How Implicit Bias Leads to Ethical Violations and Drives Out Diversity in the Practice of Law

Danny M. Howell | Law Offices of Danny M. Howell, PLLC

On-Demand: December 11, 2023

$195.00 1.5 hour CLE

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Program Summary

We are among the least diverse industries in the United States. This is especially true where it counts the most: at the top. Firm leadership overwhelmingly consists of white men relative to white women and racial, LGBTQ+ and disability minorities of any gender identity. While statistically we are a more diverse profession at the level of law firm associates, the numbers dwindle steadily at the levels of senior associates, income partners and equity partners. There is, arguably, a weeding out process, driven by unconscious bias, that is structural and that ensures that over time, the profession drives out diversity.

Unconscious bias not only impedes diversity efforts, it creates significant risks for law firms in terms of potential ethics violations and civil liability.

This program examines three ways unconscious bias can lead to bad lawyering: (1) how unconscious bias can foster violations of ethical duties of competence, communication and diligence; (2) how the lack of training and policies on unconscious bias can become a basis for violations of ethical duties of supervision; and (3) how unconscious bias can manifest itself in conduct that is most frequently the basis for bar complaints and malpractice suits. The course includes analysis and discussion of bias training that has been demonstrated through research to be effective at reducing the negative impact of unconscious bias on conduct and decision-making.

The course also looks at how law firms can change the way they hire, manage, and promote attorneys in order to maintain a culture of inclusion that promotes true and lasting diversity.

Key topics to be discussed:

How Unconscious Bias Can Lead to Violations of Attorneys’ Duties of Competence, Communication and Diligence
How Unconscious Bias Can Increase Firms’ Risks of Malpractice Suits
How Unconscious Bias Helps Drive Out Diversity in the Legal Profession
Bias Training That Really Works

Date / Time: December 11, 2023

Closed-captioning available

Speakers

Danny M. Howell | Law Offices of Danny M. Howell, PLLC

Danny Howell has been representing attorneys in professional liability suits, bar investigations and complaints, and disbarment actions before the federal courts and the United States Patent & Trademark Office, for 30 years. Danny also has an extensive insurance coverage practice in the areas of professional liability and commercial general liability insurance. He has lectured and published extensively on legal ethics and insurance topics.

Danny is admitted to practice and has practiced extensively in the state courts in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, the United States Courts of Appeals for the Fourth, Sixth, and Federal Circuits, the United States District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia, the District of Columbia, and Maryland, and the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. He has also appeared pro hac vice in federal court cases in the United States District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of New York and the District of Minnesota.

From 2003 through 2016, Danny was a partner with the McLean, Virginia office of Richmond-based Sands Anderson, P.C. He joined Sands as part of its 2003 merger with Schraub Howell & Company, Chartered, where he served as managing partner. In 2016 Danny opened the Law Offices of Danny M. Howell, PLLC, a five-attorney litigation boutique in McLean, Virginia.

Danny carries an AV® Peer Review Rating by Martindale-Hubbell. He was a 2007 Fellow of the National Institute for Teaching Ethics and Professionalism and has served as an Adjunct Professor with the University of Richmond’s.