Interrupting Implicit Bias by Design: Inclusion Nudges in the Legal Profession

Unconscious bias is one of the biggest challenges to advancing diversity in the legal profession. While training on unconscious bias is an essential first step, it is not enough to interrupt or eliminate the hidden barriers diverse lawyers experience that cause higher attrition rates. Cutting-edge efforts by legal organizations involve embedding bias-interrupters into processes and procedures. This program, taught by Kathleen Nalty, a lawyer, author, consultant, and diversity and inclusion expert, will teach attorneys how to nudge any process in their organization to make it more "bias proof." Attorneys will also learn how legal organizations are implementing inclusion nudges to make diversity sustainable.

The course will review: 1) unconscious cognitive biases and their impact in the legal workplace, 2) the ten common hidden barriers that cause higher attrition rates for attorneys in underrepresented groups, 3) the major cause of the hidden barriers, and 4) inclusion nudges and how they are being used to interrupt unconscious bias in legal organizations. 

The program will benefit lawyers and legal professionals who seek to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in their organizations.

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify various unconscious cognitive biases, analyze how these biases show up in thoughts and behaviors and explore methods for interrupting these biases
2. Assess the ten common hidden barriers and their root causes
3. Evaluate how everyone in legal organizations contributes to and are potentially impacted by these hidden barriers
4. Create "feel the need" and "framing" nudges that can be used to change mindsets
5. Establish "process" nudges that embed diversity, equity, and inclusion principles as well as bias interrupters into structural components of their organization
6. Discuss what other organizations are doing to embed bias interrupters