As Chair of the BAME Working Group since 2017, Jim has worked tirelessly to advance diversity and inclusion by cultivating a culture that focuses on providing equitable development for Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP lawyers and professional staff. He believes that focusing on equity in addition to diversity and inclusion will produce meaningful and lasting change at Cleary. As Chair, Jim has been facilitating conversations among key stakeholders to address DEI challenges in the last two years. Under his leadership, the Working Group and office have worked to embed Cleary’s values into the organization’s systems to ensure accountability, has leveraged data and best practices to evaluate progress and set goals for improving DEI initiatives, identified opportunities to improve the work experiences of underrepresented attorneys through talent management and staffing structure and has been also broadening the firm’s DEI education to help all employees build core anti-racism, inclusion, and allyship skills. Furthermore, as a member of the Recruitment Committee, Jim oversaw the implementation of the Rare Contextual Recruitment System, which resulted in a more diverse intake.