CHICAGO - Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP is pleased to announce that for the fourth consecutive year, it has been named to MultiCultural Law magazine’s listing of the Top 100 Law Firms for Diversity. The firm has also been named among the Top 100 Law Firms for Women by Women 3.0 magazine, a sister publication to MultiCultural Law that promotes and enhances the importance of continued success for women in the corporate circuit. The diversity listing is announced in MultiCultural Law’s 2008 issue, currently available, while the Top 100 Law Firms for Women listing appears in the March edition of Women 3.0.
MultiCultural Law magazine selected its Top 100 Law Firms for Diversity based on statistics it compiled after surveying more than 200 top law firms. Criteria for the listings included the diversity of each firm’s attorneys, the presence of diversity committees and mentoring programs within the firm, and firmwide leadership initiatives to support diversity. Distributed annually, MultiCultural Law magazine has a circulation of over 40,000 legal professionals, as well as distribution to numerous legal organizations, all Fortune 1000 general counsel, and all ABA accredited law school career offices.
In 2007 and early 2008 alone, Katten achieved a number of milestones in the area of diversity. In May, the firm named Leslie D. Minier, a partner in its Corporate Practice who has been instrumental in developing and implementing many of the Firm’s diversity initiatives, as its first Chief Diversity Officer. Then in July, Katten launched its inaugural Leadership Institute for Women of Color, an internal program designed for female attorneys of color at all of the Firm’s offices. The Katten Leadership Institute is the first program of its kind in the nation to proactively address the issue of women of color leaving law firms at a high rate by providing them with the tools that they need to ensure long-term success in their careers as attorneys at the firm. Finally, in January 2008, the Chicago Committee on Minorities in Large Law Firms, designed to foster racial and ethnic diversity in the Chicago legal community, selected Katten as its new home through 2010. In announcing its decision, the Chicago Committee called Katten “an ideal organization from which to drive Chicago's law firms toward greater diversity.”
Katten is dedicated to the achievement and promotion of diversity within both the firm and the broader legal community. The firm's National Diversity Committee addresses the steps necessary to accelerate the process of building diversity at every level within the firm, while its Committee on Racial and Ethnic Diversity is responsible for strategic planning to support the recruitment, retention and development of minority attorneys. The firm actively supports and promotes diversity within its workplace through various programs, including the Women's Leadership Forum, which fosters career development and advancement and provides support, mentoring and training programs for the firm's female attorneys, and the Minority Associates Committee, which is dedicated to the recruitment, retention and promotion of minority associates at the firm. Katten was also a lead signatory to the Chicago Bar Association’s Alliance for Women “Call to Action” this past year.
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