Women, Diversity & Law: Awareness into Action Summit

Director Chandrika Vira will be speaking at the Women, Diversity & Law: Awareness into Action Summit, part of Centerforce’s Women in Law Summit Series, in Philadelphia, PA on December 4. Her panel is titled “Challenging the Status Quo: Self-Advocacy, Career Development & Sponsorship.”

Conference Overview:

The Women Diversity & Law: Awareness into Action Summit explores how to create lasting change for women and minorities in the legal profession with topics such as: advocating for yourself and others, the best techniques to deal with discrimination and unconscious bias, actionable ways to increase diversity in leadership roles, strategies to enhance your career, and how to best utilize sponsors and mentors.

This conference will provide networking and learning opportunities on topics including self-advocacy, unconscious bias, sponsorship, and succeeding in male dominate environments.

Key topics to be discussed:

• Increasing Diversity In-house and at Law Firms: The Role We All Play
• Work-Life Integration: Balancing Professional Success and Personal Fulfillment
• Dealing with Unconscious Bias & Discrimination
• Cultivating Male Allies & Change Agents
• Challenging the Status Quo: Self-Advocacy, Career Development & Sponsorship
• Career Transitions: From Associate to Partner, Law Firm to In-house
• Women of Color in Law: The Changing Landscape

Panel Overview: Challenging the Status Quo: Self-Advocacy, Career Development & Sponsorship

By now it’s fairly common knowledge: Women often do not apply for a job if they don’t check every box, whereas men regularly seek jobs for which they are only partially qualified. This is no less true in the legal profession, and applies to landing an entry-level associate position all the way up to being promoted to general counsel or making partner.

The reality is, as you advance in your legal career, you very rarely have all the skills, experience and capabilities that a new post will require. Instead, pursuing growth opportunities requires the confidence to see your own potential to develop the necessary commercial awareness, analytical skills or litigation experience on the job, rather than waiting until you’re “perfectly prepared.” It can also be of tremendous value to enlist the right mentors and sponsors who will vouch for you and push your name forward for the opportunities you want.

This panel will explore:

• The meritocracy and why it cannot be relied on
• The ASK: Asking for what you want and knowing why you deserve it
• Dealing with rejection: Every “no” means you are closer to a “yes”
• Differentiating sponsors from influencers and mentors
• Cultivating potential sponsors
• What are the best ways to advocate for ourselves and others?