Announcement: Introducing COSAL’s Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion Committee
COSAL is pleased to announce the creation of its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee to increase engagement in COSAL at all levels by antitrust practitioners from historically underrepresented groups. At COSAL, we believe that diversity of voices strengthens antitrust enforcement and will allow us to better represent the antitrust plaintiffs’ bar. Particularly in light of the Black Lives Matters movement and the violent attacks on Asian Americans over the past year, now is an apt time for COSAL to redouble its efforts to strengthen diversity within its ranks.
COSAL joins growing interest in diversity in the antitrust plaintiffs’ bar. Numerous judges have emphasized the value of diversity in leadership appointments. For instance, Judge Lewis Liman, in appointing COSAL members Sharon Robertson of Cohen Milstein and Robin van der Muelen of Labaton Sucharow as co-lead counsel in the Bystolic antitrust litigation, eloquently framed the need for diversity in class action leadership:
There is an obvious social value in promoting diversity within the ranks of the legal profession. Historically, there has been a dearth of diversity within the legal profession. Although progress has been made, statistics reflect that today, still just one tenth of lawyers are people of color and just over a third are women. A firm’s commitment to diversity, though, does not just demonstrate that it shares with the courts a commitment to the values of equal justice under law. Rather, the intuition underlying the diversity criterion is soundly grounded in the Court’s obligation to select counsel who will best represent the interests of the class. In particular, that a firm is able to field a diverse team provides some indication—albeit crude and imperfect—that the firm is one that is able to attract, train, and retain lawyers with the most latent talent and commitment regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. That intuition is recognized—and validated—by the views of a consensus of corporate general counsels of some of the leading companies in the United States, each charged with fiduciary duties to protect the interests of the absent shareholders and, on their behalf, to select counsel best able to represent the corporation. In their choice of counsel, they have emphasized the importance of a commitment to make efforts to ensure a diversity of minority and women lawyers in the associate and partner ranks. There is no reason why the courts, faced with a similar choice of selecting counsel, but this time on behalf of putative absent class members, should not consider and give weight to the same factor.
Opinion & Order at 14-15, City of Providence, R.I. v. Abbvie Inc., No. 1:20-cv-05538-LJL (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 13, 2020). These values are reflected in George Washington Law’s recently published diversity guidelines: Inclusivity and Excellence: Guidelines and Best Practices for Judges Appointing Lawyers to Leadership Positions in MDL and Class-Action Litigation. Closer to home, AAI President Diana Moss hosted an informative and dynamic podcast discussion with COSAL President Heidi Stilton and COSAL member Roberta Liebenberg about antitrust and diversity in the plaintiffs’ bar.
The widespread interest in diversifying our practice tracks research showing that diverse teams, including those led by historically underrepresented groups, tend to have a positive impact on innovation, decision-making, work product, and trial outcomes. For a fulsome discussion about the value of diversity in legal practice, we encourage you to review Roberta Liebenberg and Stephanie Scharf’s 2019 ABA paper “Walking Out The Door: The Facts, Figures, and Future of Experienced Women Lawyers in Private Practice.”
COSAL is embracing the opportunity to evolve with the DEI Committee. The DEI Committee’s inaugural welcome event, co-sponsored by COSAL’s Young Lawyers Division, will take place on April 21st at 6:30 p.m. ET. This virtual gathering will feature cocktails and introductions to COSAL committees by Greg Asciolla, Alex Barnett, Eric Cramer, Josh Davis, Dan Drachler, Rose Kohles, Geoff Kozen, Paul Novak, Gary Smith, and Mark Suter. If you would like to attend, please click here to RSVP. Special thanks to COSAL Young Lawyers Division Co-Chairs Nigar Shaikh and Halli Spraggins for organizing the event and to Angeion for its sponsorship.
If you cannot attend, we encourage you to support and develop junior antitrust attorneys from all backgrounds. For ideas about how to integrate professional development of junior attorneys into your practice, COSAL’s Halli Spraggins and Megan Jones’ Law360 article, “How Case Management Orders Can Support New Attorneys,” makes for an interesting read.
