Diversity and inclusion initiatives aren’t just valuable for checking off compliance boxes and writing marketing copy. Those benefits are a distant second and third to the genuine value team diversity has on the success of a company or a project. That also means law firms and trials.

A recent article published by the American Bar Association Tort and Insurance Practice Section hailed diversity of perspectives for how they improve a team’s ability to resolve legal issues, innovate solutions, and introduce factors homogeneous teams may miss.

The National Association for Law Placement reported that women and people of color are making great progress at major law firms. Nearly half of associates are women and, based on summer associate statistics, women are expected to break the 50% as early as this year or next. Black associates made impressive gains, but there remains room for improvement. At the partner level, however, Black and Latinx women and men remain stuck in the low single digits.

In this episode we drill down even further to examine trial teams in the intellectual property arena. I was thrilled to speak with Tara Trask, one of the nation’s leading experts on IP trials and juries, having directly worked on or observed more of these proceedings than just about anyone. Tara has championed research on this topic as part of her work and presentations for the American Intellectual Property Law Association. The diversity spark lit up for Tara when she and her panelists enjoyed an enthusiastic reaction to an AIPLA conference session she moderated titled, “Perspectives on Diversity: Views on Trial Teams From the Bench, The Boardroom, and the Jury Box.”

Listen to Tara’s insights based on analysis of her own cases, analysis of related studies, and expanded fact-gathering she is leading in collaboration with the association.

BREAKING NEWS! This episode kicks off a series of guest-hosted sessions for which Tara will take the mic to interview professionals from her impressive network on legal team diverity.

Tara Trask is the President of Trask Consulting, a boutique litigation strategy, jury research, and trial consulting firm with offices in San Francisco, Houston, and New York. She focuses on civil litigation with an emphasis on complex commercial litigation, including intellectual property, antitrust, securities, breach of contract, and fraud. She has assisted both plaintiffs and defendants in cases involving products liability, insurance, and oil and gas. Tara has extensive experience in assisting institutions and individuals in matters involving regulatory enforcement and white-collar defense, as well. She has been involved in more than 500 jury trials.

This podcast is the audio companion to the Journal on Emerging Issues in Litigation. The Journal is a collaborative project between HB Litigation Conferences and the Fastcase legal research family, which includes Full Court Press, Law Street Media, and Docket Alarm. The podcast itself is a joint effort between HB and our friends at Law Street Media. If you have comments or wish to participate in one our projects please drop me a note at Editor@LitigationConferences.com.

Tom Hagy
Litigation Enthusiast and Host of the Emerging Litigation Podcast
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P.S. Also, check out the video version of this episode. [insert hyperlink]