Episode 10 - Kimberly Leefatt

Kimberly Leefatt joins JSL’s Vickie Hubbard and Krystle Martinez for the tenth episode of Not Your Average DEI Podcast! In this episode, Vickie, Krystle, and Kimberly tackle the topic of equity within law firms. 

Kimberly Leefatt is an attorney practicing in California and a proud alumna of Howard University School of Law. Prior to joining the Natural Resources Defense Council in 2021 as a staff attorney in the litigation department, Kimberly practiced for about 6 years as an associate with private law firms. Informed by her work spanning litigation, transactional, and regulatory compliance, Kimberly has not only developed a multifaceted practice in environmental law, but also an acute awareness of the challenges faced by diverse attorneys. Having participated alongside and served on numerous DEI committees in the legal space, Kimberly has leaned into her experiences as a black woman in an attempt to improve the legal industry for diverse people within her networks. She now shares her experiences, both professional and personal, to provide legal professionals with insights into the successes and failures of DEI efforts, from the perspective of a black female attorney that those efforts intended to serve. Her TikTok handle is @w.deliberate.interest. Through the platform, she reflects on her experiences as a diverse attorney and provides commentary on DEI efforts and allyship.

Transcript

Speaker 1 – Vickie 

Speaker 2 – Krystle 

Speaker 3 - Kimberly 

Transcript 

Speaker 1 

Hello everyone, my name is Vickie. My pronouns are she and her, and welcome to another episode of Not Your Average DEI Podcast. I am so excited to welcome our special guest today. Kimberly Leefatt and I am also just as excited to have a co-host joining us from our JURISolutions Legal family, Krystle Martinez. So before I introduce our special guest, Kimberly, Krystle, welcome to this show, this is Krystle’s First opportunity to serve as a co-host, and so I definitely want you all to welcome her. Krystle, I won't tell us about you, you tell us all about you. What would you like the world to know? 

Speaker 2 

Thanks Vickie, I appreciate it. My pronouns are her and she. I've been with JURISolutions for the past year. I've been in the industry for about two years and I work on the perm side of JURISolutions. So, we make permanent attorney placements and I'm really excited to be here today. I'm really excited to hear and be a part of this podcast with Kimberly and excited to be the co-host, so thank you for inviting me. 

Speaker 1 

Absolutely. And before I introduce Kimberly, I just like for you all to know that the topic of today's show is surrounding equity within law firms. And so, with that being the topic of our discussion, I really believe that Kimberly is a great guest to have on our show today. Kimberly is an attorney practicing in California and a proud alumna of Howard University School of Law. Kimberly, welcome to the show. 

Speaker 3 

Hi Vickie, it's so great to be here. My pronouns are she her, and thank you to you and Krystle for inviting me. 

Speaker 1 

Absolutely. Kimberly, what would you like for our listeners to know about your experience? Like why would you be a good guest to have on this particular episode as we discuss equity in law firms? 

Speaker 3 

So, I am a huge proponent for people sharing their stories. I think there's this bias out there that unless you've accomplished something very big that the entire world will recognize that you shouldn't have to share your experiences in life. So one, I am going to be my biggest advocate and say I have a story to share. In particular, I think I have a story to share about equity in law firms because one, I have been an attorney and associate in law firms for 5 1/2 years before I transitioned into working in public interest and three, I think I would be pretty well suited to talk about just because DEI efforts or diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, I'm one of those types of people that those efforts are meant to serve because I do identify as a black woman. 

Speaker 1 

Wonderful. So, before we dig too deep into the topic regarding equity, Kimberly, I want us to have a little fun, just a little warm up and ask some fun fact questions so that our listeners can learn a bit about you. So Krystle, do you have any fun fact questions prepared for Kimberly today? 

Speaker 2 

I do. So, my first question, Kimberly, I'm curious what makes you laugh out loud? 

Speaker 3 

Well, right now what makes me laugh out loud are my kids. I have a 7-month-old and a 2-year-old and they're both boys and they are hilarious when they are interacting with one another, particularly my toddler. He is a little speech delayed but when he is trying to speak he makes the cutest sounds and I just can't help but laugh along with him. 

Speaker 2 

Does he get shy when he sees you laughing? 

Speaker 3 

I think he actually enjoys seeing the reaction from me and I think it encourages him to talk more. 

Speaker 2 

That's awesome. And then two more, maybe kind of work-related questions, what is one of your proudest accomplishments? 

Speaker 3 

One of my biggest accomplishments I would say when I worked on a pro bono project with the first law firm that I was hired with. This was back in 2016/17 and the case went all the way to the 9th Circuit and I can't attribute the success of the work only to myself and the attorneys I worked on with it. In that small amount of time, because the case had been pending since the early 2000s, but we were able to get a favorable decision on the protected class of homeless individuals and to pretty much outlaw anti-camping ordinances, probably across the nation, with this one case. And so, I was one of the lead attorneys on that case. I did not get the chance to do the argument, but I did participate heavily in the drafting of the brief. And so yeah, that's my favorite accomplishment to date. 

Speaker 2 

Yeah, that's awesome. That's really impressive. I love it. Kimberly, do you have like a favorite motto or ideology that you live by? 

Speaker 3 

I actually do, and it's actually like the 1st tattoo I ever got. It's the quote “I will remain confident in this that I will see the goodness of the Lord and the land of the living,” and that is a Bible verse. I am a woman of faith, and that verse keeps me grounded because it's not about just seeing goodness, but it's seeing goodness today and now, and I think especially with having kids in the environment that we're living in now, that helps me work as hard as I can to try to provide some of that goodness in the world for them to experience. 

Speaker 2 

Yeah, that's a really great one. Well, thanks so much, Kimberly.  appreciate just getting to know you a little bit more on like the personal side. I know Vickie has some more questions dealing specifically with our topic today. 

Speaker 1 

Absolutely. So, before we transition to talk more about equity within law firms, Kimberly, what would you like to share with us regarding your current role at the Natural Resources Defense Council? 

Speaker 3 

So, I am a staff attorney in the litigation department of the Natural Resources Defense Council, or we call it the NRDC, and I've been in this role for about a year. I would describe myself as a generalist litigation attorney, which means I go to court on behalf of Community groups who I would represent, or on behalf of the Natural Resources Defense Council itself. And NRDC is an environmental organization. I'm sure a lot of you have heard about them. We are one of the most active and largest environmental policy organization in the country, and so we're litigating things from climate change defending communities in contaminated neighborhoods as well as leading the front on policy initiatives in DC and in local governments. And so I'm a litigator, and I pride myself in the local work that I'm doing right now in the LA area. I work with grassroots organizations and help with their campaigns. I also am filing lawsuits locally as well. 

Speaker 1 

Interesting, so I'm curious to know what prompted your transition from working in law firms to doing what you do now. 

Speaker 3 

So, there's two main things. My main reason was that I would say about six years into my career I realized I'm mission focused and the mission of being an associate in a law firm is much different than being an attorney with an organization that has its own mission. I decided, I would say around my fifth year, that I wanted to be part of a bigger movement, and that's not to say any attorney who stays at a law firm is not part of a bigger movement. I just wanted to be part of the environmental movement. And so, my main decision to transition into public interest is because I wanted to serve my community. In a different way that removed myself from the picture. 

And then another reason I would say this is my second top reason is because I wanted to have more control over my work. We'll probably get into the nuts and bolts of what that means later, but I found that I didn't have as much control over the trajectory of my career in a law firm than I do in an organization as I am right now, that's policy focused and gives you that freedom to carve out your own path. 

Speaker 1 

I love that and that is a great segue to equity. In some cases I shall say, individuals confuse equity with equality, and so I would like your thoughts regarding those two words, because in my opinion they have two separate definitions. 

Speaker 3 

I completely agree, and it takes a little bit of time to truly understand the difference. You have to get it wrong a lot before you get it right, but I would say it comes down to equality meaning access, and equity meaning restorative access. And I think there's a lot of like cartoons out there that put this into context. 

Like there's the gentleman who's looking over the fence at a baseball game and he's standing on his own two feet standing next to the child who's standing on 3 boxes, but looking at the same thing. Those 3 boxes represent the equity, and the equality of the situation is that they both can look over the fence. So hopefully that provides a little context of what restorative access is in the sense that some people or some groups or some things just need a little bit more help to get to the same spot as others. 

Speaker 1 

Absolutely, and I totally agree with that and to your point, there are quite a number of cartoon images that that help tell the story as it relates to that, but the one that that I relate most to is the individuals looking over the fence, but to what you just shared, you know, in my opinion, equity regarding restorative access is we all need different things to be successful, but at the end of the day, as long as we all have the tools that we need as individuals to be successful so that it's an equal playing field, then there's opportunity for us to move forward and to thrive. 

And so, as it relates to equity within law firms, I'm really curious to hear some of your testimony, some of your experiences. I love there's so much power in storytelling, and so you know, I think that we can learn a lot from you know, any of your real life experiences as well. So, what examples of successful equitable practices have you observed or experienced as an attorney? We'll start with the good stuff. 

Speaker 3 

We should always start with the positive. It's always easy to find the problems and things, but I want to praise the efforts of the people and diversity committees that I have worked with. So just a little bit about me and my previous roles in private law firms. I've been on tons of diversity equity, and inclusion committees, whether it be through focus groups or leading committees myself, I've always made sure I was positioned to not only express my voice as someone who receives these efforts, but also to try to provide ways to improve and so I've seen things fail and I've seen things succeed. 

Let's talk about the things that I've seen in the real world that have worked, not only just for myself, but also for people who look like me and identify as diverse in other ways. And this might also try to put a little bit of context of the difference between equity and equality in the practice of law. In terms of hiring and recruiting, something that I've seen successful is not only going to different schools, you know, not just like the top tier like Yale, Stanford or Harvard. It's also dipping into maybe the top 30% or the Top 40% or top 50% of the top schools. Because what you're doing is opening access to those who are at top schools but are less advantaged in obtaining better grades, but they have a diverse perspective. 

Speaker 2 

I had one question I wanted to pose. This is just something that I've heard that the kind of objection to that was well for big law firms or for the big AmLaw firms, part of how they sell their high billing rates, how they market that is by having top 10% at only T14 law schools. So, I was just kind of curious what your answer would be for a law firm who wouldn't feel comfortable without having that answered. 

Speaker 3 

Oh yeah, and I've had these conversations actually before with hiring managers, so my counter because I'm a litigator, so I have to have a counter argument. My counter to that is that you don't hire immediately off the papers, you hire based on the interview. It's about getting the person into the interview, and we foreclose a lot of interviews to valuable talent because of a percentile. And what I have found is that top law schools have picked up on that and a lot of them now don't use the grading system. They use pass/fail because they want more of their students to be in the top law firms, so I will say we, as a legal industry, I think are moving away from that because law schools are picking up on the disadvantage of the numbers game, particularly with like the higher-ranking law schools. 

My second counter to that is, once the person gets into the interview, we are all discerning individuals. We will know if that person has the work ethic they need in order to be successful in your office. So, it's not just about like hiring someone just for the fact of hiring. It's about giving the opportunity to interview somebody and giving them access to the potential of an offer, and you know you can set up processes later to make sure a no worry yes is done in an equitable way, but I encourage law firms to dip deeper into the applicant pool because a lot of good talent is foreclosed the opportunity of working in their offices because of a percentile that's not reflective of true work ethic and true talent. 

Speaker 2 

Yeah, that's really great answer. 

Speaker 1 

Such a good answer, and so I want to add something else to that. You are a graduate of Howard University's law school, so as it relates to HBCUs getting the love that those students well deserve and they’re graduating in the top 10%. Like what are your thoughts regarding that as relates to AmLaw selection process and considering HBCU graduates? 

Speaker 3 

Yeah, so HBCUs definitely get love, particularly from DEI programs from law firms, because that's like the obvious place to find diverse top talent. But our schools are much smaller than the Harvards and the Yales, so our top 10% is like 5 people. It's not the 120 that may be at Georgetown, you're only interviewing literally a handful of people if you are trying to look for top diverse talent, I even mean it for HBCUs. You Need to dip further because you need to meet other people. You need to realize that work ethic is not necessarily reflective in the grades. 

And also what's interesting, especially at my school at Howard, is that a lot of our alumni and students have a lot of work experience. Like a lot of them went to law school after being an attorney in another country, or they came to law school after having worked in a different industry for several decades. Like a lot of my classmates were much older than me. But unfortunately, a lot of them haven't been in school immediately after undergrad and that sometimes is reflected in the grades, but it's not reflective of their work ethic or their experience and you lose the opportunity to meet with experts truly in an industry because you stop at the top five people. 

Another thing that I have found promotes equity in law firms is not only allowing associates to bill the same number of hours because, for those of you who don't know what billing hours is, that is like the bread and butter of being an associate. You need to bill a certain number of hours by the end of your billable year and what I have found, it's not just billing the same number of hours, but it's billing meaningful hours. And so, I've been part of diversity committees that track the type of hours that associates are working. Are they only doing the grunt work that is not legal in perspective. But are they doing the work that provides them that stand up experience in court or bills the actual skill sets so that they feel like they are included in the law firm’s meaningful work? 

This next example is very important to me because it has sparked a lot of good conversations internally with the firms I've worked with are upward reviews. So you know you talk about the annual review cycle where, as an associate, you receive the reviews or the evaluations from all the partners and senior associates that you work with. But that just kind of leaves you in the receiving end, so you receive good feedback and sometimes bad feedback that may not be representative of what your actual experience is. I've been at firms that do upward reviews where it allows you to review your experience with your supervisors and that gives really good information to have meaningful discussions about bias and also just opportunity to reconcile differences.  

And another successful, I would say equity effort, has been DEI committees that are committees of multiple people, not just committees of one. And I'm sure a lot of us are familiar with having like chair people of committees, but sometimes having one person making the veto decision of things is not the safest way. So, I've been with firms that have created not only just committees with chair people, but also committees with subcommittees that are making decisions as a community. And that's ultimately what equity requires community perspectives on individuals’ experiences. 

Speaker 1 

I love that, Kimberly, because you said some awesome things and planted some great seeds there. That final thought I really appreciate because diversity, equity and inclusion is not the work of one person. It's not the work of one team. It's not a silo initiative. It really is the work of the entire organization in order for it to be successful, and so I definitely agree with that. So, we talked about the good. Do you want to tell us a story, maybe one story or two, once upon a time? 

Speaker 3 

I've had a lot of negative experiences, but one negative experience that comes to mind happened early in my career. I was a new attorney and I was in a group meeting and I was asked to present my work. And I had an uncomfortable encounter with the partner who provided the instructions for that assignment that I was presenting on. So, I was presenting my work and this partner, you know she asked me to explain why I chose a specific method of analysis. And while I was responding, she cut me off and she claimed in front of my peers that I was being confrontational. In reality, I was just answering her question, but she likely felt challenged because she was my supervisor on the assignment. 

But I gaslighted myself at the time, believing that my tone was the problem and mattered more than the substantive work, which at the time was actually correct, and I never got credit for that fact. I've also been in scenarios where senior lawyers who supervised me have made racially charged jokes while working with third parties and I was just there witnessing it, but the jokes weren't directed toward me. You know whether the negative experience was a subtle microaggression or blatant racist comment, I have witnessed the gamut in my short time as an attorney. 

And they collectively do create an equitable environment that either stifles young attorneys from growing in their work due to mental anguish or professional fear. If the person making these biased remarks is senior enough. It's my opinion that equity initiatives must seek to challenge the norm that puts the onus on diverse people to forgive and forget it. Equity initiatives must disrupt offending colleagues, particularly senior colleagues, and force them to address their offending behavior. You know, without that disruption of equity initiatives, diverse talent are constantly fighting what seems to be acceptable biases and racism. While at the same time trying to do their work, and that's exhausting and not worth it and ultimately makes diverse employees like myself, leave firms in the end. 

Speaker 1 

Yeah, you know, I think it just boils down to self-awareness because the reality is that we all have biases. It's not a negative to have a bias, but it definitely can be perceived as a negative if you're not aware of your biases and how they are impacting in a negative way, your interaction with your counterparts, with any human that you interact with on a day-to-day. And self-awareness goes a long way, we all develop biases based on our own individual experiences. And so you know it takes time to kind of make that transition away, but in order for you to do so, you first have to acknowledge that the biases actually exist. So, I totally understand that. 

As it relates to barriers to equity in law firms and private practice, you gave one really good example as it relates to upward reviews, but any other examples of, and my take away from that is the implication is that that doesn't exist at a lot of law firms, and so what are some other barriers that you would like to share? Observations you've made? 

Speaker 3 

Yeah, of course. And just turning back to that upward review suggestion. What was beautiful about the upward reviews is that they were done actually anonymously. The review went to the senior level associate or went to the senior partner. However, the conversation did not begin unless the associate wanted to reveal themselves, the person who drafted the review. So it was then in a safe space and I truly appreciated and I took advantage of that myself when I was at that firm. 

But to talk more to the other barriers is that attorneys are notoriously bad people managers, and I don't mean that in like a derogatory way, I just mean like that's how we were trained. Those of you who've gone to law school or have interacted with the law school curriculums, we are taught to be adversarial, like we are taught there is a winner and a loser. We're taught to defend ourselves. We're taught to stand strong and firm in our opinions. Then we're thrown into the world and are expected to manage people. So law firms are lawyers in business with one another. 

And so we're just set up in a way to have like, unfortunately, not the greatest working environment. That said, the barrier is just that lack of training of how to manage people and to take feedback. I would say that a way around that is to utilize third parties. I think something you learn later on in your career is how to delegate, and I think law firms need to take more advantage of all the consulting firms that are out there who are gathering data and know how to manage people and know how to obtain feedback and turn that into meaningful solutions for creating better work environment. 

I would say another barrier is data management and obtaining information. Like a lot of our experiences, and by “our” I mean diverse people, a lot of our experiences are anecdotal, and as lawyers we're taught not to rely on anecdotal information. We need hard facts, hard numbers. So a lot of our anecdotal information and stories can be backed up with numbers. It's just law firms don't collect that information. We analyze our retention, but we don't analyze our turnover. We analyze who is here, but we don't analyze what is going out. 

And that also includes like what is our salary spread, like who is earning what and at what time and who is senior and was that senior person here when they were a baby attorney? Like are they homegrown or was it someone we had to hire in? And we only became diverse because we had to lateral in like mid level senior diverse attorneys. So I would say it's data management. I think law firms don't collect it because I mean it is bad information. It's not great to say to have hard numbers to back up the anecdotal information that you're not diverse. But yeah, I really encourage law firms to collect that information, even if it can't be shared outward. 

Speaker 1 

I agree with that. I'm not an attorney, everyone, let me just say for the record, but yeah, I've heard that a lot. But in addition to that, being able to track the “why,” why diverse talent is actually leaving a law firm, a private practice, a legal department within the corporation, it's important to know the “why” because it can speak to equity because those answers you know, if those individuals are not disgruntled on their way out and they're transparent and forthcoming with the actual reason why they're leaving, it has a lot of value as it relates to additional improvements that can take place within a law firm. 

Speaker 3 

Yeah, absolutely, and I want to encourage firms to also not completely discredit anecdotal information because while it may take a while and it may be expensive to hire third parties to come in and do an audit of your records, anecdotal information is powerful from even just like on a short-term basis. Even if it's not used for long-term solutions. 

And I always like to give this example of when I was recruiting from my school for a firm I worked for, one of the things they required us to do is if we said no to a candidate, we had to give an explicit reason why. I think it's really easy for hiring managers to come out of an interview or to just to look at someone's resume and just say, “they don't fit our culture, their vibe doesn't sit right with me.” When I was on a hiring committee for diverse candidates, we required attorneys to state explicit reasons why this person would not be a good fit and that led to a lot of personal, for the hiring people, a lot of personal reflection on why someone did not sit well with them. 

Sometimes we went over people who interviewed these candidates and still hired for our summer programs because we realized that the “no” was not a valid no. So, the anecdotal information can be powerful in the short term, particularly with hiring, because sometimes just relying on the senior partner. Saying no is not enough that you need to ask them why, and that anecdotal information is really helpful in that case. 

Speaker 1 

Oh I love that and to the data, you know, understanding like what that hiring team consists of, is there diversity on that hiring team? Because if not, then we talked about biases that we all have, unless that hiring team, that interviewing team is diverse, there is an opportunity for those biases to seep in just based on cultural experiences. 

And so it's important to have a diverse hiring team and to be able to reflect back on why wasn't this person hired? Well, if the entire hiring committee or team, and there's not one person of color and this person is not hired or we're not seeing the trend of people of color being hired, then maybe one of the reasons is because there's not enough representation on that hiring team that can relate to certain questions or how to pose certain questions to pull the right information out of that individual. 

I think that goes a long way as well. And also, when you reach that final phase of the candidate pool and you're looking at who's in front of you as relates to, let's just say resumes and maybe of four resumes in front of you, only one is diverse, and if it's not equity there as well, and I will say equality, if there's not like a balance there as it relates to diversity, the likeliness of that one person being selected for in a particular position could lead to it not being a diverse candidate only because there's not diversity in that final stage of the process as well. 

Speaker 3 

Yeah, and I I also want to make a touch point because this is my own personal journey in terms of like uncovering my own biases. Because just because you know, I'm a diverse person doesn't mean I don't carry my own things I need to unpack. and so when a lot of people think about diversity, equity, and inclusion, we usually immediately think race or gender or sexual orientation, but we forget about those other demographics or other living experiences that are diverse like single parents, age, people with disabilities. 

Speaker 2 

Religious affiliations. 

Speaker 3 

Exactly, religious affiliations, just generally like cultural differences. You wonder like why those candidates or applicants are not providing their resumes to your organization. Is there a barrier for why we're not receiving applicants who are disabled? Is there a barrier for why we're not receiving applicants of different religious backgrounds or whatnot. So I want people to realize there is a higher level of DEI work that we haven't reached and it goes beyond race and gender and sexual orientation, and we're not going to reach it unless we start thinking and having these types of conversations more. 

Speaker 1 

Absolutely, 100% agree with that. I wanted to talk before we end this episode, which has been awesome. Kimberly, I love these deep conversations. So Kimberly has a TikTok presence. Kimberly, tell us about TikTok. We want to know. 

Speaker 3 

I discovered TikTok during the pandemic, probably like a lot of people. I actually downloaded it the day that it was supposed to become banned in the nation. Thankfully, it didn't, but yeah, I downloaded it and I started discovering people who looked like me talking about similar experiences, and I think all of us experienced the pandemic in a similar way that we were all isolated with our thoughts. And I think it provided a sort of like therapy and catharsis for me, realizing that I wasn't on an island by myself with these thoughts and feelings of my experiences in law firms, and that if there is a common experience then there are probably common solutions. 

And so, that's when I learned about the power of my voice. I just started talking about my experience. I started talking about, generally about my experience as a black woman. Also, as a young parent. And then I just started talking about my work experience once I finally went back to work because I had my first child during the pandemic, which is very difficult. 

So yeah, I do have a TikTok and on it, I critique allyship, I talk about the ins and outs of how to be a good ally and how allies also aren't great in certain instances. And I've recently taken a turn and started talking more about mental health and DEI efforts because I decided I wanted to become more positive in my outlook because you have to set the tone for your life and we can talk about the bad, but we should also talk about the good and ways we can connect. 

Speaker 1 

Yes, and those individuals that are curious how can they find you on TikTok? 

Speaker 3 

I guess I can include it in my little bio for this episode. But it is w.deliberate.interest, but the “with” is just the W. But yeah, it'll be in the bio of this episode. 

Speaker 1 

Awesome. Kimberly, it has been a joy to connect with you. I would love to have you to join us again at some point next year if you're interested. 

Speaker 3 

Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean my experience will be much different now I'm in the public interest space but still doing DEI work. 

Speaker 1 

Wonderful. Any parting thoughts? Something that you feel like you know what I want to say one more thing I know we didn't really talk a lot about this, but I don't want to leave this episode without sharing this? 

Speaker 3 

I will say equity is the work that you don't boast about. I would say that law firms do receive a lot of accolades for their diversity improvements, but equity work is sometimes talking about the negative of what's going on, what needs to be fixed. And so, it can be discouraging work putting together an equity program within your organization. But I don't want those who are in charge of equity programs in their law firms to get discouraged because equity facilitates a culture of equality and that's the goal to facilitate equality. And you have to keep pushing, but realize that the end result doesn't necessarily end up in an accolade, but it does end up in an environment that is positive and helps diverse people like me, like you, like Krystle, to thrive. 

Speaker 1 

And it increases employee retention. 

Speaker 3 

Absolutely, you don't want to keep investing in employees and then they're leaving like, I mean, there's also money. 

Speaker 1 

Well, thank you. Thank you so much, Krystle. Thank you, Kimberly, and thank you again for tuning in to another episode of Not Your Average DEI Podcast. Talk soon.