LCLD Fellow Virtual Leadership Lunch Featuring C&M’s Ellen Dwyer and Accenture’s Joel Unruch

Washington – July 10, 2020: Ellen Dwyer, chair of the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity board, and Joel Unruch, general counsel and corporate secretary of Accenture, hosted a virtual lunch this week for the organization’s 2020 Fellows.

“These lunches are designed to afford Fellows an opportunity to talk candidly with general counsel and managing partners in an intimate setting about their challenges, paths to leadership and experiences in a challenging legal profession. Our objective is to provide the Fellows with access to leaders that diverse lawyers have not traditionally enjoyed,” said Dwyer, who also chairs Crowell & Moring’s executive committee.

Dwyer and Unruch had the opportunity to share their personal stories and advice with a small group of 15 Fellows from private practice and the corporate sector, chosen by their organizations to participate in LCLD’s year-long leadership and professional development program. Dwyer said that LCLD Fellows are building networks, sponsoring each other, and “paying it forward to the leaders of tomorrow, who will inherit an America that is more diverse with each passing year.”

But more needs to be done.

“We must begin by challenging one another as leaders to make a personal commitment to know, sponsor, and provide equitable environments to ensure that our diverse lawyers can realize their professional ambitions in our organizations,” Dwyer said. “Our work will begin—not end—when our Fellows return to us from LCLD’s outstanding programs.”

A group of 15 LCLD Fellows joined Joel Unruch, general counsel & corporate secretary of Accenture, and Ellen Dwyer, chair of Crowell & Moring’s executive committee and chair of the LCLD Board (top row, first and third from left)