From our earliest days, diversity and inclusion have been a focus at Munger, Tolles & Olson and deeply engrained in our firm culture. As with all of our client and community work, we strive to be creative, forward-thinking leaders in this arena.
A few of our recent, notable achievements include:
- Promoting gender inclusion. To strengthen our culture of inclusion and belonging, the firm strongly encourages the use of personal pronouns in email signature blocks, firm materials such as the website and business cards and at all firm events.
- Offering a market-leading parental leave policy. To further support working parents, the firm revised its parental leave policy in 2019. We now offer one of the most generous policies among top law firms, including 18 weeks of paid leave for all parents, plus an additional 6 to 8 weeks of paid disability leave for birth parents.
- Successfully implementing the Mansfield Rule. We helped to create and were among the first firms to implement the Mansfield Rule. We have been “Certified Plus” since 2018, surpassing 30 percent women, attorneys of color, LGBTQ+ attorneys and attorneys with disabilities for more than half of our tracked leadership positions.
- Consistently promoting diverse attorneys to equity partner. Over the past eight years, approximately 60% of our new partners have been women or people of color. Women partners currently exceed 25%.
- Supporting our innovative MTO Fellows Program. Munger Tolles is committed to building a pipeline of diverse talent, not only within the firm but also into the legal profession more generally. The firm runs a one-of-a-kind pre-law diversity pipeline program that prepares 25 to 40 aspiring diverse students per year for admission to and success in law school. Since 2015, we have worked with more than 160 diverse students, nearly 100 of whom have gained admission to law schools across the country, with more than $3 million in scholarships awarded.
- Launching a 2L Diversity & Inclusion Scholarship. To attract the best and brightest diverse recruits to our summer associate program, the firm offers a 2L Diversity & Inclusion Scholarship in the amount of $25,000 per recipient.
- Partnering with clients and nonprofits on our Jay Fujitani 1L Diversity Summer Program. The firm’s 1L Diversity Summer Program offers diverse first-year law students an excellent and rare opportunity to experience both law firm and in-house or public interest environments ahead of their second year of law school.
While we are proud of our accomplishments, we know there is still much work to be done. We welcome the next generation of ideas and leadership in continuing to expand the diversity of the legal profession.