Partner Robert L. Haig Co-chairs NYCLA’s 96th Annual Dinner

The New York County Lawyers’ Association’s (NYCLA) 96th Annual Dinner celebrating diversity in the legal profession will be held on Tuesday, December 14, 2010 in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

At the Dinner, the NYCLA Diversity Award will be presented to Roderick A. Palmore, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of General Mills, Inc., who wrote the ​“Call to Action, Diversity in the Legal Profession,” urging General Counsel to drive diversity by demanding results in the law firms with which they work, as well as in their law departments. Mr. Palmore serves as the Chair of the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity, a collaboration between General Counsel and Managing Partners. In addition, NYCLA’s William Nelson Cromwell Award will be presented to George W. Madison, General Counsel of the United States Department of the Treasury and former General Counsel of both TIAA-CREF and Comerica Inc.

Dinner co-chairs are Michele Coleman Mayes, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Allstate Insurance Company, and Kelley Drye partner Robert L. Haig.

At the Dinner, NYCLA will recognize and honor the nearly 150 Corporate Law Department and Law Firm signatories of NYCLA’s Diversity Statement for their commitment to diversity in the legal profession.

The statement provides: ​“The undersigned law firms and law departments support efforts to increase diversity in the legal profession. We call upon other law firms and law departments to join us in taking steps to implement such efforts. We believe that law firms should not object to requests by their corporate clients that the firms report the number of hours devoted to the clients’ matters by minority lawyers. If our clients decide that they wish to publicly report the amounts of legal fees which they pay for services rendered by minority lawyers as emblematic of their commitment to increasing diversity in the legal profession, we would work with them to provide such numbers or estimates.”

Last year more than 1,000 lawyers and judges attended the event.

For additional information or to buy tables or tickets to NYCLA’s Annual Dinner, please contact Christina Andujar at 212-267-6646, ext. 221 or candujar@​nycla.​org.