Diversity and Inclusion

Our Commitment to Diversity

At Pierce Atwood LLP, we value and respect the differences among all people and believe that our differences enrich our results, our community and ourselves. We are committed to creating and supporting a diverse, inclusive workplace that is tolerant and respectful of all people.  

In today’s global marketplace, the communities and clients we serve are increasingly diverse, and it is important to ensure that our values, our people and our clients represent the communities in which we live and work. We cannot understand the needs and concerns of our clients without bringing their views into the culture of Pierce Atwood. To continue our long history of growth and success, we need the best ideas, the best resources and the best people. A diverse workplace provides this critical mix of ideas and perspectives.  

We approach our diversity efforts from the broadest perspective. We believe that diversity means celebrating the differences amongst individuals, whether related to race, age, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, culture or lifestyle. Diversity encompasses individuals’ wide range of unique characteristics, thoughts and experiences. We integrate the ideals of diversity into the law firm’s long-established guiding principles of creating a welcoming, caring, professional and enjoyable place to work. 

Promoting diversity within the firm 

Pierce Atwood is establishing programs to provide attorneys and staff with enriching, meaningful work, exemplary training, high quality mentor relationships and continuous support. Our generous benefits package extends health care coverage to domestic partners and provides attorneys with 12 weeks of paid parental leave for birth mothers and primary adoptive parents and four weeks for other parents. Many attorneys and staff enjoy a flexible schedule and part-time hour arrangements.  Pierce Atwood also offers a diversity training program, which focuses on inclusion and the importance of differing backgrounds and viewpoints.  

Notable Achievements 

• Sixty-four years ago, Pierce Atwood LLP was the first major law firm in Maine to hire a female attorney. Ms. Sigrid Tompkins joined the firm in 1945. In 1953, she became the first female partner at a major law firm in Maine and worked continuously until 2000 when she retired at age 83. Today, a woman, Gloria Pinza, serves as Managing Partner of our firm.  Our Chief Operating Officer is also a woman.  
• As part of a long-term contract with the United States Agency for International Development, we committed to aggressive target goals for hiring women and minorities as subcontractors, suppliers and other professionals used on the project. Now in the seventh year of this project, we are proud to note that we have consistently met or exceeded these voluntary goals.  
• With an initial pledge from Pierce Atwood, the University of Maine School of Law has created an endowment fund in honor of Vincent L. McKusick, former Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Court and current Of Counsel at Pierce Atwood. The Vincent L. McKusick Fellowship Fund provides tuition and other support to incoming law students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds, with the intent of increasing the diversity of the student body at the Maine Law School and within the legal community in Maine.   
• The firm is also proud to participate in the Immigration Legal Advocacy Project (ILAP). Eight of the firm’s attorneys and two paralegals serve as pro bono panel counsel with the ILAP. Pierce Atwood LLP panel counsel attorneys and paralegals contributed 434 total hours to our ILAP cases, representing clients from Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Haiti, Liberia and Rwanda in asylum or related processes.
• The firm has an ongoing partnership with GLAD (Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders), working with them in the region on a spectrum of legal issues.  In 2007, eight of the firm’s attorneys and one paralegal contributed 243 hours to the representation of Maine residents in their unprecedented efforts to dissolve civil unions previously entered into in Vermont.  For more information about the firm's work with GLAD, please click here.
• We have been honored to have one of our partners, Geraldine Sanchez, nominated by United States Senator Olympia Snowe to participate in the 2005 Senate Hispanic Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C.  
• Pierce Atwood is a business partner in the Working Together coalition, an organization that supports the employment of individuals with disabilities, and an active participant in the Diversity Hiring Coalition of Maine.

• Pierce Atwood was recently featured in Verizon Wireless' Diversity Spotlight Forum for its diversity and past contributions as outside counsel to Verizon Wireless. As part of its ongoing efforts to promote diversity, the Verizon Wireless Legal and External Affairs Department established the Diversity Forum in 2007 with an interest in enhancing Law Firm and Supplier Diversity.  The department selects firms to spotlight that are an example of both the excellence and diversity that the Legal Department looks for in outside legal talent.

Committee Chair

John W. Gulliver

 Related News

8.16.2007 University of Maine School of Law Announces Vincent McKusick Fellowship Fund
8.6.2007 Pierce Atwood LLP Diversity Committee Appoints John Gulliver as Chair