Legal Departments of the Year: Cvent Focuses On Firm Diversity
This year, Cvent's legal team continued to push forward on diversifying in and outside the firm.
September 26, 2019 at 10:00 AM
3 minute read
Cvent
Cvent's Legal Department, led by general counsel Larry Samuelson, is working to push the needle on diversity within and outside of the company. Of the company's nine lawyers, four are female and five lawyers are diverse. With respect to outside counsel, the company says that a majority of billable hours on client matters are completed by diverse attorneys, by gender and race. Lisa Helem recently caught up with Samuelson for a Q&A.
What leadership roles do diverse lawyers play on Cvent's in-house team? The [legal] department is purposely nonhierarchical and the expectation is that each attorney takes on a leadership role with respect to their client-oriented work and special projects. For oversight purposes, we have an associate general counsel who is Asian American and three senior counsel, two of which are female.
What strategies has Cvent employed for ensuring that diverse attorneys have a stake in client-matter leadership responsibilities? After each project and at least every quarter, we review billable hours and quality of work product by each billable attorney. If the billed hours or complexity of work is disproportionately assigned to nondiverse attorneys, we'll strongly encourage changes to the team.
Do you track which outside counsel team members are the relationship attorneys on the matters and how much diverse attorneys bill? We specifically track and analyze all hours billed to our matters and identify whether they are by partners [versus] associates and the demographic background of each attorney. While our relationship attorneys are primarily nondiverse, their teams and the majority of billable hours are by diverse attorneys (e.g. female and/or other minorities). In our efforts to further diversify our relationship partners, when we issue RFPs, diversity numbers and inclusion efforts play a substantial role in our evaluation of submissions. We require a breakdown of both female-male, minority, and underrepresented backgrounds by associate, partner and equity vs. nonequity partner. While the numbers are important, we more heavily weigh what the firm is doing to foster an inclusive culture. We ask for descriptions of the efforts they've taken in the last 18 months to further the inclusion of females, minorities and underrepresented minorities.
Company: Cvent
General Counsel: Larry Samuelson
Company Headquarters: Tysons, VA
Number of Attorneys in the Washington, D.C., area: 5
Number of Attorneys in the U.S.: 6
Number of Attorneys Worldwide (including the D.C. area): 9
Excerpt from Cvent's award submission: "Cvent believes that a diverse workforce can better develop products and solutions to serve the diverse event ecosystem. Over the past 18 months, the Cvent legal department has driven the company's diversity and inclusion strategy … implementing the following initiatives: conduct[ing] quarterly diversity and pay statistics analyses, encouraging recruiting at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). The firm also 'requires any team of outside counsel greater than [three] to include an attorney from an under-represented class' and requires law firms responding to RFPs to disclose their diversity statistics by equity and non equity partner for minorities and women."
This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
NOT FOR REPRINT
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
You Might Like
View AllA Conversation with NLJ Lifetime Achievement Award Winner Jeh Johnson
'As I've Grown Older': John Morgan Looks Back at a Life in Law
Binance's Singapore-Based General Counsel Is Shattering Crypto's 'Bro Ceiling'
4 minute readTrending Stories
- 1First Trial in Litigation Tying Pa. Medical Device Plant Emissions to Cancer Ends in Defense Win
- 2Former CEO Allowed to Proceed with Discrimination Suit Against Commercial Litigation Funder, Judge Rules
- 3GrayRobinson Opens Office in Pensacola, Marking First New Office Since 2019
- 4Decision of the Day: District Judge Vacates Magistrate's Ruling to Disqualify Prosecutors in Kidnapping Case
- 5The LatAm Top 30, 2024: The Largest Law Firms in Latin America and the Caribbean by Headcount
Who Got The Work
Michael G. Bongiorno, Andrew Scott Dulberg and Elizabeth E. Driscoll from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr have stepped in to represent Symbotic Inc., an A.I.-enabled technology platform that focuses on increasing supply chain efficiency, and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The case, filed Oct. 2 in Massachusetts District Court by the Brown Law Firm on behalf of Stephen Austen, accuses certain officers and directors of misleading investors in regard to Symbotic's potential for margin growth by failing to disclose that the company was not equipped to timely deploy its systems or manage expenses through project delays. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton, is 1:24-cv-12522, Austen v. Cohen et al.
Who Got The Work
Edmund Polubinski and Marie Killmond of Davis Polk & Wardwell have entered appearances for data platform software development company MongoDB and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The action, filed Oct. 7 in New York Southern District Court by the Brown Law Firm, accuses the company's directors and/or officers of falsely expressing confidence in the company’s restructuring of its sales incentive plan and downplaying the severity of decreases in its upfront commitments. The case is 1:24-cv-07594, Roy v. Ittycheria et al.
Who Got The Work
Amy O. Bruchs and Kurt F. Ellison of Michael Best & Friedrich have entered appearances for Epic Systems Corp. in a pending employment discrimination lawsuit. The suit was filed Sept. 7 in Wisconsin Western District Court by Levine Eisberner LLC and Siri & Glimstad on behalf of a project manager who claims that he was wrongfully terminated after applying for a religious exemption to the defendant's COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The case, assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Anita Marie Boor, is 3:24-cv-00630, Secker, Nathan v. Epic Systems Corporation.
Who Got The Work
David X. Sullivan, Thomas J. Finn and Gregory A. Hall from McCarter & English have entered appearances for Sunrun Installation Services in a pending civil rights lawsuit. The complaint was filed Sept. 4 in Connecticut District Court by attorney Robert M. Berke on behalf of former employee George Edward Steins, who was arrested and charged with employing an unregistered home improvement salesperson. The complaint alleges that had Sunrun informed the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection that the plaintiff's employment had ended in 2017 and that he no longer held Sunrun's home improvement contractor license, he would not have been hit with charges, which were dismissed in May 2024. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer, is 3:24-cv-01423, Steins v. Sunrun, Inc. et al.
Who Got The Work
Greenberg Traurig shareholder Joshua L. Raskin has entered an appearance for boohoo.com UK Ltd. in a pending patent infringement lawsuit. The suit, filed Sept. 3 in Texas Eastern District Court by Rozier Hardt McDonough on behalf of Alto Dynamics, asserts five patents related to an online shopping platform. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, is 2:24-cv-00719, Alto Dynamics, LLC v. boohoo.com UK Limited.
Featured Firms
Law Offices of Gary Martin Hays & Associates, P.C.
(470) 294-1674
Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone
(857) 444-6468
Smith & Hassler
(713) 739-1250