Before Corporate Counsel Women of Color was a global powerhouse of more than 4,500 diverse in-house lawyers. Before the group had members in more than 900 corporate legal departments around the world. Before it had connections with thousands of women lawyers in Big Law. Before its annual conventions drew concert-level crowds of attendees and famous keynote speakers. Before all of that, CCWC was merely an idea that Laurie Robinson Haden was bringing to life as she sat in front of a laptop with dial-up internet in her kitchen in Harlem in the early 2000s.

Haden had recently started her first in-house job as associate general counsel for ViacomCBS and, while studying her surroundings, didn’t see anyone who looked like her, a Black woman.