Henry, who serves as assistant general counsel at Kimberly-Clark Corp., co-founded an official nonprofit organization—The NEW Roundtable—with the mission of empowering African-American woman lawyers, enhancing their careers and influencing the wider legal profession to improve hiring, retention and promotion of black women. (NEW stands for Network of Empowered Women.)

The NEW Roundtable focuses on empowering its members—a mix of private practitioners and in-house counsel—by forming relationships with each other that provide key mentorship opportunities and lead to work referrals. In the five years since it was founded, the organization has grown from 25 to 90 members and has received numerous requests from African-American lawyers—both men and women—to allow them to open chapters of the nonprofit in their own cities.

What is one thing law firms can do immediately to help improve diversity and inclusion within their organizations?

I do not think there is an immediate way to meaningfully and sustainably improve diversity. To be fair, this is not due to lack of effort. Numerous past efforts to achieve diversity simply have not worked. According to National Association for Law Placement statistics, minority attorney representation in the associate and partner ranks has stagnated and, in some cases, declined over the past decade.

I encourage law firms to focus on replenishing and nurturing the pipeline of diverse talent. This requires a high investment of near-term effort and resources that will yield long-term results. There are several ways to address the pipeline. One approach is to change law firm recruiting practices. For instance, the practice of recruiting from a limited number of law schools and/or the top of the law school class necessarily limits firms' ability to field a more diverse class of summer associates for various reasons. There is not a strong enough correlation between being at a "top" school or a "top" student to justify continuing this practice at the expense of hiring diverse talent. Also, standards are often relaxed for non-minority students who have connections within law firms (e.g., children of judges or prominent in-house lawyers), so it is hard to justify applying these standards so stringently to talented students who may not have those same social advantages. The evidence is clear that diverse teams yield better results. In-house clients know this and increasingly demand it. Law firms should focus here as well by changing past practices. Fortunately, law firms can take advantage of a growing number of programs focused exclusively on building a diverse pipeline of talent.

What is one piece of advice you would give someone that you wish you had starting out?  

Don't be afraid to ask questions, take risks and make mistakes.  As a first year lawyer, I was afraid of appearing as if I did not have all the answers. Growing up not knowing many lawyers and with no exposure to corporate law, I felt a bit behind the curve and was eager to prove myself every day. That led to perhaps not asking as many questions as I should have. I tell junior lawyers to take advantage of being the newbie! Ask questions, explore every issue as thoroughly as possible, take risks, express your views (even if unpopular or ultimately wrong). Make mistakes, learn and use those lessons to drive your growth.

Name an important opportunity you got early in your career and what you did with it.

Early client contact was a really great opportunity that I received as a junior associate at Vinson & Elkins. I really enjoyed those interactions and the opportunity to spend time at our clients' offices digging through the board books and other corporate documents, talking with their business people and gaining a better understanding of the business. The more I interacted with the business and learned the drivers of a particular client's business, the more meaningful my work became. This experience was important in my decision to go in-house, preferably to an environment where I would have a high volume of business client interaction.

An awards ceremony will be held on Sept. 18 at the Belo Mansion in Dallas. The Attorney of the Year award winner will be announced at the ceremony.

Click here for booking information. For information about sponsoring the event, contact Andre Sutton at 757-721-9020 or email [email protected].