Donald Hayden, of Mark Migdal & Hayden.
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Donald “Don” Hayden has more than enjoyed his fair share of success. The longtime litigator and well-respected international arbitrator spent the majority of his career working at Baker McKenzie and Berger Singerman, traveled around the world and back again, and has represented big-name clients like AT&T and Google.

Yet Hayden has not been immune from the regressive thinking that can crop up in big law.

“I remember sitting in a boardroom around a table, and it was all folks from the major law firms,” Hayden recounted. It was 2003, and Hayden had already spent a number of years proving himself in Miami's legal community after a decade spent with Baker McKenzie's headquarters in Chicago. “An individual from one of the larger accounting firms came in and said how he had just been appointed to be their diversity chairman, had to go to 'some gay event' and made a derogatory comment.”