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.