Flaster Greenberg was recently presented The Legal Intelligencer's 2023 Professional Excellence Award for its Diversity Initiative at a ceremony on June 14, 2023 at the Loew's Hotel in Philadelphia. This award honors lawyers and law firms who made a significant contribution to diversity and inclusion efforts in Pennsylvania’s legal community in the past year.
While Flaster Greenberg, a midsize law firm, has maintained a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiative for more than two decades, each year the firm continues to raise the bar for staff and attorneys, and by doing so, helps and empowers the community.
Accepting this award on behalf of Flaster Greenberg (from left) Alex Brown, Yoninah Orenstein, Christina Lechette, Meghan Moore, DEI Chair Mariel Giletto, Ben Chalfin, Krishna Jani, Chris Merrick.
The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee consists of 12 members with a wide range of backgrounds and skills. They meet bi-monthly with a structured agenda to discuss and plan internal and external facing initiatives, strategies, budgeting, challenges, goals, and brainstorm new ideas for the future of the firm. The committee’s focus is both inward and outward facing with goals including focusing on work that actually brings about cultural change, offering a platform for more voices within the firm to be heard, providing an opportunity for open and honest conversation, and taking a structured approach to achieving equity and inclusion within the workplace as well as the legal community.
To help achieve these goals, the Committee created an annual scholarship program providing $2,500 each to two diverse and women law students from local universities. The scholarships are designed to assist deserving students with direct or indirect costs of attending law school. The goal is to help lessen the financial burden of earning their Juris Doctorate so the student can focus more on their education and worry less about how they might pay off their debt. Flaster Greenberg also created an additional scholarship recently in honor of its first woman shareholder to increase its impact on these efforts.
Additionally, the firm launched a “Rally for Change” campaign to help bring about change in response to the deeply troubling injustices that persist in the country. As part of this movement, all employees were invited to consider donating to the “Rally for Change” campaign and the firm pledged to match contributions to select organizations. The DEI Committee vetted organizations dedicated to civil rights advocacy, police reform, university-based student-run organizations, to those helping small businesses that had fallen victim to looting or property damage, and those offering free legal advice and representation to low-income residents.
Flaster Greenberg is also proud to sponsor and support organizations who further a mission of diversity, equity, and inclusion including the South Asian Bar Association, Anti-Defamation League, the Barrister’s Association, Villanova Law Minority Alumni Society, Independence Business Alliance, Philadelphia Diversity Law Group, among others.
Finally, with the intention to turn focus and ideas into action, the firm continually looks for ways to maintain an inclusive workplace and leverage its diverse talent. Along with the committee, student scholarships, and fundraising campaigns, the firm partnered with the Philadelphia Diversity Law Group on hiring and training summer associates of various cultural backgrounds and provides the student with a $2,500 scholarship at the end of the internship. The firm also conducts DEI training and education seminars for employees and organized a Women’s Initiative Group dedicated to supporting and advancing women professionals through professional and business development, work-life balance, and career trajectory.
Flaster Greenberg, a midsize business law firm with offices throughout the Mid-Atlantic and in Florida, has been providing legal services to publicly traded corporations, privately held and family owned businesses, entrepreneurs, and individuals for 50 years. With locations in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Delaware, and Florida, Flaster Greenberg serves a broad range of clients in dozens of industries and practice areas including aviation law, bankruptcy, business & corporate, cannabis, commercial litigation, elder & disability law, environmental, family law, gaming, healthcare, insurance recovery, intellectual property, labor and employment, real estate, taxation and trusts and estates.
