did create this intrinsic sense of fairness and this right and wrong and wanting to fight.
00:02:31
Speaker
to have the voices of my community heard, to see ourselves represented in ways that, you know, haven't historically been represented, right? When you think of Camden, you think of, you know, crime rates, you think of the murder rates. You don't think of the success stories and the communities behind that. And I really wanted to have a role, right, in advancing my community and advancing my people and where I come from.
00:02:57
Speaker
and also in advocating and fighting against these injustices that I saw them face, whether it's the man who lived down the street from me who was an immigrant
00:03:07
Speaker
and was fired, right, for speaking Spanish on the job, you know, whether it's the woman who was injured at work and was fired because she tried to follow workers comp claim, whether it's the teenage boy down the street that, you know, was a victim of overpolicing and overzealous policing and, you know,
00:03:28
Speaker
had to go to prison for minor offenses that are poverty related, right? People are just trying to make it and they have their lives stolen from them in a way and then have their rights violated in so many ways. I think that was enough for me to see that going, living through that and seeing that over and over and over again, just made me decide that I wanted to have some hand in stopping that. That's awesome.
00:03:55
Speaker
One of the things that's interesting to me is you came to us obviously for law school, but you didn't come to Rutgers for undergrad. You went to high school in Camden and then went to college elsewhere.
Challenges and Experiences in Law School
00:04:07
Speaker
I would love to hear sort of what your relationship of any was to the Rutgers Camden campus as somebody who grew up in Camden. I mean, did you ever
00:04:18
Speaker
think to myself, that's where I'm going to end up one day. What was it like? I'm going to be honest with you. I don't think I knew there was a law school there. I knew that there was a college there. I knew that during that time when the schools are getting out and classes are ending to stay away from that side of Camden.
00:04:36
Speaker
But I didn't know what was all there. I think part of the issue with how we treat black and brown kids, particularly poor black and brown kids, is it seems like your opportunities are limited and the things that you're exposed to are limited and so you're not necessarily aware
00:04:52
Speaker
of all the things that are out there and all the potentials that exist in the world for yourself and these opportunities. So I will say that I didn't know Rutgers had a law school until I was far well into college and deciding what was next for me. And then I realized, oh, you know, Rutgers has a law school, so let me apply for Rutgers Camden. But it wasn't like, you know, Rutgers had a strong presence in my community, unfortunately. And I think that's changing a little bit. You know, I'd love to see more of that.
00:05:20
Speaker
but certainly didn't have an impact where I was aware of it or even knew that was a possibility for me. Yeah, and I think that that's a thing that a lot of schools in urban areas, and I guess maybe rural areas too as well, depending, really trying to think about what is your responsibility for the community?
00:05:39
Speaker
that you're in, right? That you shouldn't be a space that just takes lots of resources and doesn't give back. And I think you're right. I think that the campus in general is doing a better job than it has done in the past, but there's so much more.
00:05:55
Speaker
that we can do. So we'll see what the future brings. So you said you were the first in your family to graduate from high school, and then you went on to college, which I'm imagining was a fairly significant transition. And then you went from college to law school, which I'm imagining was an even greater transition. So do you kind of remember the moment in college where you said to yourself, you know what? I think I'm going to go to law school, so I need to prepare myself.
00:06:24
Speaker
for that experience. Yeah. Well, I will say you're right. I think college was a big culture shock for me as someone who grew up predominantly around people of color to go to a predominantly white institution for college was a very big culture shock. And again, I saw the same things I saw growing up. I saw how people like me were treated. I mean, I was fortunate enough that
00:06:46
Speaker
You know, I think I had a lot of teachers investing in me in college. Right. I think they saw something in me. But again, it's like that model minority thing where it's like, I'm going to invest in you because it's clear to me that you're going to be successful. And so I want to be having a hand in your success. And I think watching that and seeing that I've always been an introspective person. And so I was I had this hyper awareness of what was happening around me.
00:07:10
Speaker
I knew that every time they would release a magazine and my picture was in it, they'd write an article about me, about where I'm from and how the school is helping me. All of that was self-serving. It wasn't necessarily for me. And not to say that I didn't have a great undergrad experience, but I recognized it for what it was.
00:07:28
Speaker
And I think seeing that made me even more frustrated at the world, right? Because I thought about how I have family members that are more intelligent than I am, more intelligent than I'll ever be, right? And didn't have those access to opportunities because they didn't look like me or they were just a little bit darker or they were men and had been victim of over-policing and having criminal records. And so I recognize the privilege that I had in those spaces despite being marginalized, despite being oppressed, and it frustrated me.
00:07:57
Speaker
It frustrated me. I was fortunate enough that I got involved in student government. And involved in student government, that's where I found my voice. That's where I learned about, you know what, maybe I should consider going to law school. I saw how the world worked. I saw how you had to argue for things, how you had to be strategic. And I thought to myself, the best way for me to impact my community at the time with the limited information I have was to go to law school.
00:08:22
Speaker
Mm hmm. I love one of the things that you said. I was I was I was trying to recreate in my head this phrase that I heard from another podcast. I don't know if you've ever listened to Hear to Slay with Roxane Gay and Tressie McMillan Cotton. And they did an episode that was about women of color, black women in particular in the academy. And they talked about this idea of that sometimes white people, particularly white women,
00:08:51
Speaker
we'll sort of, you know, pick a black or brown person as kind of their pet, right? And so, you know, this is the person who you're going to give advice to and mentor and sort of shepherd through the world. And as you sort of pointed out, there's a selfishness to that that we don't often acknowledge. And I think it's really important to acknowledge that and how it feels to be on the other side of that. Yeah.
00:09:18
Speaker
Absolutely. And the thing is, is that for someone who spends a lot of time in my head, I see it for what it is. And I understand the value in having that sponsorship, that support. But at the end of the day, I know that I'm getting that sponsorship and that support because of what I look like, who I am, how I talk. And I know those opportunities aren't being given to people who are even more marginalized than me and who actually need those opportunities.
00:09:46
Speaker
So let's talk about law school then. So you went to a predominantly white institution for college and had to make that transition. And then you came to law school. And I think that for a lot of us, the transition to law school, people coming from a whole variety of backgrounds, that transition to law school can be incredibly
00:10:07
Speaker
difficult and jarring. And we've talked a little bit about some of your first year law experiences. I'm sure we'll get into some of those. But what was that experience like for you, walking into this very different kind of space, but also a space that was in your hometown? Yeah.
00:10:26
Speaker
So it's so interesting when I think about my first year of law school. I expected so much. I expected I'm going to law school. It felt like this really great thing. And I just imagined it being this amazing opportunity. And I thought the school was really engaged with the community. And I just wanted to see what people were doing and how I could help out and how I can get involved.
00:10:48
Speaker
I think initially when I found out that we weren't doing as much as I had hoped, that was also really disheartening.
Advocating for Systemic Change in Legal Education
00:10:54
Speaker
And then on top of that, having to navigate the law school space with kids who, you know, did not come from my backgrounds, did not grow up in Camden and had so much to say about the school and where it's located. I still remember one of my first classes. I get in there, I sit down.
00:11:11
Speaker
And the professor walks in late and apologizes for the class and says, you know, I took a wrong turn. I ended up getting lost in Camden, not a place you want to get lost in. Right. And I'm in this class as the only kid from Camden after all the after most of my peers now know where I'm from. And it's just like one of those really embarrassing things and really frustrating things and a microaggression that you have to experience in front of your entire class. When people already know, you know, you're already a minority, you know, you're already easily identifiable in those spaces and
00:11:40
Speaker
And so I think that was really hard for me and seeing that and seeing, you know, we're in this space where the school is located in the city.
00:11:48
Speaker
And yet people at the law school are so disconnected from the city. And in fact, some of them have really negative ideas about the city. And if that is how people are talking about it, I can imagine how those professors on the opposite end of interviewing and interviewing people from Camden, what their thought process is, because it's clear that they have a conception of what people from Camden are like. We're dangerous, we're thieves, we are criminals, and we're all these things. And so I can imagine
00:12:18
Speaker
If you have that conception that you're so quick to share with your class, imagine in those private spaces when you're looking at admitting kids from Camden into law school or looking at interviewing people from Camden for positions. Imagine how your thought process and your decision making is influenced when you already have that preconceived notion of what it means to be from Camden. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
00:12:45
Speaker
We've talked a lot, even thinking about our orientation, right? Where it had become very
00:12:54
Speaker
routine for us that there would be a presentation orientation by campus police and they would sort of talk about, you know, how do you stay safe? And we, you know, we talked about, you know, instead of having campus police, how about we have somebody come in and talk about the history of Camden, right? I can really think differently about how we introduce people to the city. And and again, I think, you know, I think that's a challenge for lots of schools that are located in in urban areas. And it's one where there's definitely work
00:13:23
Speaker
left for us to do. One of the things that I remember so distinctly from law school and certainly in first year, but across the three years of law school were the number of times I was sitting in a class and we would talk about a case and it would just be so clear to me that there was something underneath what we were talking about, whether it was race or class or whatever it is. And yet that was not a part of
00:13:52
Speaker
the tale that was told in the classroom. And I imagine that that was an experience that you had from time to time as well, because most of us.
00:14:03
Speaker
who are people of color or who are from marginalized communities feel that at various points during law school. So was that something that you also had to kind of deal with and decide how you were going to respond to it? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's something I dealt with routinely in reading these cases. And as someone who I don't think most of the men in my family have felony convictions or have
00:14:30
Speaker
drug charges or have these things. And so being on that opposite end where I've seen the other end of this, right. And I've seen that, you know, people are going to jail for minor, you know, minor offenses in Camden. There's, you know, poverty court in which people are cited for loud music and then they can't afford to pay. They're incarcerated. So I saw it from that end already. And so I already had this way of looking at the world. Right. I was already hypercritical.
00:14:55
Speaker
hyper suspect of any situation. So cases were along the same lines as I would read things and I would say to myself, I know why this happened, right? This outcome is this way because the person involved in this case was poor or this outcome is this way because the person involved in this case was affluent and was white or had privilege. And so I felt that way and oftentimes I would say that and I still recall I had this experience with one of the professors
00:15:24
Speaker
Um, in torts, right? We had a case where, um, it had to do, it was a similar case, right? It was about, um, uh, it was about, uh, in vitro. One of the cases was about in vitro fertilization and an egg being implanted in someone accidentally.
00:15:41
Speaker
And the other case was about a baby being mixed up in a hospital. When I Googled where the hospital was, it was in a very like, you know, urban area in New York. And this, and the in vitro case took place in New York, but also an affluent area. And the cases, you know, were decided and they had different outcomes, right? The parents who sued in the in vitro case won their case and were successful. And the parents who sued the hospital regarding the mixup of the actual baby
00:16:09
Speaker
Um, we're unsuccessful and we were asked, you know, what may have contributed to the differences in this case. And the first thing I said was, obviously there's race and class issue here. Um, and I remember the professor saying to me, you know, if you continue to look at the world this way, you're never going to be successful as a lawyer, right? You need to be more critical. You need to have a better understanding beyond that.
00:16:30
Speaker
And I thought to myself, I said, you know, that was, that was disheartening. That really did shut me down. I mean, I'm glad that I didn't let that influence, you know, me and my career. But I do recall being frustrated by that and thinking to myself, well, maybe it's you who needs to look at these cases differently. Maybe it's you who needs a deeper understanding of what's going on here, right? Because oftentimes we're forced to read the black letter of the law and read verbatim. And there's so much context that we miss.
00:16:57
Speaker
There's so much that's not said, and it's just as important as the things that are said and make it into the opinion. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And again, and you know this because we've talked about it, but we're in the process at the law school of really thinking about how we teach and what we teach and how do we incorporate critical race perspectives and other sort of perspectives into our classrooms.
00:17:22
Speaker
And one of the challenges is, you know, most people are on board, but not everybody, right? I mean, law schools are very, I like to describe law schools as very conservative institutions and I don't mean that politically, right? There are places where people get accustomed to teaching in the same way and teaching the same material. And so it's a real challenge to the establishment and the status quo to say,
00:17:47
Speaker
let's think differently about law, right? Because that's what we're sort of saying at base. Let's think differently about law. So, you know, we're doing the work. We'll see where we land. Yeah. And, you know, I think law schools are just a big reflection of the legal community overall. Yeah. Of course, we're very structured and we're very stuck in, like, precedent, right? We're people who are rooted in precedent and how things have been done in the past.
00:18:10
Speaker
Right, which lends itself to people being very scared of change. Yeah. Very, very, you know, people and I've seen it in my work as a D.I. practitioner, what change can do to people? Right. It triggers fight or flight very instantaneously. Yeah. And I imagine that that's the same in academia, right, where it's even more rigid than the than the normal practice of law. Right. Right. And I think that off that oftentimes people take it as a personal attack, as opposed to understanding it as
00:18:40
Speaker
It's a system, right? And it's a system that we're all a part of and that we all have the power to at least start to dismantle. So it's not saying you're a racist and you're a horrible person, it's saying maybe you benefited from a system that's racist and horrible, right? And so how do we make it better and how do we dismantle
Evie's Career in Public Interest Law
00:19:00
Speaker
it?
00:19:00
Speaker
So also like me, you were a person who was committed to public interest law, won lots of nice awards while you were in law school, and then started your career at South Jersey Legal Services in their migrant farm worker division, then moved from there to the Mazzoni Center, which for folks who aren't from this area,
00:19:24
Speaker
is a center for folks in the LGBTQ community that provides health care as well as legal services. Then you move to the city of Philadelphia where you started doing DEI work for them. And then finally you landed where you are now, which is at Reed Smith. So, you know, you have had, again, in a really short amount of time, you have had these incredibly
00:19:50
Speaker
interesting experiences in the law. So I would love to first talk to you about South Jersey Legal Services and the Mazzoni Center and sort of the work that you were doing there. And one of the things that we know about lots of
00:20:06
Speaker
legal services offices and lots of nonprofits is that they are often white spaces as well, right? I mean, you're doing good work and you're glad to be there. But there are also places where people of color are the bulk of the clients and very few of the people who are working there. So what were your experiences like there at South Jersey Legal Services and at Mazzoni?
00:20:35
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I guess I'll start off by saying I think working at South Shore's illegal services was a full circle moment for me. You know, as someone who grew up in Camden, my mother used those services. They represented me. And so, you know, girl, you know, in a poverty related issue. And so when I interviewed for them, I didn't tell them that, you know, I had, you know,
00:20:56
Speaker
I had benefited from their programming. I did the interview and ended up that they really, really liked me. And, you know, they offered me the job pretty quickly after the interview. And it kind of disclosed that then. And it's so funny because when I started my first day, I typed my name into the system and Michael pops up. Wow. You know, this is a really full circle moment, you know, as my first experience and exposure to lawyers that weren't on a TV. I mean, I guess
00:21:22
Speaker
That's not true. It was my first experience to lawyers that weren't on the prosecution side, that weren't contributing to the problem. It was a full circle moment for me. With that said, I did learn a lot there. But again, as you said, I think nonprofit spaces are notoriously white. And that is true of most of the nonprofits that I've worked in. I had a good experience at South Carolina Legal Services. I learned a lot.
00:21:52
Speaker
But I think it made me hyper aware of the importance of cultural competency when representing clients. When you come from a background that's so far removed from what this client experiences, you know, how do we
00:22:07
Speaker
adequately provide services to clients. How do we conduct intakes? How do we know what questions to ask if we're not looking at the world through their lens? And that I became hyper aware of that, you know, working at Salter's illegal services. And even when I inherited the cases I did, I recall looking through my cases and finding mistakes.
00:22:25
Speaker
not because the lawyer was sloppy, but because there was a disconnect in language. The lawyer may have spoken Spanish, but it's one thing to pick up Spanish and it's another to fully understand it and fully understand that Spanish is different in different contexts. People who are Mexican will speak different Spanish than people who are speaking Caribbean Spanish.
00:22:50
Speaker
And so I did find some glaring mistakes that were made in some of the cases that I inherited that were a result of that lack of cultural competency. So I think that made me hyper aware that one, I went into the legal profession to do good. I went into the legal profession because I wanted to help people. And I had this fundamental belief that people are entitled to competent representation. Right. And I think
00:23:12
Speaker
The thing about our system is that if you commit a crime, you're entitled to a public defender. If your rights are violated, you're not necessarily entitled to any kind of legal representation. You're left to go find that representation. And so I do think these nonprofits play a critical role for that. It's important for people to have access to these representations when their rights are violated. But I saw it. I saw it in all the work that I did.
00:23:38
Speaker
that cultural competency, you know, is something that's incredibly important. And some of the attorneys really got it, right? I think it's a benefit that, you know, at South Jersey Legal Services, at the very least, that I was surrounded by people who really cared about the work that they were doing and really wanted to get it right. You know, I saw what lawyering was. Not that fancy wide-shoe lawyering. I'm talking nitty gritty in your face.
00:24:01
Speaker
fight like hell for your client's lawyering. And that was an amazing experience. But it certainly got me thinking about the importance of cultural competency, and it got me talking about the importance of cultural competency, because I saw it every day. And I think the pain was for the Mazzoni Center. So I do think while those experiences were great and certainly shaped me into the advocate I am today, it also exposed me to this big gap that I saw in the legal profession.
00:24:31
Speaker
Yeah, and one of the things obviously to think about is, one, what role do law schools play or should they play in helping to develop that kind of cultural competency?
00:24:44
Speaker
in the folks that we're sending out into the world, and then to the extent that we fail to do that, how do our legal institutions do that work or not do that work? And I wanna talk about that, but I also wanna back up a little bit because there will be people listening to this who aren't necessarily in our area, who aren't necessarily in Jersey, and they'll think, why were you representing migrant farm workers in New Jersey? I will remind people that we are the Garden State,
00:25:12
Speaker
Right? But can you talk about what the work is that you were doing there in that part with South Jersey Legal Services? Yeah. So like many states, New Jersey uses a lot of immigrant work labor to help in its agricultural space. And so, I mean, I think in New Jersey, there's a mixture of undocumented people working on farms, but there are also people who come in on work visas
00:25:37
Speaker
You know, so in order to be eligible, an employer has to certify, or a farmer has to certify, they don't have people who can do that work, who are willing to do that work. And so they are able to petition to bring in other people from different countries who have the skillset in that labor industry to do the work. Oftentimes, you know, it's wrought with problems, right? Because the petitioner is the employer, there's a certain level of fear, right? From the employee.
00:26:05
Speaker
Because by the nature of the visa, for example, it's not like any other place of employment where you have that autonomy to leave. If you are terminated or if you quit and you're here on a visa, because the visa is written the way that it is, you have to return to your country of origin. So the issue becomes, who's incentivized to complain when their rights are violated? And some of the things that I saw in representing farm workers, so how are their rights violated?
00:26:32
Speaker
one of the things that employers have to certify to before they bring people over, and it's part of the agreement the employer agrees to, is how much they're going to get paid. So oftentimes that wage is always higher than the minimum wage in the state.
00:26:46
Speaker
And they have to certify that they're going to pay that higher wage to these workers. Sometimes when the employee comes over and starts working, they start realizing that they're not getting that wage. They're getting the minimum wage. Or in some cases, in more egregious cases, they're not getting paid at all. Because the employer will say to them, I spent a lot of money to bring you here. And so you have to work to pay this off before you can collect your wages.
00:27:09
Speaker
That's illegal, not permitted. But if you don't know the law, then you're not aware that's illegal. And you're dealing with people who, one, there's a language barrier. Most of these clients speak Spanish. Two, there's a fear. If I complain, I might get fired. And then I have to go back home. And even though I'm only making $7 an hour, it's still more than I can make in my country of origin.
00:27:30
Speaker
And so there's not an incentive for people to complain. And in those egregious cases, it rises to the level of labor trafficking. You have people engaged in modern day slavery. Same way that sex trafficking is modern day slavery, labor trafficking is modern day slavery. You have people that are working for free. And oftentimes having to pay, in addition to working for free, having to pay for food and having to do these things that the employer is not covering.
00:27:56
Speaker
And so my work was really representing them. It was really interesting. It took a lot of trust building, right? It's one of those industries where people are scared to complain. And they're not really accustomed to attorneys. You're dealing with a lot of people who, when they hear attorney, they have this conception of attorneys in their countries of origin.
00:28:14
Speaker
which oftentimes are people who take advantage of these communities. And so you already are now dealing with people who are hesitant to complain, but also who have this fear of attorneys because of where they come from and how attorneys treat them. And so it made the job difficult. It would require going into, I did a lot of outreach and engagement.
00:28:35
Speaker
I would go at the end of work days to farms, talk, do presentations about knowing your rights, talk to people, give them cards, give them information, trying to build that rapport, right? And we would go out regularly to keep that relationship going. Not everyone complained, but at the very least, so much of our work was from referrals. So even if that person didn't complain, they would pass that card off to a friend working at a different farm. And maybe that friend would call me because they were fed up.
00:29:01
Speaker
And so it was great work, really difficult work, and it was a mixture of labor and employment work, employment discrimination, and also some immigration work, right? Because those victims of labor trafficking were entitled to immigration relief, and so we would file for them to get relief and to get, you know, immigration status. So those were some of the things that we worked on.
00:29:25
Speaker
There's so much in what you just said about the failures of our immigration system, about the difficult work of being a legal services lawyer. But the thing that I want to pull out a little bit is,
00:29:44
Speaker
you know, the point that you were making about relationship building. And I think that's one of those things that folks don't necessarily think about when they come to law school, right? They think, okay, I have to learn a lot. I have to be able to make arguments. I have to be able to write. But so much of being a lawyer is building relationships with clients so that you can do the work
00:30:08
Speaker
that they need you to do. And in your case, it was even more critical, right?
00:30:16
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I mean, I just to put things in perspective, if folks are non lawyers, you know, when you reach out to a lawyer, it's not usually for a good thing, right? Usually at some form of crisis. And so it's already difficult because how many of us will call up a complete stranger and tell us tell them about the most vulnerable thing that we've experienced, right? And so just like putting in perspective for people who don't practice law, that's what it's like to try to be a lawyer, because people are sharing with you something really
00:30:43
Speaker
in many cases, something terrible that happens to them. And so it is really important to build that rapport. And to be fair, you may never get the client to open up to you, right? Some traumas just run too deep. And so yes, there's rapport building, but there's also trauma-informed practices, right? Being aware that trauma manifests itself in so many different ways, particularly in the client-attorney relationship.
00:31:10
Speaker
And how can you make sure that one, you're minimizing the trauma this client is experiencing and not building on that trauma. And two, you're doing everything you can to effectively represent
Transition to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Work
00:31:20
Speaker
them. And that can be difficult when the client is not being necessarily as open with you. That has always been an issue for me when I've worked with pro bono counsel from law firms. I think most nonprofit attorneys have grown to understand that
00:31:36
Speaker
sometimes your client's not going to trust you. You're experiencing that day to day, but I think it can be really frustrating for pro bono folks who may be taking on a case and then realize that their client's not necessarily sharing the information that they think is relevant. The client is not necessarily responding to emails, to phone calls, and it can be a really frustrating experience. I think irrespective of if you're a non-profit attorney, these are things that you should be aware of in the pro bono space, but
00:32:05
Speaker
you know, working now where I work and we'll get to that later. But even in that global landscape, right? The cultural competency is incredibly important in any area that you're going to practice in, not just in the nonprofit space, but it's certainly something that's incredibly important, right? Is how do we mitigate this trauma? How do we make sure we're adequately representing? How do we know what questions to ask? How do we get our client to trust us? It's incredibly important because otherwise, you know, your entire case is built on the information that you're getting from your client.
00:32:36
Speaker
Right. How do you what do you do when you're not getting all the information? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I could talk about this forever. So I'm going to I'm going to cut myself off. But because I want to I do want to transition into talking about the D.I. work that you're doing now, which, you know, I assume that as you came to law school, you weren't thinking to yourself, eventually, I'm going to be at this huge global
00:33:02
Speaker
law firm doing DEI work and yet that is sort of where you landed. So I'm actually gonna skip over the city and I'm gonna go right to Reed Smith. So first can you tell folks what is your role at Reed Smith? Yeah, well first I think importantly I never ever imagined that I would ever get paid to talk about racism.
00:33:29
Speaker
I've been talking about it nonstop my entire life. And so never ever thought that there was an industry for this. I think that's just one really important to say.
00:33:40
Speaker
At Reed Smith, I'm the global DEI advisor for a diversity equity inclusion advisor. That's a long way of saying that I work closely with our chief diversity officer on a wide range of initiatives, many of which are designed to increase inclusion, to look at making sure we're practicing equitable practices, but also how do we support a growing
00:34:05
Speaker
multicultural global workforce that's working on teams in different countries, that's representing clients from different countries, who may speak different languages, who have different ways of thinking about things, who view respect differently, which is big when you're talking about clients. So these are all things I think that are really important and that I get to work on at ReadSmith.
00:34:25
Speaker
in addition to some of those structural barriers that we know exist for people like us, right? Black and brown folks, for women, for queer people, for people with disabilities. I used to say, people always ask me, why did you transition from practicing law? I loved being a lawyer. I loved suing discriminatory employers. It made my day, particularly when we won. It felt like the biggest rush.
00:34:51
Speaker
And to put things in perspective, I think the thing that I love most about DEI is that, yeah, when you sue an employer, you get that rush. You won that one case for that one client. But what would the world look like if we had people making sure that behavior wasn't happening in the first place? If the client never had to experience that discrimination or that bias or those painful microaggressions day in and day out,
00:35:15
Speaker
And that's why I went into DEI because I realized that, yeah, you can have this one victory for this one client, but there's a systemic issue here that needs to be addressed. Um, and that's, that systems based approach is what I try to keep in mind and doing the work that I do is that systems have been.
00:35:32
Speaker
have historically excluded us. How do we go about rethinking the system, getting rid of the system, putting new systems in place? So we're in this very interesting time, I think. And you actually use the word industry, right? And I think that that is one of those pieces, and I'll just say this sort of very personally, that makes me a little bit cynical about this time that we're in.
00:35:59
Speaker
Right? That, you know, there are lots of people who are making good money by being, you know, DEI consultants or taking on these particular roles in institutions. And not all of them are good at it. Not all of them are trained for it. Not all of them are sort of thoughtful about that work. So
00:36:23
Speaker
I'm curious, as somebody who's, you did it first for the city of Philadelphia, now you're doing it for Reed Smith, what would you say are the kind of hallmarks of DEI work done well? What does it demand? What does it require of not just the person who's doing the work, but also the institution that is claiming that it brought this person in to make the kind of systemic changes you're talking about?
00:36:52
Speaker
I think different people would answer this question differently in terms of what I think make the hallmarks for a great DI practitioner. I mean, I think it's someone obviously who knows how to leverage, right? I think part of what you have to do as a DI practitioner is be strategic. You know, you have to figure out what hill you're going to die on, right? What sword you're going to fall on. And so it takes a bit of strategy. It takes looking at systems and thinking to yourself,
00:37:16
Speaker
What's going to have the biggest impact and how can I leverage my support, my resources here to make that impact, to make that happen? So I think one, you have to be strategic and you have to be good at getting people to come together, communicating and getting people on board. I also think it takes a bit of fearlessness.
00:37:34
Speaker
I think the downside to this market that's now saturated with DI practitioners is that you have people who are just so comfortable with holding hands and that's what they want to do. They want to see peace in the workplace.
00:37:49
Speaker
That's ineffective, right? Many times that's ineffective because what it does is it gets people thinking that this work is always feel good, right? And it's not. It's not always feel good. It's hard work. It's hard to confront things, you know, it's hard to confront biases. It's hard to understand that you are privileged, right? That you have have gained things, right? That you didn't earn. And that can be really hard for people to swallow. It makes for uncomfortable spaces. And oftentimes you're met with resistance. And I think
00:38:18
Speaker
that I see a lot of DEI practitioners kind of shying away from that. And I don't want to be one of those. This work is designed to make you feel uncomfortable. It should. You're trying to unlearn things that you've learned your whole life. How is that not going to make you uncomfortable? And so that's, I think, one of the things that's really important. You have to be fearless.
00:38:39
Speaker
you have to be ready to understand that this work is hard and that you're not going to always be liked by everybody that you're working with. Because at the end of the day, I think the other thing too is you remember what you're there for. You're not there to have the organization tout you as a diversity officer and their press releases and say, look, we care. This is what we did. You're there to do the work. And what does that mean? You're there to do that work. You're there to work hard, look at policies.
00:39:09
Speaker
get rid of those organizational barriers, talk to people about what systemic racism looks like, how it manifests itself in our day-to-day interactions with people, in our practices, in our policies. And I see that a lot of people are afraid to do that, right? They get in and, you know, one, I think the downside is they get in and they didn't ask questions before they started about what kind of organizational power they have.
00:39:30
Speaker
And so it's another thing, too, is that these positions, they're not all designed the same. Some are designed with this organizational power in mind. And some are not designed for that. Some are very clearly tokenization. We want you here because we want to do a press release on this, but you're not going to have any power to change anything. And so I think that the problem with the saturated market is that it's being left to the people with privilege to design what it looks like.
00:40:01
Speaker
It's not being designed in mind with the people who really need this work to happen. It's the leaders that are designing what these roles look like. What are they going to work on? And when your leadership is reflective of the oppressors, imagine the systems that they're building. Yeah. And part of the work, as you say, is
00:40:24
Speaker
you know, forcing people or asking people to recognize how they've benefited from a particular structure, you know, whether they were conscious of that benefit or not. And that, again, is this space where people start to feel, you know, very personally, you know, attack, I worked really hard. Nobody's saying you didn't work really hard. You know, we're just saying that you also had some help. Right. And that's an important thing for people.
00:40:53
Speaker
to recognize. And I've had help, right? I mean, I'm very lucky about a lot of the things about the way that my life has been organized. And there's no shame in that, but there's certainly shame in pretending like it doesn't exist, I think. What are some of the things, because I think the role that you have is a role that is increasingly being created in law firms. And we talked before about
00:41:18
Speaker
our profession as being not one that is necessarily looking to make significant changes. And we know also that our profession is one of the least racially diverse professions out there. And it has been that way for a very long time.
00:41:39
Speaker
you know, given where you are now and hopefully you have been given sufficient organizational power that you can really sort of start to affect change, what are some of the things that you do institutionally to try to change the culture and change the systems that are in place where you are now? I think the most effective thing that one can do to change culture is really policy, right?
Strategies for Organizational Change
00:42:06
Speaker
You have to come up with new practices. The old way of doing things, we're not working. We're not supporting a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace. So we need to move away from them. We need to attack this from a systems approach. And every system is different. Our systems for hiring and recruiting, those need to be attacked. And those are things I'm working on. Our systems for evaluation. What are we evaluating talent on? How does bias influence even these objective criterias that we sit?
00:42:32
Speaker
If we know things that research shows, right, that Jamal's legal writing sample, right, is going to have way more like critiques than someone who's white, right, despite it being the same writing sample, then we know that even when we objectively are ranking and rating legal writing, bias still plays a role.
00:42:50
Speaker
So developing systems that teaches our evaluators to think about critically bias while they're writing that evaluation, right? Giving them feedback. This is how bias might show up. You know, women are more evaluated on personalities. So doing systems-led approach is something that I've been working on and thinking about how can we redesign
00:43:10
Speaker
existing policies and practices to support the work that we're trying to do. So I think that that's one, right? And I think it's a really important piece, but just one piece of the puzzle. I think the other piece of that is leadership, right? You need that leadership buy in, that leadership support. Organizational culture ends and begins and ends with leaders.
00:43:29
Speaker
It has to be a top-down approach. And so that's also a very important key when we're talking about sustainable DEI practices, is making sure that your leadership is supporting you, that they're supporting your initiatives. So those are really important things. And then the other piece is accountability.
00:43:46
Speaker
Yeah, everybody cares about DEI, but how are we holding ourselves accountable? What metrics are we putting in place to make sure that those goals that we set at the beginning of the year are being met, right? And how are we making sure that everyone, particularly leadership, is accountable for that? Because it's their responsibility, it's everyone's responsibility to be accountable for culture. But it really does start and end at the top. And so how are we holding people accountable? So that's some of the things that I'm working on in terms of
00:44:13
Speaker
you know, making sure that this is part of our evaluations, right, and making sure that DEI and commitment to DEI, right, and commitment to equity and removing systemic barriers is something that our talent
00:44:25
Speaker
is evaluated on is held accountable to, right? And I think the other piece of that too, right? We're talking about the diversity, the equity and the inclusion piece is also making sure people have access to opportunities. The entire industry is having the same issue where they're bleeding diverse talent faster than they're recruiting it. And there are reasons for that, right? People will leave if they're not being provided with access to high visibility work, right? To profile raising assignments
00:44:53
Speaker
to proper work allocation systems, people will leave. We're not the only firm. And my firm's pretty good about recognizing this. And we say this frequently, we're not the only firm who cares about DEI. A lot of firms care about DEI. And so we have to make sure that we're doing everything we can to retain our talent. Let's build them up. Instead of hiring outside the organization to fill a leadership role,
00:45:18
Speaker
let's provide the existing people that we have with future skills they need to be successful in the future. Because I'm hesitant to say that it's about remediating an issue. Diverse talent in these spaces, it's not about a skills gap, it's about an access gap. And that's really important to keep in mind. It's not that people need to be developed, it's that people need access to continue to grow. And so that is, I think, something that's really important to keep in mind
00:45:46
Speaker
It's not about the talent, right? It's about the people and the access that they're having, all of which is influenced by bias and bias systems. And there's also sort of what you were kind of, or what I started thinking about as you were just talking, is this idea of pipeline, right? So how do we get people who start off
00:46:11
Speaker
I mean, you know, maybe even earlier than law school, right? How do we create a pipeline of folks who are going to go to high school and then from high school to college and then from college to law school and then from law school to, you know, wherever and be able to be successful. And I wonder if you feel like there's a role for law firms to play in even building that
00:46:33
Speaker
early on pipeline? And if so, what might that look
Law Firms' Role in Promoting Diversity
00:46:37
Speaker
like? I mean, I think in the same way that clients have been driving DEI in law firm spaces, right? A lot of this is kicking off the ground because our clients care. They're now asking about the diverse people we have on our teams. And so it is a financial incentive for law firms to prioritize diversity because more and more clients are caring about it, right?
00:46:58
Speaker
And that's the same way that I think law firms can influence law schools. We need to make sure that we're prioritizing this. We're saying to law schools, we care about DEI. I think when you're in a big law firm, and this is something that I learned going into law firms,
00:47:15
Speaker
And even in law school, there were certain jobs that I could not apply to because I didn't have the necessary GPA. And so I was told that you shouldn't apply. And if I did apply, I had to be away from the school system, not through the school.
00:47:29
Speaker
And that's a big barrier, right? Because it's gatekeeping. You're just fighting based off of this system that's not designed for people like us anyway. You're deciding whether or not we have merit, we have the ability to do this job because based off of a system that's not designed and meant for us to succeed in the first place.
00:47:50
Speaker
So there's a level of gatekeeping that law schools have in preventing diversity from flourishing and preventing diverse folks from being successful. And so I think as law firms, we need to start pushing back on schools. We need to start saying, you know, you didn't give us the people who have applied from your school. They're not reflective of the diversity that we are prioritizing and valuing. And saying, you know what, this is a failed search. Can we see who else we have here?
00:48:17
Speaker
and your roster that might be able to fit that into our firm culture and might encompass some more of our values. So I do think pushing back is key. Stop recruiting from those law schools that are gatekeeping, that are not giving you year after year diverse talent to look at.
00:48:34
Speaker
And so I think that that's very important to remember is that we have a power here. We can say we're not going to do this. And if we say we're not going to do it, if enough law firms say to these schools that we're not going to do this, then they're going to have to rethink their admissions process. They're going to have to rethink their application process for OCI and making sure that they're removing those barriers that exist to prevent people from being successful in their law schools. Absolutely. I think there, you know, there are so many different
00:49:02
Speaker
places where pressure, right, can be applied and we shouldn't be afraid to have that pressure applied. And frankly, I would say, you know, from the perspective of a dean, it's sometimes really welcome to have that pressure applied, right? Because if you just, you know, if I just say, well, here's what we're going to do going forward, people are like, well, who do you think you are, right? Versus if I can say,
00:49:24
Speaker
read Smith or whomever isn't gonna come recruit from us anymore, then all of a sudden it's like, oh yeah, that's serious. That's the thing that we should be responsive to. So I'm a big believer in that kind of pressure. Oh yeah, and it works, right? It's the people who care.
00:49:42
Speaker
They try. The people who get it, they try. It's the other people who don't care and only care about the bottom line that are not incentivized to participate in diversity, equity, inclusion, and making that part of the firm culture. And so it's something that we talk about frequently. It's not just, it's not coming from, it's not this one voice. It's not just Ivalice or John who care about DEI. Our clients care about it and we can pull numbers to show
00:50:08
Speaker
how much money we generate from the clients who are asking us these diversity questions. And it's in the millions, right? And it's doing nothing but increasing more. And now we're not just seeing these generic diversity. Now we're seeing very specific requests. We want Black timekeepers on this. We want Black partners on this. If you're not giving us a certain percentage of diversity on these teams, we are going to cut your fees at the end of the year.
00:50:35
Speaker
Right, that is how you hold people accountable. And I think that law firms are in a position to do that with law schools as well. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, I'm ready. Let's do it. So I want to finish up because, I mean, this has just been a really great conversation and I really appreciate having this opportunity to talk to you. But I want to kind of sandwich our conversation, right? We started with your origin story.
00:51:04
Speaker
And I want to end thinking a little bit about legacy,
Evie's Vision for an Equitable Legal Profession
00:51:09
Speaker
right? So, you know, you have had this opportunity that, you know, that nobody else in your family was able to have, right? High school, college, law school, and now you are working in these, you know, rarefied, privileged spaces. So, you know, what is it that you, and you're obviously very young, so there are lots of different things that you're going to be able to do in your life,
00:51:34
Speaker
You know, as you think about this career that you are building, what's the legacy, right? What is it that you want to feel like at the end of it all, I was able to achieve, you know, X, Y, or Z thing. And that was really worth it. I mean, what matters to me is that we create a more equitable profession, right? We have been moving in a snail's place.
00:51:55
Speaker
And the numbers are just decreasing. And when you look at the higher up in law firms you go, it decreases in diversity. I want to see a more diverse and inclusive and equitable profession. I want to see more people like me. It shouldn't have to be trying so hard to find connections. I'm consistently asking, hey, do you know any other queer like DEI or people of color who are DEI practitioners or who are attorneys? There's a small collective of us, but we need to see more.
00:52:23
Speaker
And I think, you know, what a legacy looks like is one having a hand in that and looking at how do we, how do we do this? Right? How do we, and it's not something that just one person can do, right? It's bringing people along. It's educating as many people as you can. It's creating spaces for people like us to be successful. Um, so I think that's one of the things that I want to accomplish when I want to have a hand in that. And two, you know, I want, I'm still really tied to where I'm from. You know, I want,
00:52:50
Speaker
to have a hand in making Camden a more equitable and safe space for people like me. And so that's something that I've always thought about and always wanted to do, is bringing more people along. When I was a kid, I didn't have exposure to things. And so I volunteer quite frequently. I engage in a lot of things like career fairs. And I try to bring in a lot of my connections, right? Because I think it's incredibly important for kids not to be told, you've got to be a lawyer or a doctor to be successful.
00:53:19
Speaker
How about some engineering? How about all these people who make money as scientists, right? And I think that is really important to me as well, is making sure that the youth in my city have those opportunities and are provided with those opportunities. And I think that really does take people going back and giving back to the community. I know many people from where I'm from who made it, quote unquote, been successful, but do they go back? And I think that's incredibly important.
00:53:49
Speaker
I want to go back and I want to have a difference in my city. I want to have a difference in the way that people in my city are treated.
00:53:57
Speaker
Well, I have great faith that you're going to achieve amazing things over the years. And I look forward to voting for you for office at some point. So just let me know when that's going to happen. But thank you so much, Evie. It was so great to talk to you. I really appreciate your time. I appreciate your candor. And I am really excited about the work that you're doing because it's impactful and it matters.
00:54:24
Speaker
Well, thank you for the platform. I think it's really important for people to tell their stories. You know, I didn't have a role model when I was a kid. I had Living Single and Maxine Shaw. And so I appreciate this platform and I appreciate what you're doing. And as always, it's always a privilege talking to you. Thank you.
00:54:43
Speaker
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