THE NIGERIAN LAWYERS ASSOCIATION IS CO-HOSTING
THE BAR NONE’S WOMEN OF COLOR IN LEADERSHIP SYMPOSIUM
NEW YORK, NY, February 22, 2010 – The Nigerian Lawyers Association announces that its Women’s Committee is co-hosting Bar None’s 2010 Women of Color in Leadership Symposium (“Symposium”) entitled, “We’ve Come A Long Way, Baby! Or Have We?: Winning As Women Of Color,” on March 15, 2010 from 4:00PM to 9:00PM at the Four Times Square office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP.
The Symposium
The Symposium will celebrate the achievements of women of color during Women’s History Month. Leaders and experts will offer strategies that women of color in legal, business, non-profit, and judicial settings can adopt to break the glass ceiling and become the leaders of tomorrow. The Symposium comprises three panels and concludes with a keynote address by Carla Harris, Managing Director, Morgan Stanley Investment Management and author of Expect to Win: Proven Strategies for Success from a Wall Street Vet.
The Keynote Panel (“We’ve Come A Long Way, Baby!”) features women of color who have achieved positions of distinction within their respective organizations, namely, Sylvia Fung Chin (Partner, White & Case LLP), Michele Coleman Mayes (General Counsel, Allstate), Hon. Carol Robles-Roman (Deputy Mayor for Legal Affairs and Counsel to the Mayor of the City of New York), Deirdre Stanley (General Counsel, Thomson Reuters) and Jane Hyun (Executive Coach, President/Founder of Hyun & Associates and author of Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling: Career Strategies for Asians. Each panelist will recount challenges faced and how those challenges were overcome.
The second panel (“Or Have We?”: Status of Women of Color in the Legal Profession) provides an overview of facts about the status of women of color in the legal and related professions. Distinguished panelists Paula Edgar (Executive Director, Practicing Attorneys for Law Students), Hon. Doris Ling-Cohan (Justice, Supreme Court of the State of New York, Civil Branch), Professor Jenny Rivera, Laurie Robinson (Founder & CEO, Corporate Counsel Women of Color; Vice President & Assistant General Counsel, CBS Corporation) and other distinguished panelists will explore why the statistics for women of color in the legal and related professions are significantly lower when compared to those tracking the advancement of white men and women, and what can be done on an institutional basis to remedy the imbalance.
The final panel (“Winning As Women Of Color”) brings together distinguished panelists, Gary Horowitz (Partner, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP), Lai Sun Yee (Senior Advisor, Homeland Security for CAN), Paul McDonald (Senior Counsel, Kraft Foods), Maria Melendez (Partner, Sidley Austin LLP) and Rhonda Joy McLean (Associate General Counsel Time Inc., Author of The Little Black Book of Success: Laws of Leadership for Black Women) who will discuss strategies women of color can adopt to advance in their chosen careers. They will discuss how to cultivate effective mentors, pointers for rainmaking and otherwise increasing value to an organization, and making the most of the opportunities available at professional organizations, particularly in these challenging times.
About Bar None
Bar None is a consortium of women’s committees of New York area bar associations. Its principal objective is to facilitate the discourse of issues that are of concern to our memberships, with the idea that we may find issues of common interest, share approaches to tackling those issues, and benefit from co-operation, enabling all groups in the consortium to tap into each other’s membership pools and resources. Bar None’s member organizations bring together the talents of judges, attorneys practicing with various law firms and corporations in the U.S., and attorneys engaged in public advocacy.
About Nigerian Lawyers Association
The Nigerian Lawyers Association (NLA) is an association of attorneys based in the United States. The NLA is active in cultivating the science of jurisprudence and facilitating the administration of justice in the United States and Nigeria. In addition, the NLA serves the needs of members of the Nigerian legal community, as well as the Nigerian community as a whole, in their understanding of and access to the law. The NLA also promotes legal education and professional development in the law. Among other events and activities, the NLA holds periodic continuing legal education seminars for lawyers and conducts free legal clinics within the Nigerian community to assist individuals with various legal issues. For further information about the NLA, please visit: www.nigerianlawyers.org.
For Media Inquiries:
Secretariat:
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New York, New York 10007
Tel: (212) 566-9926;
Fax: (212) 571-4309
