The Barristers Club of the Bar Association of San Francisco spent the bulk of the pandemic expanding their Diversity and Inclusion programming - not only for members, but also for the public. They developed a number of timely, educational and popular programs throughout the year, culminating in their Second Annual Diversity Conference in December. 

This year also brought the 13th Annual Barristers Club Diversity Awards Reception. Honorees included Chambord Benton-Hayes, Benton Employment Law Group, and Terrance Evans, Duane Morris. These awards reflect the individual’s efforts to increase awareness of diversity issues in the Bay Area Legal Community. Read more about both honorees here. 

During the opening session  “Moving Beyond Performative Diversity: Effecting Organizational Change,” panelists explained how performative diversity conceals systemic and institutional racism; discussed other barriers to real and substantive change within companies, law firms and the legal industry as a whole; and considered  proposed strategies and tangible steps to advance long-term organizational change, including recruitment, retention, promotion strategies and policies. 

“The first panel was honest, real, valuable and included conversations we should be having more of,” explained Sydney Allen, Benesch Friedlander Coplan & Aronoff, who served as conference co-chair. The panel included Michael Coston, Coston Consulting; Rachel Wilson Patterson, Manager, MTN Programming & Diverse Talent, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe; Colin Vandell, Venable, and Rosa Walker, Counsel, Netflix. Lindsey S. Mignano, Smith Shapourian Mignano, moderated the panel.

Next on the agenda was “Defund the Police? Police Reform? Where We Are and Where We Are Going” featuring experts on criminal justice and policing, and  discussing the state of police reform in California more than one year after the tragic murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests of last summer. Panelists considered recent legislative and community-based efforts to address problems in policing and public safety, including what steps have been taken to date, obstacles to reform, and potential paths that the legal system can take forward. The expert panel included Brian Cox, Head of Integrity Unit, San Francisco Public Defender’s Office; Prof. Nikki Jones, UC Berkeley; Lateef Gray, Managing Attorney of Independent Investigations Bureau, San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, and Prof. David Alan Sklansky, Stanley Morrison, Stanford Law School.

The lunchtime keynote featured Keith Wattley, Founder and Executive Director of UnCommon Law. Wattley has advocated for the rights of people in prison and on parole for more than 20 years. Wattley was joined by Emile DeWeaver, a former UnCommon Law Client, who was serving a life sentence in California and now works as a Senior Strategist at Prison Policy Initiative.

They discussed the mission and work of UnCommon Law, racial disparities in sentencing length and significance of trauma as a factor in violent crimes, as well as opportunities for Barristers members to become involved with UnCommon Law.  “I really enjoyed hearing Emile’s perspective as a formerly incarcerated person,” said Jacqueline M. Simonovich, Weintraub Tobin, who introduced the panel. “Both he and Keith drove home that racial inequality is a huge issue in this country and one that desperately needs to be addressed.” 

The afternoon session focused on microaggressions, one of the top reported challenges experienced by marginalized and underrepresented talent in the workplace. Steven Huang, Founder, Millennial HR Design, led “Disrupting Societal Microaggressions Interactive Workshop,”  and contextualized how stereotypes are created and reinforced over time, illustrating which stereotypes they reinforce and the message they send to recipients. 

“While often neutral or well-intentioned, it’s an important skill to identify what a microaggression is, break down their hidden messages of bias, and offer up a basic framework for how to address them when you see or experience them,” explained Huang.

The final panel of the day was “Prosecuting Hate Crimes - Mens Rea and the Burden of Proof,” featuring panelists from local government to nonprofit and academia who discussed the ins and outs of prosecuting hate crimes in the modern criminal justice system. The conversation covered challenges prosecutors face in prosecuting hate crimes, the types of evidence used to prove mens rea, common strategies used by defense counsel at trial and the relationship to broader social trends on race. Panelists included Shilpi Agarwal, Legal-Policy Co-Director, ACLU of Northern California; Prof. Brian Levin, Director, Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism/ Professor of Criminal Justice, California State University, San Bernardino; Prof. Jeannine Bell, Richard S. Melvin Professor of Law, Indiana University, Maurer School of Law; Kenneth Wine, Chair, Mental Health Committee National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers; and Prof. Shirin Sinnar, Stanford Law School. 

Thank you to co-chairs Sydney Allen, Benesch Friedlander Coplan & Aronoff, and Cristina Piechocki, Littler Mendelson, as well as the rest of the Conference planning Committee: