Racial Diversity

King & Spalding recognizes that diverse talent is a strategic asset that allows for more effective client service. As part of our commitment to diversity, the firm engages in a number of efforts and initiatives to encourage and develop racial diversity within the firm and our community.

Recognition

• For the seventh consecutive year, King & Spalding was listed in Multicultural Law magazine’s list of top 100 law firms for diversity. King & Spalding ranked 11th among the 2011 firms for African-Americans, 19th for women and 67th for diversity overall.
  
  
• For the second time, King & Spalding received a Law Firm Diversity Recognition Award from Chevron Corporation for its commitment to promoting diversity in the legal field. King & Spalding previously received Chevron’s diversity award in 2007.
  
  
• For the second year in a row, King & Spalding was recognized by client Boehringer Ingelheim for achieving the highest diversity score among all the company’s preferred-provider law firms.
  
  
• King & Spalding was selected by The Coca-Cola Company as the 2009 recipient of the Living The Values law firm diversity award. The award was established by Coca-Cola to annually acknowledge and honor the U.S. law firm with whom it does business that best demonstrates a commitment to diversity with creative and innovative solutions that align with the company’s diversity values.
  
  
• Two of King & Spalding’s African American lawyers and three Hispanic lawyer earned individual rankings in the 2011 edition of Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business, a leading guide to which lawyers and law firms are considered leaders in their fields.
  
  
• Guillermo Aguilar-Alvarez and Roberto Aguirre Luzi were among the five King & Spalding lawyers recognized as leaders in their fields in the 2012 edition of Chambers Latin America. The firm’s international arbitration and projects practices were also recognized.
  
  
• Ray Persons, an African-American partner, is on the board of directors of the Law Pipeline Program, Inc., a not-for-profit organization helping to support and assist the South Atlanta School of Law & Social Justice in the academic and social growth and development of its students. Mr. Persons was also the national co-chair of the 2010 “Just The Beginning” Foundation Conference, a biennial meeting of the nation’s minority federal judges addressing issues of diversity in the legal profession.
  
  
• Guillermo Aguilar-Alvarez, Roberto Aguirre Luzi and Ray Persons were among the 33 King & Spalding lawyers recognized as leaders in their fields by Chambers Global 2011, along with 32 of the firm’s practice areas.
  
  
• Partner Ray Persons is a Fellow of the International Society of Barristers, a law honor society with membership limited to six hundred trial lawyers and barristers drawn from the United States, Canada and England. At the time of his induction, he was the first African-American admitted from the South.
  
  
• Sam Matchett, Diversity Chairman and an African-American partner, received the 2010 State Bar of Georgia Commitment to Equality Award, presented annually by the organization’s Women and Minorities in the Profession Committee to individuals in the state of Georgia who have shown and continue to show a strong commitment to promoting diversity in the legal profession.
  
  
• Partners Bobby Woo, an Asian partner, Pay Persons and Guillermo Aguilar-Alvarez were ranked as exceptional legal counsel by The Legal 500 in 2011. The Legal 500 recognized the firm as a leading law firm in 17 practice areas and identified a total of 55 individual lawyers as exceptional legal counsel in their practice areas.
  
  
• Bobby Woo, partner, is on the National Advisory Council for the Asian American Justice Center. Mr. Woo also serves on the Supreme Court of Georgia Committee on Access and Fairness in the Courts, and he is a member of the Advisory Committee for the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association’s 2011 Convention.
  
  
• Ray Persons was inducted into the Litigation Counsel of America, an invitation-only trial lawyer honorary society whose member-ship is limited to less than one-half of 1 percent of American lawyers. Mr. Persons also received the Atlanta Bar Association’s 2010 Leadership Award, which is based on recipients’ contributions to the legal profession and to the community and he received the State Bar of Georgia’s 2010 Tradition of Excellence Award in the defense category.
  
  
• Harold Franklin, an African-American partner, is a board member of the Multi-Bar Leadership Council, which seeks to foster and improve relationships among the members of local bar associations throughout the state of Georgia. Mr. Franklin also is the past president and current historian of the Gate City Bar Association, the oldest African-American bar association in the state of Georgia.
  
  
• Dawn Jones, an African-American senior attorney, is a member of the State Bar of Georgia Committee to Promote Inclusion in the Profession. Ms. Jones is also a representative of the Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys to the Multi-Bar Leadership Council. She also serves on the board of the Multi-Bar Leadership Council.
  
  
• Hector Llorens, a Hispanic Partner, and Ray Persons and Sam Matchett, African-American partners have been named Georgia “Super Lawyers” for eight straight years (2004-2011). Ray Persons was a “top 10” vote getting lawyer for the fourth consecutive year.
  
  
• Rahul Patel, an Asian partner, was named as a Georgia “Rising Star” in 2011.

Facts & Figures

• As of January 1, 2011, our firm included 805 lawyers. Of these, 40 are African-American lawyers, 29 are Asian lawyers, 17 are Hispanic lawyers and seven are two or more races.
  
  
• Partner Harold Franklin, Jr., serves as national chair of Election Protection for the National Bar Association and national board member of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. He played a primary role in helping bring Election Protection, the nation’s largest nonpartisan voter protection program, to the national forefront at the recent 38th Annual Legislative Conference of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation in Washington, D.C.
  
  
• Sam Matchett, Diversity Chairman and a partner in the Business Litigation practice, was the past president of the Atlanta Legal Diversity Consortium. Under his guidance, the organization created a three-part STAR training program open to all junior associates in the city and offered several times per year. Mr. Matchett served as co-presenter of the first training segment, “Guideposts: The Keys to Success.”
  
  
• Larry Thompson, a former partner, former Deputy Attorney General of the United States and current General Counsel for PepsiCo, became the firm’s first African-American partner in 1986.
  
  
• Hector Llorens was elected to the partnership in 1995 as the firm’s first Hispanic partner.
  
  
• Bobby Woo was elected to the partnership in 2002 as the firm’s first Asian partner.
  
  
• Grace Rodriguez was elected to partnership in 1999 as the firm’s first minority female partner.
  
  
• Partner Thomas Gaines is the firm’s Chief of Information Services Strategy and Office Integration. In this role, he has principal responsibility for devising the firm's strategy for the use of technology and information services and for providing strategic direction and oversight to the firm’s IT, KM, Practice Services, Litigation Support, Library and Records Departments, bringing all information services under one umbrella. Prior to this position, Mr. Gaines served as the firm’s Chief Information officer since 1997.