Vania Wit has worked in the legal department at United Airlines for the past 20 years. Currently she serves as the airline's vice president and deputy general counsel. In her role, she is responsible for litigation, intellectual property, antitrust, labor employment and benefits, and legal operations and strategy.

Wit, who will be on a SuperConference panel on May 21 in Chicago, spoke with Corporate Counsel about diversity and inclusion initiatives at United and a firm's responsibility in diversity and inclusion. This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Corporate Counsel: What are some of United Airlines' initiatives when it comes to diversity and inclusion?

Vania Wit: We are focused on the retention side and the hiring side. We have our diversity and inclusion team that is creating and fostering a culture of inclusiveness. We have a lot of training initiatives that touch on inclusiveness and anti-bias. We also focus on holding our leaders accountable by making sure their teams are properly trained and are also inclusive in terms of their day-to-day management of people.

We strive to make sure that our pipeline of applicants are coming from all walks of life and have diverse backgrounds. We do a lot of outreach in the community as well. We fly all over the United States and throughout the world so being culturally sensitive and making sure that our employees represent our customers is important to us.

CC: Does United Airlines have any kind of guidelines for outside counsel when it comes to diversity and inclusion?

VW: We want to see that the teams working on our matters are diverse. We track it from year to year and we certainly don't want to see that things are moving in the wrong direction.

We are very mindful of who is responsible for managing our relationships. We want to make sure that our relationship points are reflective of who we are and that there is diversity among those ranks. For there to be real progress within firms, you have to have key partners that are diverse as well so they can keep the momentum going.

CC: In your experience, are law firms doing more than they have in the past when it comes to diversity and inclusion?

VW: I do think there has been progress with respect to outside firms in terms of them being more mindful and wanting to put their best foot forward because they appreciate that this is very important to their corporate clients. When I first started working here we were asking for demographic data and what I would consider more routine information.

I think in the beginning some firms would provide that information and others were a little resistant. Now, I think it has become more routine to ask for that kind of information and you certainly never get any push back. That information is woven into a lot of the marketing materials that we see when we are considering new firms.

You now have outside law firms that have their own diversity and inclusion teams. I don't think that was the case 15 years ago.

CC: Could law firms be doing more to promote diversity and inclusion?

VW: Virtually all firms, when asked questions about their D&I programs and what they're doing to foster diversity, will point to a lot of programs and a lot of initiatives that they have in place. I think that even with all of these initiatives, there still is a lot of room to grow. I wouldn't say their journey has ended by any means. I think it's something that they need to continually invest in and that some firms are better at it than others.

I also tend to think that unless their clients are asking for it [diversity and inclusion information], they don't pay as much attention to it as they should. There has to be an ongoing push forward from in-house counsel. I think it should be something everyone should be striving for.

CC: What would be your advice for in-house teams that may just be starting a diversity and inclusiveness initiative?

VW: You can't just focus on numbers and the initiative has to be presented to the department and to the internal client as an effort you want to initiate because it makes good business sense. There has to be an appreciation that one of the key reasons you're doing it is because you get better quality work product, you build better relationships and it is important for us as a company that when we have representatives from firms seeing our face that they are reflective of who we are. I would approach the initiation of a program with that kind of backdrop so it has the right foundation. If you approach it too superficially it can quickly get tossed aside and becomes more of a “check the box” exercise.

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