Actionable guidance on EDI in the face of a growing backlash – Charlene Theodore and Nikki Gershbain

The Every Lawyer

Julia welcomes two of Canada’s top experts on EDI in the legal workplace: McCarthy-Tetrault’s current and former Chief Inclusion Officers, Charlene Theodore and Nikki Gershbain.

Before moving to McCarthy-Tetrault, Charlene Thedore worked as in-house council in the education sector and, in 2020, she was the first black person to become President of the OBA. Charlene has also worked for the UN committee on the elimination of racial discrimination and is a member and former director of the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers.

In addition to her pioneering work on EDI at McCarthy and starting her own consultancy firm, IDEA Consulting, Nikki Gershbain is a long-time pro bono advocate and family law practitioner and has served as Executive Director of the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto and National Director of Pro Bono Students Canada. In 2021, she received the Canadian Bar Association’s LGBTQ Hero Award for her work on trans workplace inclusion.

This is an episode full of practical, usable, advice on achieving true equity, diversity, and inclusion, at work and everywhere else. It includes concrete examples of effective and beneficial workplace EDI policies and offers some terrific all-purpose life lessons and memorable, usable, quotes.

Charlene, Nikki and Julia discuss everything from the business case for EDI to Elon Musk's twitter beef with Mark Cuban, the need for active leadership on human rights and why trans inclusion matters; how cultural trends and current events in our increasingly polarized political and historical realities impact us at work; that “the truth is always more complex, because none of us is either totally oppressed or completely privileged" (Nikki Gershbain), and that "no one has a monopoly on being wrong" (Charlene Theodore).

Nikki Gershbain - IDEA Consulting: Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility (ideaconsultinggroup.ca)

Charlene Theodore | McCarthy Tétrault

Law & Disorder Inc. - Law & Disorder Inc. (murraygottheil.com)

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