DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION
Keesal, Young & Logan is committed to diversity and inclusion efforts within the firm, the legal profession and the community.Oscar Sarabia Roman
UC Berkeley School of the Law
He was deported. Four years later, he graduated from Stanford
Overview and Mission Statement
Today, 56% of the firm’s attorneys, paralegals, and other timekeepers are non-Caucasian, female, LGBTQ+, veterans, or people with disabilities, and 55% of the firm is owned by shareholders who fall into one or more of those categories. Well over 70% of the firm’s total employees belong to one or more of these diversity categories. Our workforce is also strengthened by diversity of religion and socio-economic background.
The firm’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee is made up of shareholders, associates, and administrators involved in the recruiting, hiring, and professional development process to more closely align those initiatives with our objective to attract and retain a diverse spectrum of professionals.
Hiring
81% of our lawyers started their legal career at KYL. Our commitment to diversity and inclusion is carried out through our efforts to hire diverse attorneys directly from law school through our summer program. We are proud to say that our summer associate class was 66% diverse in 2017, 66% diverse in 2018, and 50% diverse in 2019.
To extend the reach of the firm’s diversity and inclusion efforts, KYL also joined forces with Juniper Networks, NetApp, Walmart, Liberty Mutual, Chronicle (an Alphabet/Google company) and LexCheck in 2019 and is partnering with Southern University Law Center, an HBCU, to found the Community of Legal Interns (CLI). CLI is focused on increasing diversity in the legal industry and equipping law students for broader job opportunities through participation in master classes on new and emerging trends.
Keesal, Young & Logan partners with NAACP Long Beach Branch during our 18th annual Law Day.
Community
In addition to our work to promote diversity and inclusion inside the firm, we make every effort to extend those efforts outside the firm in the legal profession and in the community.
KYL was one of three founding sponsors of the California Bar Foundation’s Diversity Scholarship program, which offers individual scholarships to students of underrepresented ethnicities to, in turn, boost the diversity of the legal profession. In 2015, KYL shareholder Julie Taylor became President of the California Bar Foundation (now known as California ChangeLawyers). Under Julie’s leadership, the California Bar Foundation launched a pilot legal fellowship program placing a diverse attorney with the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation to represent immigrant clients, and invested nearly $1,000,000 in access to justice and diversity pipeline programs, including the award of more than $300,000 in scholarships to law students from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds. In 2017, KYL associate Valerie Holder was selected to the board of the Washington State Bar Foundation, which works to promote diversity in the legal profession and provide greater access to and understanding of the justice system for the general public.
KYL has also been proud to host an annual “Law Day” event in conjunction with the NAACP Long Beach Branch for the last 18 years in a row. The program focuses on the principles and practice of law and justice and serves as an overview of the law as a career option for minority students. The American Bar Association recently awarded KYL and the NAACP Long Beach Branch the Outstanding Law Day Activity Award for Best Theme Interpretation.
KYL’s commitment to diversity and our support of groups which promote diversity has been recognized by numerous other organizations in recent years. We are proud to be the recipients of The National Conference of Community and Justice (NCCJ) Humanitarian of the Year Award and the Building Bridges Award, the Boys & Girls Clubs of America Presidents Award, the ABA’s the Long Beach Community Hispanic Association’s Nuestra Imagen Award, the Community Partnership Award from CAMEO (the largest women’s organization in the South Bay), and the Humanitarian Award, President’s Award and the Corporate Partners Award from the Long Beach NAACP.