Mountain View, CA (December 9, 2013)– Fenwick is pleased to announce that the firm has received a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index for the fifth straight year. Fenwick is additionally recognized for its transgender-inclusive healthcare coverage, which is provided by less than 50 percent of major U.S. businesses. Businesses that achieve a rating of 100 percent in this report are recognized as “Best Places to Work for LGBT Equality.”
“We’re proud to again receive this important recognition,” said Michael Shuster, co-chair of Fenwick's Diversity & Inclusion Committee. “We’re constantly striving to ensure that our community is safe and supportive of our LGBT individuals, and we remain dedicated to continuing our tradition of receiving this perfect score.”
The 100 percent rating is based on Fenwick’s commitment across four main criteria as described by Human Rights Campaign: provides equal benefits for same-sex partners and spouses; ends benefits discrimination for transgender employees and dependents; demonstrates a firmwide organizational competency on LGBT issues; and demonstrates a firmwide public commitment to the LGBT community.
“The policies, benefits and practices businesses must implement to earn a perfect score are best-in-class demonstrations of corporate commitments to LGBT workers and the broader community at-large,” according to Human Rights Campaign.
Diversity has been a core component of Fenwick's culture since its founding four decades ago. In 2001, Fenwick implemented a formal Diversity & Inclusion Committee to engage in initiatives like the Pride Law Fund, one of the oldest LGBT legal advocacy and education groups in the U.S., internal mentoring programs and retreats for minority attorneys.
Every year, Human Rights Campaign (HRC) invites American Lawyer magazine’s top 200 revenue-grossing law firms and Fortune magazine’s 1,000 largest publicly-traded businesses to participate in the Corporate Equality Index (CEI). Launched in 2002, the CEI is the nationally-recognized benchmarking report for businesses to gauge their level of LGBT workplace inclusion against competitors.
About Fenwick & West
Fenwick & West provides comprehensive legal services to ground-breaking technology and life sciences companies at every stage of their lifecycle. We craft innovative, cost-effective and practical solutions for established and emerging companies on issues ranging from venture capital, public offerings, joint ventures, M&A and strategic relationships, to intellectual property, litigation and dispute resolution, taxation, antitrust, and employment and labor law. For more than four decades, Fenwick has helped some of the world's most recognized companies become and remain market leaders.