Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP has a longstanding commitment to ensuring that our firm reflects the diversity of the world in which we practice. We encourage all of our attorneys to develop mindfulness of how they contribute to the ecosystem of life, our respective networks, and the activities impact directly and indirectly. This also lends opportunities for all our attorneys to participate in organizations and associations that enhance their professional, civic and cultural development. Hinshaw's affinity networks help provide a source of internal community, internal cultural education, and external community engagement. They engage these groups of attorneys with the legal and business communities, sponsoring, presenting and attending events as well as supporting causes of concern to their respective communities. Hinshaw believes that encouraging and supporting our attorneys in diversity efforts creates positive business, economic and social consequences for our firm and the communities we serve.

We focus on three-fold objectives:

• Attorney Development — to help our attorneys, including diverse attorneys, to become the best legal practitioners in their respective fields of concentration.
• Relationship Building— to establish and foster bonds of trust that make our client, practice, and industry teams stronger and more inclusive.
• Civic Engagement— to enable our firm, attorneys, and professional staff to become leaders and agents of change in our respective communities and to partner with current and prospective clients in unique ways.

We are proud to share that Hinshaw has committed to the following impactful DE&I initiatives:

• The firm has proudly achieved recognition as a Mansfield Rule Certified Law Firm for three consecutive years. In 2022, Hinshaw was certified as a Mansfield Rule 5.0 law firm, the firm was certified again in 2023 with Mansfield Rule 6.0, and received certification in 2024 with Mansfield Rule 2023-2024. The program, managed by Diversity Lab, is a structured certification process designed to ensure all talent at participating law firms and legal departments has a fair and equal opportunity to advance into leadership. This science-backed and data-driven inclusive sourcing process helps boost inclusivity, equal access, and transparency in advancement processes and leadership roles at participating organizations. To maintain its effectiveness, the certification standards continue to evolve year-over-year based on data-backed insights.
• Our firm has been a founding sponsor of the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity(LCLD) program and has been fortunate to have a fellow selected to several classes since 2011. Founded in 2009, the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity is an organization of more than 400 corporate chief legal officers and law firm managing partners—the leadership of the profession—who are committed to creating an environment where all talent can thrive. Our action programs are designed to attract, inspire, and nurture the very best talent in society and within our organizations, thereby helping a new generation of attorneys ascend to positions of leadership. By producing tangible results in our institutions, we work to promote equal opportunity in our organizations, our circles of influence, and our society, with the ultimate goal of building a diverse and inclusive legal profession.
• Our Summer Diversity Scholarship is offered each year to law students for their final year of law school. Please visit our Summer Diversity Scholarship page for more information.
• In 2022, we also began offering an LGBTQ+ Summer Fellowship to law students who have a strong interest in advancing the LGBTQ+ community within the legal profession. Please visit our Summer LGBTQ+ Fellowship page for more information.