Highlighting its ongoing commitment to a diverse and inclusive legal profession, the Boston Bar Association (BBA) today announced that Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual) will be honored with the BBA’s first Beacon Award at a 6 p.m. cocktail reception on November 9, 2010 at the State Room at 60 State Street, Boston. The Beacon Award was established to recognize organizations or individuals who have had an exceptional impact in advancing diversity and inclusion in one or more of these areas: legal scholarship, recruitment and retention practices, pro bono representation, community service, legal advocacy, and legislative advocacy. The award recipient must either be located in Massachusetts or have had a significant impact in Massachusetts and or the Greater Boston community.
“The nominating process underscored that making progress toward greater diversity and inclusion requires action on many fronts,” said Joan McPhee, Co-Chair of the Beacon Award Nominating Committee.” Among a number of strong contenders, MassMutual distinguished itself by the depth and breadth of its strategy for developing programs to broaden the pipeline of lawyers of color coming into the profession, fostering community service that benefits diverse populations, establishing diversity benchmarks for its in-house law department, and holding outside counsel to high standards for creating diverse legal teams.”
“At MassMutual, we recognize that exceptional people make great companies. Effective diversity and inclusion efforts are essential to ensuring we have the strongest, best and the brightest team, and enabling us to exceed the expectations of our increasingly diverse policyholders and clients,” said Mark Roellig, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, MassMutual. “We are truly honored to be recognized for our commitment to integrating diversity and inclusion into every aspect of our business, which is essential to our company’s success.”
When the Beacon Award was established several months ago, an overriding goal was to identify models of excellence to inspire continued innovative programs and initiatives.
“Working toward diversity and inclusion is an ongoing process where progress can be difficult to measure,” said Renée Landers, Co-Chair of the BBA Diversity and Inclusion Section. “The Beacon Award provides the opportunity to recognize and celebrate meaningful steps toward the common objective of diversity and inclusion in the legal profession.”
The Beacon Award Reception is free to members of the legal community. To RSVP to the event, click here.
