Patrick T. Quinn
Managing Partner
Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft LLP
Headquarters: New York, NY
Business: Legal Services
Website: www.cadwalader.com
Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft is is committed to supporting a richly diverse and truly inclusive environment. Established in 1792, Cadwalader is the oldest Big Law firm, with nearly 400 attorneys representing the world’s leading financial institutions, corporations, and funds. The firm believes that its continued success is directly tied to its ability to attract, retain, and promote the very best talent from all backgrounds, and has established numerous programs to do just that.
Cadwalader’s talent management programs are designed to help diverse and women attorneys at each level—junior, mid-level, and senior—navigate the firm successfully and understand the unwritten rules of success. The goal is to provide career development assistance and develop tomorrow’s leaders. All programs are taught by senior partners, including Managing Partner Pat Quinn. Some examples include:
The Sponsorship Program (Senior-Level): The Sponsorship Program is a nomination-based program for high-performing diverse and women associates and special counsel with at least six years of experience. Through this program, the protégés are assigned senior partners to serve as their sponsor for at least one year. Since the 2013 program launch, ten protégés have been promoted to partner and eleven have been promoted to special counsel. The Sponsorship Program was recognized as a “Best Practice” in the 2016 New York City Bar Diversity Benchmarking Report.
Business Development Boot Camp (Mid-Level): Business Development Boot Camp is designed to teach junior to mid-level women associates business development skills through a series of workshops that culminates with a mock pitch presentation.
Basic Training (Junior- Level): The Career Basic Training Program provides additional professional development skills, such as “Being an Indispensable Junior Associate” and “Networking 101” for diverse second-year associates.
Cadwalader also has a comprehensive program for recruiting diverse summer associates, which includes reaching out to career services offices at law schools and diverse law student organizations. In 2018, the firm hosted an open house for diverse law students, as well as early on-campus callback interviews for diverse applicants. As a result of these efforts, the summer associate class was 77 percent diverse.
In 2018, Cadwalader’s Women’s Leadership Initiative partnered with clients to host its Second Annual Girls in Finance Program for high school students. This “pipeline” program educates young women regarding basic finance and investment concepts and introduces them to women finance professionals, with the goal of encouraging girls to pursue careers in finance (law or business).
With its comprehensive approach to fostering inclusion and nurturing diverse talent at every level, Cadwalader is creating opportunities across the firm.
