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June 09, 2021
Cadwalader Intellectual Property partner Danielle Tully recently spoke on a panel at The Women in Law & IP Virtual Summit, which brought together legal and business professionals to discuss a range of timely and topical issues within the practice of intellectual property, with a focus on diversity, inclusion and equity.
Tully spoke on the panel titled, “Ideas & Innovation on Solving the STEM Issue in IP: Keeping Women in STEM Is the Underlying Challenge in Patent Law,” and was joined by co-panelists Samantha Wilson Jones, Associate General Counsel at Spark Therapeutics; Pervin Taleyarkhan, Legal Counsel at Whirlpool; Anita Shaw, IP Law Counsel at IBM; Emily Collins, VP of San Francisco Liaison Office at Kilburn Strode; and Jamie Lucia, Partner at Steptoe & Johnson LLP.
The panel explored various strategies that both firms and corporations can implement to help increase diversity within their professional ranks, with the acknowledgment that more diverse teams can more effectively solve challenges and better assist clients.
To create an environment that continually prioritizes diversity, inclusion and equity as a core principle – within any organization – requires the focus and commitment of stakeholders who represent a range of backgrounds and functions, the panel noted.
As for paving critical pathways to a more diverse future in IP – that is, creating pipelines of diverse talent that are developed through recruitment, retention and promotion – active and well-resourced organizational mentorship and sponsorship programs are especially crucial, the speakers emphasized.
“Diversity efforts are dependent on everyone being actively engaged in recruiting, retaining, and promoting diverse talent,” Tully said. “Organizations that recognize the importance and value of cultivating diverse environments will continually look for new ways to foster them, both for the benefit of their current and future employees and for their clients.”
