Portland Business Journal Quotes Melissa Jones on Stoel Rives’ Recent Efforts to Increase its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Firm Managing Partner Melissa Jones was quoted in a recent Portland Business Journal story on our firm’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, published June 21, 2021. The article looks at several programs in which Stoel Rives is participating that are intended to expand diversity within the firm and the legal industry.

Since the beginning of 2020, Stoel Rives has:

• Joined the Law Firm Antiracism Alliance, in which more than 125 firms committed to working together to devote pro bono resources to address systemic racism.
• Become a founding law firm in Diversity Lab’s Move the Needle (MTN) Fund – a five-year model program intended to help five U.S. law firms to reach the diversity and inclusion goals they set for themselves.
• Participated in the first rounds of the Focused Five sponsorship program in which Stoel Rives pairs five diverse partners from the firm with a high-level lawyer at an MTN legal department and an independent business development coach.
• Begun participating in the MTN Diverse Partners Directory, which was created by Diversity Lab in response to the desire of in-house lawyers to more easily be able to locate and provide opportunities to diverse outside counsel.
• Committed to participating in the Multnomah Bar Association Diversity Fellowship in 2022.

“We partnered with Diversity Lab as a founding law firm member of the Move the Needle Fund and serve as a model for innovative initiatives to increase diversity at law firms,” Jones said. “We are hoping our efforts will not only help us enhance our firm’s diversity but will provide paths forward for others in the legal industry.”