Diversity: Retention

Diversity

Retention, Advancement and Promotion

We work actively to promote and develop all of our attorneys, including by providing them with regular assessments of their work, with mentoring, and with opportunities for career development. MTO historically has a low rate of departures to other law firms. We continue to think of ways to assist our attorneys in enjoying the practice of law while balancing that practice with their lives. Our retention programs include:

  • An onsite childcare center, which offers full-time and back-up childcare to parents at the firm. Hope Street Friends, built jointly with O’Melveny & Myers and Oaktree Capital Management, is the first law firm-sponsored child care center on the West Coast. The 12,000-square-foot center has the capacity to serve 88 children from infancy to pre-kindergarten ages. It features small class sizes, teachers trained in early childhood education, and a curriculum designed to create developmentally appropriate learning environments. Hope Street Friends is located in downtown Los Angeles, adjacent to the offices of the three participating firms. The center has enrolled 70 children since its January 2010 opening, and in June 2011 was voted “Best Daycare Center” by Los Angeles’s Downtown News. 
  • MTO has had a reduced hours policy—with no minimum timekeeping requirement, nor a limit on the time period that an attorney can work at a reduced schedule—for more than a decade. Our reduced hours policy affirms the ability of the reduced hour attorney to advance to partnership. Two partners actively monitor the workloads and work experience of reduced hour attorneys.
  • MTO maintains an organized mentor program, and many informal mentoring partnerships develop organically as attorneys advance within the firm. Our mentoring program is multi-faceted, offering opportunities for both integration and career development, as well as providing assistance to attorneys leaving for and returning from parental leave.
  • The firm regularly hosts Women’s Lunches, and minority affinity group lunches, including a recently established GLBT lunch. Topics have included business development, career advancement, work-life balance and mentoring, among others. We also have hosted outside speakers at these lunches who bring perspectives from other law firms, the bench and businesses. During the summer we hold a special event for women attorneys and summer associates.
  • The firm offers a generous leave policy for new parents; family and domestic partner health insurance; and IT support for offsite work. MTO was one of the first firms to “gross-up” health insurance benefits for same-sex domestic partners to correct for inequalities in the tax code.
  • MTO is a sustaining member of the Project for Attorney Retention, an initiative of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California Hastings College of Law. The firm supports attendance by female partners at the Hastings Leadership Academy for Women, which is designed to help female partners network and enhance their leadership abilities.

MTO’s leadership in diversity hiring and retention is also shown by comparison to the 2010 statistics from the National Association of Law Placement. The firm surpasses national averages for diversity recruiting and maintains figures similar to firms of its size in the Los Angeles area. The association reported that nationally (in law firms with 101 to 250 lawyers), women averaged 30 percent of total lawyers and minorities were 8 percent. Comparatively, in 2011, 53 percent of MTO’s attorneys are women and 22 percent were minorities. 

MTO has successfully retained and promoted minorities, women, and other attorneys who enrich the diversity of our firm. Relative to other firms, we have high numbers of diverse attorneys in our partnership, and continue to promote diverse attorneys into the partnership at comparatively high rates. In each of the past three years, for example, well over 50% of the attorneys promoted to partner were women or minorities (including an attorney who works on a part-time basis). MTO does not have a tiered partnership; all partners in the firm are full equity partners.

Spotlight

MTO Fellows
MTO Fellows Program: Innovative Diversity Outreach

Launched in 2007, the MTO Fellows Program offers full-time positions in the firm’s Los Angeles office to students of diverse backgrounds who have recently graduated from college and plan to attend law school. Fellows work closely with attorneys and paralegals, participate in a wide range of educational activities outside the firm, and receive a stipend to take an LSAT preparation course.

“The strength of the MTO Fellows Program lies in the independent nature of the fellows, who are free to use this opportunity to immerse themselves in areas of law about which they are most passionate.” - MTO Fellow Farida Ali.

“As someone who has faced and overcome many adversities in life, the MTO Fellows Program has reinforced in me the belief that with hard work and perseverance, the sky is the limit, regardless of who you are or where you come from.” - MTO Fellow Azure'De Wilkins.

“I became an MTO Fellow to gain a more holistic understanding of the law, the way it is practiced and of the people who practice it. My proudest moment has been testifying at arbitration and helping secure damages for our client.” MTO Fellow Justin Iwata.