Nancy Stagg

As more companies place importance on a diverse employee base, they also desire that commitment from their vendors, including legal counsel. That’s where Fish & Richardson’s Nancy Stagg comes in. The firm’s new national diversity chair, she intends to promote diversity both among her ranks and in her clients’ rosters.

“Diversity enriches our organization and law practice by providing a variety of different backgrounds and perspectives that lead to new and innovative ideas,” she says. “But Fish & Richardson is unique in that our core practices and clients are based in technology and intellectual property. We want to and need to encourage diversity not just within the legal profession, but also in engineering and sciences.”

The firm will expand a diversity fellowship program begun last year to award scholarships and one-on-one mentoring to first-year minority law students. Diversity in hiring also will be a priority.

“I plan to establish pipelines with law schools and other organizations to recruit diverse candidates to the firm, and to continue to create internal policies and programs that help retain and promote those candidates within the firm,” she says.