August 2018

Capital Connection is published monthly for members of the Capital Chapter of the Association of Legal Administrators to provide information for the education and benefit of legal administrators, law office managers, managing partners of law firms, and other law related associations. Capital Connection is not engaged in rendering legal, financial, or tax counseling or advice through this publication.  The contents of all articles, letters, and advertisements published in Capital Connection should not be considered endorsements by the Capital Chapter of ALA nor the opinion expressed therein of any products advertised.   Contributing authors are requested and expected to disclose financial and/or professional interests and affiliations that may influence their writing position. Articles and materials accepted for publication are subject to editing by the editorial team and become property of the Capital Chapter of the Association of Legal Administrators. Links to Capital Connection may not be shared without permission from the Chapter. 
Editors: Cindy Conover; Valerie L. Williamson
Associate Editor: Paula Serratore
​Contributing Editors: Jenna Carter; Michelle Sharpe Silverthorn; rand* construction; Richard Levychin; Philip O'Sullivan; Erin Greenlee; Rhodes Perry, MPA; Jackie Thomas; Howie Schaffer
Newsletter Designed By: Jessica Davis


In this issue:

President's Message

Jenna Carter

New and Returning ALA Capital Chapter Members

Marilyn R. Williams
Kellogg Hansen Todd Figel & Frederick PLLC
Secretary Director
1615 M Street, NW
Suite 400
Washington, DC 20036
mwilliams@kellogghansen.com

Members on the Move

Please join us in wishing the following member well in her new position:
LaVerne Anenia, SHRM-SCP
Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP
Intellectual Property Practice Group Director
1500 K Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
LaVerne.Anenia@dbr.com

'Implicit Bias': The Problem and How to Interrupt It. Plus, the Beads Test.​

Michelle Sharpe Silverthorn
Diversity and Education Director, Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism

Let me tell you a story about implicit bias. In 2009, I married a man I met the first day of law school. He is white. I am black. We live on Chicago’s North Side. I often walk around my neighborhood with my two biracial kids. My kids could pass for white. And because I am black, I am often assumed, by some well-meaning parents, to be my children’s nanny. I am asked how much I am paid, do I have any friends looking for work, or am I looking for work. I was once told, “You treat them just like your own kids!”

​And it’s not just what’s said. It’s what unsaid. It’s when those well-meaning parents don’t sit next to you on the bench, include you in conversations, or look you directly in the eye, because they think you are the nanny.

When they treat you like someone who just doesn’t belong. Now they would never claim they were doing it on purpose, or that they were acting biased at all, until you ask them, “Why do you think I am the nanny?”

See, this is implicit bias. And it helps explain (in part) the rash of publicly reported incidents over the past month of white people calling police on people of color who look like they just don’t belong.

It’s because (in part) they think one thing should only be this way, because they have only ever seen it this way, and cannot adjust their mind to seeing it any way else.

How can we interrupt that bias? How can you interrupt that bias?

Start by accepting that we all have biases. We need to stop pretending we don’t notice differences. We do; we all do, even if it’s unconscious.

Then, examine your circle of influencers. There’s a great exercise I’ve done at my job. I give you a glass bowl and an empty cup. The bowl has beads of six different colors. I assign each bead a different race or ethnicity. Then I ask you to assign beads to the names or categories that I list to represent the race or ethnicity of that person or group. For each that you have an answer for, put one or more beads in your cup. “You.” Put a bead or beads in your cup. “Your significant other or spouse.” “Your neighborhood that you grew up in.” “Your childhood best friend.” “Your favorite teacher in elementary school.” “The author of your favorite book.” “Your favorite professor.” “Your boss.” “Your wedding party.” “Your current neighborhood.” “Your first mentor.” “Your doctor.” “Your dentist.” “Your senator.” “Your president.”

Now look at your cup. Is it as diverse as you would have thought? Is it mainly one color? This is the world you have built for yourself. These are the sources of the biases in your head, and the result of acting on those biases. What does your cup look like? Who’s in your world?
One last tip. Get uncomfortable. A white friend once said she would feel uncomfortable attending an all-black church. I responded that I understood because I have been in more all-white churches than I can count. And all-white conference rooms. And all-white elevators. And all-white classrooms, bars, weddings and hockey games.
​
Minorities live and breathe in majority spaces. If you want to interrupt bias, then start entering spaces where you are the minority. Become aware of your biases. Become aware of your expectations. Become aware of what you say and how you think of people who don’t fit into your preconceived notions. That’s the start of interrupting implicit bias.

This article has been reprinted with permission

August 2018 Diversity Observances

August 6: Transfiguration, a holiday recognized by Orthodox Christians to celebrate when Jesus communed with Moses and Elijah on Mount Tabor. To celebrate, adherents have a feast.

August 17: Marcus Garvey Day, which celebrates the birthday of the Jamaican politician and activist who is revered by Rastafarians. Garvey is credited with starting the Back to Africa movement, which encouraged those of African descent to return to the land of their ancestors during and after slavery in North America.

August 21-25: Eid Al-Adha an Islamic festival to commemorate the willingness of Ibrahim (also known as Abraham) to follow Allah's (God's) command to sacrifice his son Ishmael. Muslims around the world observe this event.

​August 23: International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and the anniversary of the uprising in Santo Domingo (today Haiti and the Dominican Republic) that initiated the abolition of slavery in the Caribbean.

August 25: Hungry Ghost Festival, a Chinese holiday where street, market, and temple ceremonies take place to honor dead ancestors and appease other spirits.

August 25: Raksha Bandhan, a Hindu holiday commemorating the loving kinship between a brother and a sister. Raksha means protection in Hindi, and symbolizes the longing a sister has to be protected by her brother. During the celebration, a sister ties a string around her brother’s (or brother-figure’s) wrist, and asks him to protect her. The brother usually gives the sister a gift and agrees to protect her for life.
​
August 26: Women’s Equality Day, which commemorates the August 26, 1920 certification of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution that gave women the right to vote. Congresswoman Bella Abzug first introduced a proclamation for Women’s Equality Day in 1971. Since that time, every president has published a proclamation recognizing August 26 as Women’s Equality Day.

rand* construction Spotlight:
How to Work Smarter: Construction Collaboration and the Tools that Make a Difference

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rand* construction

​Construction projects are facing increasing schedule, budget, and quality pressures.  Clients, building owners, construction managers, and architects are increasingly engaged.  For many law firm administrators who consider starting a new construction project, the feeling of dread and foreboding may be more common than excitement and enthusiasm.  Over the past decade, new collaborative processes, tools and technology have been made it easier to have a rewarding experience.  Smart project managers are learning how to control what could be a fast, complex processes into three logical steps: on your mark, get set, go. Or said another way, plan, prepare, execute.

Plan for the space you really need and want and engage your contractor as early as possible.  Facing the scrutiny of time deadlines, very few clients and design firms have the time or money to work out every detail, leaving opportunity for misunderstandings in the field. A few simple examples of ensuring collaboration and alignment of intent at the beginning of a project are:
  • Full-team review of project goals. By the time a contractor gets engaged a client team has been in hours of meetings to discuss the project.  These goals may relate to project functionality, design intent, quality and budget.
  • Test design elements of the project to reduce missteps.  Create mock-ups of critical items. Set up structured discussions to discuss design intent and ask the contractor to help suggest faster or less expensive solutions.   
  • Discuss your expectations for the project including special client culture issues and branding desires. The nuances and shared lexicon are important.

Prepare for discoverable unknowns prior to mobilizing and beginning construction.  There are many technology advances which help in predicting potential areas of risk, cost overruns, or schedule delays.  Examples include:
  • Constructability reviews:  review the design and materials, prerelease packages and other potential elements that can help lower general conditions and increase schedule control.
  • Existing conditions survey and report: Although every situation is different, there are a few common challenges.  Utilizing scanning machines for a few hours in the new space identify floor leveling issues, plenum issues, and core issues.  If the project is modeled in software such as Revit, clashes in MEP, structure, and design features can be identified and rectified well before construction.
  • Smart subcontractor selection: for success for the special nuances of your project, make sure subcontractors have the right skills, temperament and pricing before becoming engaged. Consider subcontractor interviews for critical project elements.

Execute the project with structured teamwork and communication.  Increasingly your project team members may be in completely different geographies. The project management, preconstruction, and procurement teams needed to be a single voice while managing the trades, maintain construction costs, purchasing materials while the field staff utilized technical expertise and technology to overcome significant site challenges. The team’s ability to effectively and efficiently communicate the exchange of critical information and documents with the remote teams saved the project time and mitigated additional costs.
  • Structured communication strategies for meetings and team interactions are important to establish at the very first project meeting.  The meetings should be structured around results and future issues, rather than getting bogged down in detailed debate and discussion.
  • Clear instantaneous availability and communication of current project issues, either through a web-based communication structure or data repository in a way that enables team members to make critical, informed decisions, without overloading the team with unnecessary phone calls and emails.
  • Web-based project management systems that are accessible from anywhere and allow for instant creation of RFI’s and punchlists utilizing virtual plans, photo references, and checklist formats.  Critical information can be transmitted to subcontractors, suppliers, and team members instantaneously, keeping projects on schedule, and facilitating shortened, collaborative and cohesive issue resolution and project close-out process.
  • In person submittal reviews, or submittal parties and other non-tech ways to reduce the back-and-forth redundancy of the old way of doing submittals.  Team members get together in person or virtually to discuss submittals so that feedback is clear and response times are minimized for all parties.
  • Full scale field offices are becoming more prevalent especially for larger or more complex projects.  With an internet hot spot and mobile technology, office and field team members can work side-by-side when needed to ensure smooth communication and immediate response times.
  • Collaborative web-based punch list parties that allow everyone with an Ipad to walk through a site simultaneously taking photos, pinning them to a plan, and making notes to ensure all punch list items are identified simultaneously. This allowed the team to focus on the appropriate manpower and subcontractors, sequence the work properly and complete the punchlist quickly.

​There are many more ways that collaboration techniques and technology are improving the construction process for the benefit of the client and all team members.  Better, faster, cheaper is quickly becoming a reality when using sophisticated contractors.

Why Your CQ is Just as Important as Your IQ (and EQ)

Richard Levychin
Partner-in-Charge of the Emerging Business Group, KBL LLP Certified Public Accountants and Advisors

Many factors contribute to professional success. Hard work is one, but it is not enough. Having a high IQ combined with hard work is no longer enough.

Having a high EQ, which stands for emotional quotient and measures one's ability to connect to people on an emotional level, combined with hard work and a high IQ used to be enough, but it is also no longer sufficient to lead to professional success.

Today's and tomorrow's professionals will also have to own a high CQ, a measure of cultural intelligence and the ability to interact comfortably and successfully with other cultures. Studies have shown that people with a high CQ perform better on multicultural work teams than those with a low CQ. A study published in 2011 in the Journal of Social Issues found that cultural intelligence was a stronger predictor of the cross-border effectiveness of Swiss military leaders than either general intelligence or emotional intelligence.

The person deciding whether you get access to your next opportunity, be it a job offer, project, financing, or something else, may have a different cultural background than yours. Do you possess a high enough CQ to engage with him or her in such a way that distinguishes you from your competition and gets you the opportunity?

As business becomes more global, CPA firms and other business entities will begin to measure a prospective candidate's cultural intelligence as a way of determining if he or she can engage with clients or customers who are from different cultures.

The primary purpose for improving CQ is to increase a firm's revenue. To implement a platform that encourages increasing the CQ of a firm's professionals for any purpose other than one that is directly tied to a significant positive impact on the firm's profit-and-loss statement will run out of steam quickly. The business case for CQ ends with a positive return on investment.

FINDING COMMON GROUND
Several years ago I was referred to a well-known and powerful synagogue in Stamford, Conn. When I went to the synagogue, I was the only person of color in the building. I went to meet with the synagogue's rabbi and financial officer and before entering the rabbi's offices donned a yarmulke. The three of us then engaged in a 30- to 45-minute conversation on Jewish culture and the history of the synagogue before discussing the synagogue's specific business issues. I ended up closing the business.

A few weeks later I met with the managing partner of a midsize law firm who had been born in Israel and had served in the Israeli army. I happened to mention that that synagogue was a client. That literally was the icebreaker of the meeting. I ended up with a referral to a client of theirs in the airline industry that became a public company audit client of our firm, as well as a technology company whose principals were also from Israel and also became an audit client.
Possessing cultural intelligence, particularly as it relates to Jewish culture, was probably the differentiating factor that put me ahead of my competition in securing that business. I have had similar success meeting with decision-makers who were black, Asian, female, gay, Hispanic, or combinations of the above.

Having a high CQ also comes into play when attracting quality talent. Today's up-and-coming professionals want more cultural diversity in both their personal and business lives. And they also want their places of work to be culturally diverse. To attract and retain the quality of talent that can interact in a global marketplace, firms will need to increase their CQ so that they can speak to and attract a larger number of quality professionals. The more people you are exposed to, the better chance you have to hire the right staff members.

So how does one develop and improve his or her CQ?

Accounting is a profession that combines continued learning and application of that learning. Cultural intelligence cannot be learned. The road to cultural intelligence starts with unlearning the unconscious biases that we have developed and embedded into our belief systems over time as they relate to other cultures (see "How to Counteract Unconscious Biases"). Unlearning involves creating a state called "no mind," which is based on being able to interact with others without having assumptions about who you think they are playing in the background of your thoughts while you engage with them.

PRACTICE INTERACTIONS
I believe that to authentically engage in the practice of "no mind" one needs to first acknowledge that maintaining such a state permanently is impossible. In other words, you cannot just simply flip an "off" switch and have unconscious biases go away forever. You can only maintain this state for periods of time.

Despite its name, the concept of "no mind" is a form of mindfulness. As you probably know, the practice of mindfulness has been around for a while. However, it is a practice. It is not a "perfect." And when you don't practice the state of "no mind," all you can do is work harder to do better next time. Even the most evolved person has unconscious biases. Realize that you have unconscious biases and there are times that they will influence your actions and decisions, and that is part of being human. Acknowledge it when it happens from a very human space, and then learn the lesson that the opportunity of screwing it up afforded you, and then move forward. 

I recently served on the AICPA's National Commission on Diversity & Inclusion. I introduced a session called "Conversations About Race" that was led by an interracial married couple. Within the session participants were matched with other accounting professionals from different cultures. Within these groups they were put through a series of exercises that allowed everyone to interact from this place of "no mind." After the exercises the session leaders engaged in a conversation about cultural diversity. The participants were highly engaged in the conversation and participated enthusiastically. By first actually engaging with someone of a different culture from the space of "no mind," participants had the physical experience of what this felt like. This provided the necessary relativity of what the opposite would look like.

The concepts of cultural intelligence discussed here focus on creating a platform of experiential learning where all cultures participate together and interact directly. These platforms create experiences of what it feels like to be in diverse environments and, for those who choose to engage in these types of practices in their firm, recommend that measurement of success be tied directly to the firm's profit-and-loss statement, specifically to how increased CQ contributes to increased revenue, increased staff retention rates, and lower labor costs.

Soft skills and team-building courses combined with content that focuses on cultural diversity are good starts toward the unlearning process and developing a higher CQ. But, like anything else, mastery comes from practice. And practice consists of a professional's willingness to consistently enter situations that include people from different cultures and engage in deep conversations and interactions with them, with an eye toward creating the state of "no mind." The more you engage in these types of interactions, the more key cultural nuances you will learn and the higher your CQ will become.

This article originally appeared in the Journal of Accountancy. ©2018 Association of International Certified Professional Accountants. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.

A Letter from 2016 Toni K. Allen Scholarship Recipient Philip O'Sullivan

Dear Foundation Board:

I hope this letter finds you all well. I just finished another fantastic year at school and I wanted to update you all on what I have been doing since we were last in touch and to once again express my thanks for supporting me and helping me fund my education at the University of Chicago. I am happy to report that I have kept up the good work in my classes; I earned an A in all four classes I took my spring quarter and I finished the year with a cumulative GPA of 3.97. Based on my grades during my second year, I have made the Dean's List again for the 2017 - 2018 academic year.

In terms of my classes, I had the chance to take some very interesting classes as well. Of all the classes I took in the winter and spring I think the three most interesting were Baseball and American Culture, Roman Law and Latin America during the Age of Revolutions. The Baseball and American Culture course used baseball as a lens through which to study U.S. cultural history, touching on a variety of topics from race relations to consumerism to the labor rights movement. The course on Roman Law explored both the theoretical underpinnings of Roman legal theory and how the system actually worked in practice for those living within the boundaries of the Roman Empire. My favorite part of that class was reading legal petitions to the emperor written by more­ or less ordinary people, as it was interesting to see the day-to-day concerns of people back then. I also found the course on Latin American Revolutions especially interesting, as it gave me the chance to explore the background and ideas behind the independence revolutions that swept Latin America during the 1800s. It was very interesting to explore the similarities and differences between those revolutions and the other prominent ones in the Atlantic during that time period (Namely the Haitian, French and American revolutions).

Outside of class I had the opportunity to start a new job as a data analyst working under sociology Professor Robert Vargas, author of the critically acclaimed book Wounded City, which explored how ward redistricting affects levels of gang violence. Professor Vargas runs a research lab -- the Violence, Law and Politics Lab -- which examines the intersections between violence and urban policy. Along with several other undergraduates, I am working as a data analyst helping Professor  Vargas  with  his work.  Along with another student, I am currently  focusing  on investigating how police misconduct complaints and lawsuits affect police behavior and people's interactions with the police. If everything goes well this summer we hope to produce something that could be potentially published some day.

In addition to my new job, I also had the chance to take on additional leadership roles in my extracurricular activities. This year I was elected Vice President of Finance and Logistics of the Moot Court team. In my new role I am in charge of managing the team's $11,000+ budget and dealing with all the logistics of everything the team does. This includes everything from getting teams to competitions in the fall (renting cars, booking hotel rooms, paying registration fees, etc.) to running the invitation tournament we host each year. I am also one of the officers who represents the club during the annual allocations process where we have to request funding from student government. This year we managed to secure an over $4,000 increase in allocations from the previous year as our club continues to grow and thrive.
 
I have also remained involved in my leadership in other areas of student life, joining the Inter-House Council in addition to remaining treasurer of my house council and secretary of the broader International House/Stony Island Council (which represents some 400+ students). In all three of these groups I work with other students to provide fun events and programming and relay feedback to the college on relevant issues of student life.

However, my year wasn't just entirely work, as I also had fun with my friends enjoying Chicago. My highlights were definitely visiting all the interesting restaurants and shops Chicago has to offer. The most interesting place I went was the Chicago Diner, a renowned vegetarian diner that makes traditional American food (burgers, french fries, etc.) without meat. I don't think I will be heading back there anytime soon but it was certainly interesting to try their meat alternatives. My favorite place I visited was Sabri Nihari, an excellent Pakistani restaurant in the Devon Street neighborhood. Their food was so amazing, my friends and I ended up going back there, even though the commute on public transit is an hour and a half one way. Some friends and I also had the chance to complete a very delicious "dessert run" of various dessert shops downtown. My favorite place was Mindy's Hot Chocolate.

This summer I will be spending most of my time in Chicago. My primary focus will be studying for the Law School Admissions Test, as I begin the first steps on my journey towards my long-term goal of becoming an attorney. The exam is on September 8th, so wish me luck as I study! I will also continue working part-time at the Violence, Law and Politics Lab throughout the summer and pursuing my aforementioned research.

I will also be back in D.C. briefly from September 10th to the 16th before heading back to school early to participate as a student leader in the orientation program for incoming freshmen. I hope to continue my good work in the future. If there is anything I can do to give back, please let me know!

Have a Happy Summer!

​Philip O'Sullivan 

Sunjay Nath Presents 10-80-10 Principle

Erin Greenlee
Assistant Manager, Design Department, Banner & Witcoff, Ltd.​

On July 17, in the lovely Sidley Austen LLP conference room, the ALA Capital Chapter hosted its most recent lunch and learn event, a presentation by Sunjay Nath on his 10-80-10 Principle. Nath started an international speaking business at age 19, and earned his Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) certification in 2005, making him the youngest Canadian to receive that honor. His lively presentation centered on using the 10-80-10 Principle to unlock dynamic performance by focusing on three learning objectives: conserving time and energy by focusing goals on specific activities or behaviors, increasing output using fewer resources, and bolstering people’s strengths in order to cultivate a desired organization culture.

By the time the lunch portion of the event was complete, ALA Capital Chapter members eager to learn had crowded into the conference room. Immediately after his introduction, when Nath requested that half of the room relocate so he could address everyone across only half of the large conference room table, attendees began to have an inkling that his presentation style was something out of the common way. Beginning his presentation with an icebreaker game of “Sunjay Says,” a play on “Simon Says” that resulted in nearly everyone in the room being called out in less than a minute, Nath warmed up the crowd and promptly dove into the substance of his presentation. Using his whole body, and especially his facial expressions, Nath created a dynamic, engaging, and even at times hilarious backdrop to the substantive content of his presentation.

Many are familiar with the Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, an economic principle that states that 80 percent of the effects are the result of 20 percent of the causes. Nath’s 10-80-10 Principle takes this concept one step further by identifying how different positive or negative results are derived over time when the focus and choices of leaders empower individuals. Specifically, for any behavior, all individuals in a group fall into a roughly 10-80-10 alignment, with a top ten percent that exemplifies the behavior, a bottom ten percent that does not do so, and a majority 80 percent that is seeking leadership. Because the majority 80 has not already self-designated as subscribing or not subscribing to a behavior, it can be swayed by either the top or the bottom ten percent, depending on which group is empowered by the leadership.

Nath argued that focusing on trying to change the minds of the bottom ten is ultimately demoralizing for leaders and it also creates a culture in which goals are not met. While a natural way to tackle achieving a goal might involve attempting to change the minds of those who are opposed to the goal (bottom ten), leaders who operate this way spend time and energy on an uncertain and likely improbable result. Spending time and energy in this way also has the more insidious effect of empowering the bottom ten, leaving the remaining 90 percent ignored and creating an effect that pulls the majority 80 in the opposite direction from the goal. Although possibly more benign, focusing on the majority 80 is also ineffective because one leader will not always have time to engage fully with all members of that group in order to effect change, especially because the majority 80 might not readily buy into the leader’s goals.

Nath presents on leadership to youths in addition to adults, and he noted that adults often do not allow themselves to see that they, like youths, are susceptible to peer pressure, able to be swayed by group behaviors. Without outlining his goal, Nath called for volunteers as he sought to demonstrate how adults form a part of the majority 80 in this way. The four “volunteers” were, in fact, three plants and one true volunteer. The plants were to act contrary to Nath’s instructions, silently pressuring the volunteer to follow suit. Unfortunately, this author was not only an eager volunteer but also was not about to be caught in another Sanjay Says dupe, and ruined the effect of the activity by refusing to be cowed.

Referring to Newton’s law that an object in motion stays in motion and an object at rest stays at rest, Nath earnestly entreated his listeners to consider that the law of physics was essentially a more fundamental truth: action follows action and inaction follows inaction. Although the top ten is already on board with the leader’s goal, and focusing energy on that group is ostensibly a waste of time, the simple action of focusing energy on that group is an action that will create ripples of further action among the majority 80 that is seeking direction. Empowering the top ten by focusing on those individuals who self-align with a stated goal allows leaders to deputize a group of individuals who are in a position effect change in the majority 80.

It is important to note that the 10-80-10 Principle is extremely specific, dedicated to whatever behavior is associated with a specific goal. Individuals fall into any one of the three groups depending on their own feelings in any given area, meaning that the individuals with whom leaders should engage vary depending on specific goals. In order to use the 10-80-10 Principle effectively, Nath provided the A.C.T. acronym to help guide decision making. Beginning with an Awareness of the specific goal, leaders can hone in on the top ten and bottom ten behaviors that speak to that goal, making it easy to identify the individuals already exemplifying those behaviors. Next, leaders should make a conscious Choice to neutralize the bottom ten behaviors and to empower the top ten behaviors. Not surprisingly, neutralizing behaviors simply entails expending the smallest amount of energy possible to negate adverse effects of the bottom ten. Once leaders have identified specific goals and make conscious choices about empowering specific behaviors, Nath assured attendees that A and C would Transform the whole group, leading to a healthier organization culture.

Ignite the Belonging at Work Movement

Rhodes Perry, MPA

Nearly 15 years ago, I began my first year working for the White House Office of Management and Budget. I entered a world where nearly all of my colleagues looked somewhat like me and shared similar life experiences. Many came from middle class families, graduated from prestigious universities, and had impressive employment histories. When considering racial and gender diversity, the organization made strides, and yet still had a long way to go before authentically reflecting the people of the United States.
 
My division in particular grappled with critical policy matters impacting the most vulnerable communities living across the United States. We helped inform safety net programs such as Social Security, Disability Insurance, TANF, and food stamps to name only a few. These safety net programs were an attempt to address the disastrous impacts of generational poverty rooted in systematic discrimination that adversely impacts people of color, women, people with disabilities, immigrants, LGBTQ people, and those living at the intersections.
 
The colleagues I had the privilege to work beside were whip-smart, passionate, and caring people. Collectively, we did our best to build empathy for the recipients of the programs we were charged with managing. Unfortunately, most within our organization lacked direct experiences to people who were surviving poverty. Bridging this empathy gap posed considerable challenges for some of the organization’s decision-makers, which created barriers to making compassionate decisions that had the best interests of those living in poverty.
 
Had our organization reflected the many different identities, backgrounds, lived experiences, and different perspectives of our country’s unparalleled diversity, I have no doubt our policy decisions would have helped foster a more compassionate and equitable country, especially for those living at the margins. To visibly see White House officials who look like you, who understand your concerns, and who are committed to keeping your best interests at heart when making decisions about your livelihood helps anyone feel a sense of belonging.
 
When it comes to the workplace, the essential ingredients for anyone to feeling a sense of belonging include: 1) knowing that you matter, 2) feeling like your work has purpose, and 3) being valued for who you are. As I consider how much more work is needed to cultivate this sense of belonging in the workplace, I am hopeful because I have had the privilege of helping many executives dig in and act on helping all of their people feel a sense of belonging. It’s because of these leaders that I wrote the book, Belonging at Work: Everyday Actions You Can Take to Build Diverse & Inclusive Organizations, which will be available in November.
 
The book empowers leaders – and those on their way to joining them – with a firm understanding as to what it means to truly “belong” at work. It also clarifies why the feeling of belonging matters for all of your people, not just your employees. Most importantly, it offers concrete strategies to help you cultivate the sense of belonging at work. Essentially, this book is a blueprint of the everyday actions you can take to support a growing movement of people who long for meaningful work aligning with their authentic selves. Leaders who crack the code in figuring out how to cultivate this feeling will ensure their organization remains relevant for future generations.
 
The good news – many leaders like us want to foster this sense of belonging for their people. Intuitively, they understand that most of us desire to be accepted at work, and recognized for our contributions. This desire is hardwired in our DNA as it is a core human need codified by Abraham Maslow’s famous “Pyramid of Needs.” The challenge we face is that we must compel our busy and overworked colleagues to join us in this movement to build healthier, more inclusive organizations. Far too many of us tend to get caught in the weeds, and we forget that when we invest in doing the work, the long-term gains are invaluable.
 
Belonging at Work encourages us to imagine what it feels like to truly belong at work. To imagine ways we can show up and be more authentic in our work. To step up as the leaders we’ve been waiting for, and to join a movement where we build diverse and inclusive organizations. Inclusive organizations help our people thrive, our organizations innovate, and our communities prosper. The book gives us the permission and courage necessary to take risks where we can build commitment among even the most recalcitrant managers and supervisors and support in taking meaningful action to demonstrate our commitment to inclusion.
 
Belonging at Work is the aspirational north star so many of our organizations travel great distances to reach. The book pushes us to reach this destination by moving beyond lip service and taking our work a step further by ensuring that our people feel valued for their knowledge, respected for their skills, and given the space to be themselves. The book underscores that belonging isn’t something where our people are expected to conform to an implicit culture that only serves those who are most enfranchised. Rather, belonging values each-and-every person’s authentic self at work, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because if we delay, our organization may not be around to have another chance.
 
The book urges leaders to recognize that we can no longer check off the proverbial “diversity” box and delegate this essential work to a small team carrying the burden of transforming our organization’s culture. As Harry Truman famously said, “the buck stops here.” As leaders, we must embrace this quote by taking full responsibility for either the successes we achieve from courageously including all of our stakeholders – from our employees, to our staff, to those we serve – or owning our failures, and then recommitting to doing the work required to make the changes we desire and help our organizations get better over the long-term.
 
Too many leaders, especially white men like me, fail to do more than mere lip service when it comes to making an organizational commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. While it’s important to set the tone through our casual conversations and public statements, it won’t yield the type of organizational change we need to ensure our organizations remain relevant. To truly honor our commitments, we must act in alignment with our stated values, commit personal time to understand what matters most to our people, respect the people on our team who are different from us, and commit to remaining open to learning and role modeling whenever possible.
 
The reality is that we have everything we need to succeed, and yet many of us struggle with where to start. While some leaders intuitively know how to communicate a sense of belonging and purpose at work, others become frozen with fear, and fail to take any action primarily because they are afraid of doing the “wrong thing.” Belonging at Work is especially for those leaders doubting their ability to cultivate this feeling. The book offers a compelling case as to why leaders should communicate a sense of belonging to their people, and it offers simple everyday actions any individual in the workplace can immediately take.
 
Given our current cultural and political climate, the time is right to do what is right. Inaction can lead to disastrous consequences that often result in business leaders being forced to resign from their positions due to high profile diversity, equity, and inclusion failures that embroil their organizations. These leaders are those who failed to take intentional, measurable, and meaningful actions – the type of actions outlined in Belonging at Work. They were caught flat footed, which ultimately cost them their job, compromised their staff’s morale, and damaged their legacy of doing good in the world.
 
If you’re a leader like me, you want to rely on proven strategies that will help your team work better together, innovate the best products and services, attract a talented pool of prospective employees, and have the best positive impact on society and the environment. Belonging at Work can help you realize these goals.  The book offers simple actions we can all take to serve as inclusive leaders, welcoming the contributions of all of our stakeholders to inform our organization’s direction. When we take these actions, we build the diverse and inclusive workplaces our people are both asking for and deserve. 

Branch Office Administrators Community Update

Jackie Thomas
DC Office Administrator, Arnall Golden Gregory LLP
Chair, Branch Office Administrators Community

On July 10th, Kerri Lidman, MBA, National Director of Legal Resources Management for IST Management Services, Inc. led an informative roundtable at the Branch Office Administrators Community meeting at Arnall Golden Gregory LLP.  The roundtable discussion focused on best hiring and staffing practices, change management and work place optimization.  Office Administrators can further add value and profitability to our offices by (1) seeing ourselves as project managers in our offices, (2) recognizing that everything is a process, (3) understanding the staff-to-attorney role, and (4) familiarizing ourselves with the positions we are hiring for.  Ms. Lidman addressed specific examples from members in attendance throughout the discussion as well.  

Diversity Corner: Waking Up to Being “Woke"

Howie Schaffer
Principal, Bonanza Communications

I am increasingly distrusting the word “woke.”  It is being overused and leveraged as a status symbol, which reduces its importance and power. Woke is a phrase from African American origin that refers to a perceived awareness and sensitivity to issues concerning social justice and racial justice. Originally, people of color were encouraged to "stay woke" and maintain a heightened state of awareness to injustices and inequality they witness or endure. For many people, staying woke can mean the difference between life or death, or unwittingly becoming a victim of the overreaches of official power and authority. Being woke can also refer to an attunement to the dozens of daily acts of exclusion that some groups experience in their daily lives: job discrimination, having others speak for you, being paid less for equal work, or not getting constructive feedback, among countless other examples.

Like many other catchphrases from black culture that have been absorbed into the mainstream, woke has morphed into many broader uses. It can now refer to being an ally for social/racial justice or being generally enlightened on issues of diversity and inclusion. Having our neighbors and co-workers embrace waking up to injustice all around us might seem like a noble goal. It has been my experience, in several instances both in the media and in interactions that I have witnessed personally, that some people are eager to declare themselves free from bias, more enlightened than thou, and free from any responsibility for making automatic assumptions or oppressing or excluding others.

Problem is, we all have bias. It makes us human. We are constantly judging through the highly subjective filters of our unique life experiences. Nobody is so enlightened and so awake to their thinking that they are free from prejudice or bias. Instead of declaring ourselves woke, we need to dig deeper into the patterns and habits of our thinking so we can see more clearly into our blind spots. Only by admitting we have blind spots can we hope to reduce them. They will never disappear. But with practice and effort, we can begin to develop greater metacognition, the awareness and understanding of our unique thought processes.

We need to do more challenging of ourselves. Too much congratulating can lead to complacency. Like so many other champions of workplace inclusion, I’m not woke. I’m just beginning to awaken. 

Administrative Committees

Communications and Media Relations
As members of the Newsletter and Media Relations Committee, Chapter members participate in producing the award-winning Capital Connection. Members gather to brainstorm new ideas for editorial themes for upcoming editions. The newsletter reports Chapter business activities such as Section and Committee news and provides information about upcoming educational and other events. It also includes articles of interest to members and other legal management personnel, collected, authored and/or edited by members of the committee. This committee also works with other legal associations and the media to ensure that ALA and the Capital Chapter are represented in the legal industry. The Newsletter Committee welcomes new members.

Contact: Cindy Conover, Cindy.Conover@Shearman.com; Valerie Williamson, valerie.williamson@bassberry.com; Paula Serratore, pserratore@alacapchap.org

Diversity & Inclusion
The Capital Chapter of the Association of Legal Administrators is a professional organization comprised of administrative managers from private, corporate and government legal organizations in the Washington DC, Northern Virginia and suburban Maryland areas.  ALACC embraces and encourages diversity within the legal profession. We value diversity and those initiatives that promote it and look to partner with affiliated professional legal organizations to advance diversity. We not only strive to raise awareness, but to increase our sensitivity in the area of diversity and more closely reflect the diversity of our community at large. Having a more inclusive and diverse legal community will improve the quality of our organizations workforce and respond to our client’s requirements for diversity. As a committee we are very interested in your thoughts, comments, and suggestions about achieving greater diversity in our Chapter, our profession, and in our firms. 

Contact: Ellen Clinton (Chair), ellen.clinton@kutakrock.com;  Cameron Gowan (Co-Chair), cgowan@jonesday.com
Salary Survey
The Salary Survey Committee is responsible for maintaining, updating and running the local survey each year. They review the positions listed, the job descriptions, and the benefits questions to ensure that the survey remains relevant to the end users. The members of the committee also promote the survey within the Chapter to stimulate participation. 

Contact: Julie Tomey (Chair), tomey@thewbkfirm.com; Sheri Shifflett (Co-Chair), Cheryl.Shifflett@saul.com 






Member Experience
The Member Experience Committee will establish a welcoming environment for new members to be integrated into the Chapter through a formal Ambassador Program. Ambassadors will provide support and guidance to new members through their first 12 months of membership, ensuring new members realize benefits of membership and become ambassadors of the Chapter. 

Contact: Sarahi Estrella (Chair), sarahi.estrella@arentfox.com ; Dot Mooney (Co-Chair), dmooney@powerslaw.com​


Educational Communities

Branch Office Administrators
The Branch Office Adminsitrators Community focuses on a broad range of topics of interest to local adminisraotrs who must coordinate with other officees of their firms. The Community's monthly luncheon meetings, held on the second Tuesday of the month, provide a venue for members to discuss issues of common interest, share ideas, and network. Members are encouraged to raise topics and to recommend speakers.

Contact: Jackie Thomas (Chair), jackie.thomas@agg.com; Anjanette Milladge (Co-Chair), amilladge@sandw.com 
Listserv: branch@lists.alacapchap.org
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Office Operations Management
The members of the Office Operations Management Community represent a cross section of legal expertise from functional administrators to branch office managers. The Office Operations Management Section (OOMS) meets on the fourth Wednesday of every month to discuss operations related hot topics. We welcome all members to join the section, especially if you are an administrator in a small law office and you have to wear multiple hats. We can provide you with many best practices to run your operation smoothly.

Contact:  Linda Padron (Chair), lpadron@curtis.com; Janice Byrum-Jackson (Co-Chair),  jbyrum-jackson@hunton.com
Listserv: ooms@lists.alacapchap.org
Intellectual Property (IP)
The Intellectual Property (IP) Community focuses on all aspects of legal management as it pertains to the IP Administrator. The group discusses the complexity of the ever-changing IP environment and how to effectively create and apply IP specific, non-legal procedures in both boutique and general practice firms. 

Contact: Astrid Emond (Chair), aemond@bakerlaw.com; Matthew Cichocki (Co-Chair), mcichocki@cooley.com
Listserv: ipadmin@lists.alacapchap.org



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Small Firm Administrators
The purpose of the Small Firm Administrators Community is to provide Administrators of law firms with 35 or fewer attorneys educational opportunities through vendor presentations, idea sharing and open forums specifically designed for those who work in smaller firms. The Small Firm Management Community meets the fourth Tuesday of the month at host law firms.

Contact: Wilmara Guido-Chizhik (Chair), wguido-chizhik@bomcip.com; Jo Jo Ruby (Co-Chair), jruby@btlaw.com
Listserv: smallfirm@lists.alacapchap.org


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Next Generation Leaders
The mission of the Next Generation Leaders Community is to support our next generation of leaders and close the gap faced by our association and the legal industry as a whole by providing a community for Millennial legal managers and new managers in the legal field with a focus on mentoring, education, and networking. To accomplish this goal, the section hosts monthly meetings, pop-up events, and educational sessions, and provides 2-way mentoring opportunities. 

Contact: Danielle Smith (Chair), danielle.smith@hklaw.com; Tania Jose (Co-Chair), tania.jose@powerslaw.com
Listserv: nextgen@lists.alacapchap.org
Human Resources
The Human Resources Community operates as a venue for educational information on global human resources issues.  While the Community is mostly comprised of HR professionals, any member is invited to participate in the meetings which typically take place on the second or third Wednesday of each month.  The meetings feature industry speakers or roundtable discussions on topics such as recruiting, benefits, strategic planning, performance management, career pathing, retention and other matters of interest.

Contact: Jasmine Stribling (Chair), jstribling@bsfllp.com; Tiffany Montgomery (Co-Chair), tmontgomery@velaw.com
Listserv: hr@lists.alacapchap.org
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Technology
The Technology Community is looking for members to join the group for lively discussions about practical situations we all face daily in the information technology world. With ever-changing IT needs and issues, we will look at our firms' policies and procedures and help develop best practices and speak of the many concerns we all have. Even if you are not in the IT field,  your experiences and opinions will help us in bringing all departments of a law firm together and working on the same page.

Contact: Kenny Mitchell (Chair), kennymitchell@quinnemanuel.com
Listserv: tech@lists.alacapchap.org