Platinum Sponsor

About Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP

www.weil.com

Founded in 1931, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP has been a preeminent provider of legal services for the past 90 years. With approximately 1,100 lawyers in offices on three continents, Weil has been a pioneer in establishing a geographic footprint that has allowed the Firm to partner with clients wherever they do business. The Firm’s four departments, Corporate, Litigation, Restructuring, and Tax, Executive Compensation & Benefits, and more than two dozen practice groups are consistently recognized as leaders in their respective fields.

Our attention to client service rests upon a few core values:

• A comprehensive understanding of our clients’ businesses and culture
• A thorough focus on our clients’ objectives, both short-term and long-term
• An unwavering commitment to helping clients solve problems in the most efficient, cost-effective way

Gold Sponsor

About Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP

www.morganlewis.com

At Morgan Lewis, we work in collaboration around the world—always ready to respond to the needs of our clients and craft powerful solutions for them. From our offices in strategic hubs of commerce, law, and government across North America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, we work with clients ranging from established, global Fortune 100 companies to enterprising startups. Our team of more than 2,200 lawyers and specialists provides comprehensive corporate, transactional, litigation, and regulatory services in major industries, including energy, financial services, healthcare, life sciences, retail and e-commerce, sports, technology, and transportation. We focus on both immediate and long-term goals with our clients, helping them address and anticipate challenges across vast and rapidly changing landscapes.

We approach every representation with an equal commitment to first understanding, and then efficiently and effectively advancing, the interests of our clients and arriving at the best results. If a client has a question, we’ll immediately find the person in our global network with the answer. If there’s a shift in the legal landscape, we’re on top of it, and our clients will be too.

A commitment to diversity and inclusion (D&I) is a core value at Morgan Lewis. We are committed to D&I not only because it is the right thing to do, but because it is integral to how we do business. It influences how we serve clients, collaborate with colleagues, and recruit, retain, and promote prospective Morgan Lewis lawyers and administrative professionals, as well as how we engage the communities where we live and practice. Our commitment to D&I begins at the top. The D&I Committee reports directly to Firm Chair Jami McKeon and our Advisory Board. In addition to active leadership participation in D&I efforts, women lawyers, lawyers of color, and LGBTQ+ lawyers serve on the Advisory Board and Compensation Committee, are office managing and/or hiring partners, and hold various firmwide and practice group leadership positions. 

Why did you decide to become a NBA-CLS sponsor?

NBA-CLS is a model bar association section and has a long-term investment in the Black community.  The NBA-CLS Sponsorship Program encourages outside counsel to develop a real relationship with in-house counsel.  We share NBA-CLS’ commitment to diversity and value the opportunities to connect with in-house counsel and expand the pipeline entering the legal profession. 

Additional Information

Morgan Lewis is committed to serving the public good. Our innovative, award-winning pro bono practice spans all of our offices around the globe. Each year, we provide more than 1,800 pro bono clients with the highest possible level of service. Our primary focus is on helping economically disadvantaged individuals and families in the communities where we live and work. We also provide legal services to nonprofit and non-governmental organizations whose mission is to serve vulnerable individuals and communities. Our lawyers use their time and skills to ensure access to justice for people who otherwise could not afford it.

Morgan Lewis has long treated pro bono hours as billable, and we recognize and reward lawyers who have achieved success in pro bono representations. We expect every eligible lawyer to annually contribute at least 20 hours to pro bono representations. In fiscal year 2020, 100% of our 2,100 eligible lawyers met that goal, contributing a total of 137,432 hours to pro bono representations.

We encourage all of our lawyers to become involved with public service at the earliest stages of their careers. Each year during our summer associate program’s kickoff event, our summer associates participate in a hands-on legal clinic. In 2019, they helped 35 clients apply for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) renewals. Our summer associates regularly work on ongoing pro bono representations, and we encourage first-year associates to take on a pro bono case when they start. We also partner with many of our clients on limited-scope clinics and full representations.

Platinum Sponsor

About Accenture

www.accenture.com

Accenture is a global professional services company with leading capabilities in digital, cloud and security. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries, we offer Strategy and Consulting, Interactive, Technology and Operations services — all powered by the world’s largest network of Advanced Technology and Intelligent Operations centers. Our 624,000 people deliver on the promise of technology and human ingenuity every day, serving clients in more than 120 countries. We embrace the power of change to create value and shared success for our clients, people, shareholders, partners, and communities.

Our legal team at Accenture consists of a vast global network of legal, contract and government relations professionals who support the company’s purpose—by offering responsive counsel and by rethinking what it means to be a lawyer at a company that embraces technology and the power of people to advance progress.

Why did you decide to become a NBA-CLS sponsor?

Accenture’s commitment to Responsible Business runs deep, and Accenture’s legal team amplifies the overall corporate efforts with additional legal inclusion and diversity and pro bono programs and efforts that drive change in our communities, including its Outside Counsel Diversity Awards, enrolling in the Mansfield certification to diversify in hiring and promotion efforts, and Legal Access, which partners with more than 40 organizations to bring Accenture Legal’s skills, people and passion to work.

Part of that commitment includes supporting organizations who share our passion for change and progress. We have been an NBA-CLS sponsor for more than five years, and our participation has been dynamic—from sponsoring and supporting events, including the annual conference and networking events, to participating in panel discussions and retaining outside counsel identified by networking events. We also proudly support law students and internship programs through our financial contributions to the National Bar Institute (NBI), the non-profit and charitable division of the NBA that helps to fund critical learning and experiential opportunities.

Additional Information

Let there be change

Anyone who’s been around a while will recognize Accenture’s ability to see what’s next—for the company and its clients. We celebrate progress, the change we bring, the value we create, and the success we share.­­­­ Ask any Accenture person what they love about the place and two answers invariably crop up: the people and the company’s willingness and power to embrace and affect change.

Accenture leads its industry, and our legal team also leads the legal industry in its own way—whether that’s through its work to be the world’s most digitally enabled legal function, supporting Accenture’s inorganic growth strategy (earning the distinction as ‘world’s most acquisitive company’), or by advancing an ethical company culture that empowers people to speak up safely and confidently.

Change = Opportunity

To stay at the forefront while striving to do the right thing, Accenture Legal collaborates with its ecosystem—collaborating with law firm partners and various associations and recruiting lawyers who are agile, have diversity of thought and who are excited by new tech horizons.

At Accenture Legal, we see the NBA-CLS as a key part of this ecosystem and look forward to continued collaboration with other sponsors and partners.