WilmerHale is pleased to announce that Tracey A. West has joined the firm as its new director of diversity and inclusion, bringing with her nearly 20 years of experience in the important work of making the legal profession more representative of the nation.
Ms. West, who will be based in WilmerHale’s Boston office, comes from the Boston College Law School where she was associate dean for external relations, diversity and inclusion, the first-of-its-kind position at a US law school.
At WilmerHale, Ms. West will lead the firm’s diversity and inclusion team. In her new role, she will be integral to advancing the firm’s efforts and broad initiatives to diversity and inclusion at the firm and in the profession.
Those efforts are driven by the Executive Diversity and Inclusion Committee that is co-chaired by co-managing partners Susan Murley and Robert Novick and whose members include leaders of the firm’s legal and administrative departments and partners with leadership roles across the firm.
The firm has been repeatedly recognized for advancing diversity and inclusion. For instance, for the second consecutive year, WilmerHale achieved Mansfield Certification Plus status from the Diversity Lab for having at least 30 percent of its key leadership and committee positions held by lawyers who are women, people of color or LGBTQ+.
Recently, the firm held its first ever Diversity Summit earlier this year which brought together in Washington, DC 170 diverse lawyers from the firm’s US and UK offices. The summit’s participants identified challenges and discussed strategies and resources to promote diversity and inclusion.
“We believe the impressive breadth of Tracey’s diversity and inclusion work, along with her management experience, make her the ideal person to inform and guide our firm’s efforts in this important area,” said Robert Novick, WilmerHale’s co-managing partner. “We are proud of our demonstrated commitment to diversity and inclusion and look forward to making even greater progress with Tracey’s leadership.”
“I am thrilled to be at WilmerHale, a firm that is determined to be a legal industry leader on issues that have become my life’s work,” Ms. West said. “I’ve been very impressed by how much the people I’ve met across the firm want WilmerHale to be a model for the legal profession on meeting one of our greatest challenges.”
At Boston College Law School, Ms. West created, implemented and managed diversity initiatives as well as programs for improving inclusivity. She also launched effective strategies for recruiting, retaining and developing diverse talent at the institution.
Additionally, she has significant experience conducting training on diversity and inclusion best practices and related issues; and working with corporate partners, professional networks and other entities to enhance the legal profession’s diversity.
In 2015, the National Association for Law Placement named her Diversity Champion for creating the nationally recognized LAHANAS program at her school, designed to assist historically underrepresented law students with their successful transition to law school and the legal profession.
Before joining the diversity and inclusion field, Ms. West was a trial lawyer for 12 years in both the private and public sectors, handling all phases of civil and criminal litigation. She earned her law degree at Georgetown Law School and her bachelor’s degree at Georgetown University.