In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, we have seen many firms expand and publicize their diversity efforts in the community. Many of these efforts are part of pro bono programs supported by individual firms. Brenna DeVaney, Director of Pro Bono Programs and Pro Bono Counsel at Skadden and the Law Firm Anti-Racism Alliance (LFAA) have a different approach–leverage the legal and technical expertise of law firms and legal vendors as a whole while working with legal services organizations and race equity advocates to battle systemic racism long term. Brenna provides us with some insights into the mission of the LFAA and its plans for the future. [PDF of LFAA Mission]

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Information Inspirations
Bon Appétit? Apparently not if you have dark skin. Greg discusses how Bon Appetite’s popular Test Kitchen got derailed due to racist policies. He also ponders how individual freedom can hamper good solutions–in this case the use of COVID-19 tracing apps.
For those of you who can’t take being on another online call, Marlene has a hack for you. You can use pre-recordings. And while the end result is great, the effort might not be worth it. But if you do choose to pre-record yourself nodding and sipping coffee, spend your free time listening to Marlene’s summary of the recent copyright litigation of Thomson Reuters v. ROSS Intelligence.
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Please take the time to rate and review us on Apple Podcast. Contact us anytime by tweeting us at @gebauerm or @glambert. Or, you can call The Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270 and leave us a message. You can email us at geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com. As always, the great music you hear on the podcast is from Jerry David DeCicca.

 


Transcript:

 

[0:21]

Marlene Gebauer: Welcome to the geek and review. The podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal industry. I’m Marlene Gebauer.

Greg Lambert: And I’m Greg Lambert. Marlene, I don’t know if you followed what’s going on with the Florida Bar Exam this week. But, you know, I think the exam was supposed to be yesterday or today. But on Monday, they just reached out to everyone who was taking it and said, oh, by the way, it’s postponed until October.

Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, I saw that it’s just like colleges.

Greg Lambert: The so the #barpocalypse rages on. I can only imagine how ticked off these test takers are right now. So anyone who missed our #barpocalypse episode, apparently the content is still fresh out there. So if you haven’t, haven’t listened to it, go back and listen and see if you agree with our guests that the 2020 bar exams, they should just be canceling these things and issue some type of either diploma privilege or limited practice until they can get this thing right. It’s just frustrating for everyone. But it’s kind of funny. I did have some, a few people I know on Twitter or in person, who are lawyers who are for some reason really opposed to granting people diploma privilege, mostly because they weren’t granted diploma privilege.

Marlene Gebauer: I walked 20 miles in the snow to get to school, and you do too.

Greg Lambert: We’ll see how it goes. I’m sure between now in our next show, there’ll be another exam that’s been postponed or canceled. Yeah, let’s move on to this week’s information. inspirations.

 

INFORMATION INSPIRATIONS

 

[2:10]

Greg Lambert: All right, I think it’s pretty uncontroversial that until we find a way to really reduce the spread of COVID-19 that the economy is just going to continue to suffer. So as I heard recently COVID is the economy. One of the most significant barriers, at least here in the US is that we have a high expectation of personal liberty. We don’t like being forced to do something, I can give you an example. Our preference for technology is that we should have to opt-in to tech rather than automatically being enrolled into tech and have to opt-out. So this culture of individualism is affecting the contact tracing programs across the country. And this recent Washington Post article that I read the author’s give this example of how states contact tracing apps are just not doing a great job of actually tracing contacts between virus carriers, and those who are potentially exposed to those individuals. In Virginia, for example, they’re using the Google/Apple joint contact tracing app that was developed and That app has only been downloaded by about 9% of the cell phone owners in that state. The results of the app are virtually worthless, according to one of the Johns Hopkins bioethicist who was interviewed for the article. I think for those of us in legal tech, we can see the parallels to some of these in our own programs for sure, we got us a really great solution, right, on how to how to do some contact tracing, but it doesn’t matter how important and even how beneficial the results are. If we can’t find a way to get the users to opt-in at a significantly higher percentage. The solution with a priceless potential just becomes another worthless failure.

 

[4:07]

Marlene Gebauer: So I watched CNET the other day Greg and I discovered Jesse Orrall who’s a video editor for CNET. Now that title is a little misleading because he also makes his own videos for CNET including the one I watched where Jessi shows us how he painstakingly set up software to fake his presence in an online video call.

Greg Lambert: Is he available for hire?

Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, before you chuck the drawn on eyes, you stuck in your glasses for this solution, be warned is not the panacea that you might think it is. In fact, putting … Yeah, I know. In fact, putting this together is really hard. Now Jesse spent hours programming different movements and responses so that he would seem lifelike. And it worked. He sat through one meeting where he knew he wouldn’t talk. And that was easy peasy. Then he progressed to one where he gave an update, passed with flying colors. And finally, he broke the news to his colleagues, which was also prerecorded. With great success.

Greg Lambert: So he confessed on the on videotape as well?

Marlene Gebauer: He did. He did, and I have to admit, I mean the whole story was super fun, and just sort of watching it build-up was great. But, you know, in addition to all the time spent on making the recordings, Jesse had to stay around to make sure things were going okay. I mean, that was one instance where he was like, whoops, you know, I got to make a quick adjustment to make sure no one thinks anything strange.

Greg Lambert: So he’s still, he still had to attend the meeting that he wasn’t attending?

Marlene Gebauer: Right, you know, he still had to be at the meeting anyway. And you know, that all of that coupled with the stress of is anyone going to find me out? So the final word, you know, I think it was a pretty fun prank. And I think they all enjoyed it. But, you know, it’s probably just better to attend the online meeting.

Greg Lambert: You know, Jesse needs for this.

Marlene Gebauer: What?

Greg Lambert: AI. That’ll fix everything.

Marlene Gebauer: Sure.

 

[6:11]

Greg Lambert: Well, Marlene, my second one is you know, I think you know that I love watching Bon Appetit’s Test Kitchen videos and…

Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, what’s Not to love its food?

Greg Lambert: Yeah, I know what you mean. So I watch it on YouTube. I even have downloaded the Bon appetit app on my Roku system so I can watch. You know, Brad and Claire and Priya and Carla and all these others make some really interesting food and in a very entertaining way and in fact, someone says it’s basically FRIENDS in the kitchen, the TV show FRIENDS, but only in the kitchen. But as with most things, I’m afraid that the test kitchen at least as we knew it, it’s over. And guess what the reason is?

Marlene Gebauer: What is it?

Greg Lambert: Systemic racism in the business model.

Marlene Gebauer: Oh, great!

Greg Lambert: Oh, man and I laughed because otherwise I would cry. And to me, I think it’s you know, it’s the same business model that exists in the legal industry. And we see it in an example here with the BA Test Kitchen. Then I think eventually We’re going to see this thing play out somewhere in the legal industry as well. It may not be on YouTube and get as much press but I can almost guarantee it’s going to happen. So let me tell you without getting too deep into the weeds, it turned out the Conde Nast, the parent company of Bon Appetit was not paying some of its editors and staff who were producing video content during the pandemic while it was paying others. The common denominator for the discrepancy was whether you were white, or you were a person of color. Now we’re talking about and really we’re not talking about huge money here. The BA Test Kitchen episodes get watched millions of times and they’re just moneymakers for Conde Nast. And you know, and especially during the lockdown periods, because they actually found a way to continue to keep producing this video content. You know, however, Conde Nast seems to double down on bad policy. And tried to explain away why some of the content creators are paid, and they just happen to be white, while others receive far less pay or not at all, and just happen to be people of color. So here’s my suggestion for all of the HR departments in the legal industry. Review your policies. Especially any adjustments that you made during the pandemic. If you’ve reduced pay, or you’ve given incentives for performance during the pandemic, audit those. If it turns out the results skew towards paying whites more, while paying others less, then change those policies and make everyone whole at the end of the day. So I’m betting that being proactive now with your HR departments and reviewing these is going to cost you far less than if you wait for the lawsuits in the bad press that will come your way. If you try to Conde Nast your way out of the situation.

Marlene Gebauer: Oh, yep. Agreed.

Greg Lambert: It’s a shame too because I really like those. And they’re done.

 

[9:34]

 

Marlene Gebauer: I mean, and it’s just why?? You don’t miss I mean, maybe I’m missing some there’s just like why, you know? Anyway. Moving on. So Greg we have a copyright battle between information companies going on again. Yep, Thomson Reuters sued Ross intelligence asserting Ross stole copyrighted materials, namely headnotes and the key number system to speed up the development of its own research platform. Now Ross recently filed a motion to dismiss alleging case headnotes and the Thomson’s key number system cannot hold up for copyright protection because neither has the requisite originality or creativity required to be protected by copyright. Now that caught my attention because Thomson Reuters has been diligent over the years and protecting both those things. And a lot has been written about how the key number system in combination with headnotes is a superior way to find relevant case law. I know many attorneys and researchers who absolutely swear by this now Thomson is seeking payment for use of its creative expression. And it’s a new suit. Stay tuned.

Greg Lambert: Yeah. Well, I imagine they protect it like Coke protects its formula for coke.

Marlene Gebauer: Exactly. Exactly. Bold move Ross.

Greg Lambert: I’m usually Yeah, I’m usually one that says well, anytime you can get more information out there, I’m fine. We’ll see how this goes though.

Marlene Gebauer: And that wraps up this week’s information inspirations.

Greg Lambert: Brenna DeVaney is pro bono counsel for Skadden and is involved in the new Law Firm Antiracism Alliance. The LFAA already has over 250 law firms who have signed on to the Alliance. And we wanted to ask Brenna to tell us more about what the Alliance’s mission is. And what difference does the Alliance want to make?

 

Interview

[11:37]

Marlene Gebauer: Brenna DeVaney is the director of pro bono programs and pro bono counsel at Skadden. Brenna, thanks for taking the time with us today to talk about the  Law Firm Antiracism Alliance.

Brenna DeVaney: I’m delighted to be here. Thank you.

Greg Lambert: So Brenna, we wanted to learn more about the Alliance and its mission. But before we dive into that, one of the things that I really wanted to start the conversation with that caught my eye about this alliance is the word antiracism. And it’s right there in the title. It’s not diversity. It’s not pro bono. It’s not inclusion, but it’s antiracism. So what’s the reason that that specific word is being used so prominently in this alliance?

Brenna DeVaney: Thank you for that question, Greg. And I’m glad that you noticed that because that was a very intentional choice. Antiracism is an action word, and we intend to act. We intend to do something here and we wanted to make that clear from the very beginning. When we were recruiting firms to join us that this is going to be an effort to do more than sign a pledge. This is a collaborative effort to make systemic change. And we believe that that word antiracism is the word that captures what we intend to do.

Greg Lambert: So now to the Alliance itself with the LFAA starting, what can you say is the overall mission? And can you tell us what unique attributes this alliance has, and is going to bring to the legal industry?

Brenna DeVaney: Absolutely. So our overall mission is something that we crafted with a lot of stakeholders in our effort. And it’s written right there in our charter that we’d like to leverage the resources of the private bar in partnership with legal services. And I want to highlight the fact that this is in partnership with legal services to amplify the voices of communities of color, black people, against racism in our justice system and that is what we intend to do. And we know that this is not a short term mission, we know that this is five to 30 years of work, at least. What’s unique? A couple of things. That question brings to mind for me a lot of questions that I’m getting about this alliance, which are usually framed in terms of why now? Why this? Why the Law Firm Antiracism Alliance? And I think what’s embedded in that question is really a why not before? Why, why right now? Which is understandably loaded with frustration that this hasn’t happened before? And I’ve been thinking about what’s the right answer to this question, why now why are we doing this thing? And there are certainly good answers to that question. Right. We’re in this moment of racial reckoning. We’re in this moment of upraised voices. Protesters urging us forward. We’re also in a pandemic, where the implications of COVID are desperate on people of color. And as one of my friends said to me recently, COVID is making us sit alone at home a lot in our discomfort, and think about the things that we’re not okay with, and trying to find ways to be hopeful about what we could do. So it’s almost like this perfect storm of energy gathering around what could we do to be better about race equity and racial injustice? And so, while I’m trying to find a good answer that question, why now and why this. I almost want to say, Well, why not now? Why not now? We have energy, we have people ready. We have lawyers who are activated in this really deeply important committed way. And we know that if we build community and structure around something, we have a much better chance of success. So the LFAA born out of all of that, that energy this moment, this particular moment.

 

 

[15:43]

Marlene Gebauer: Yeah. I mean, I liked your comment about that we’re sort of sitting here in our discomfort because I think that’s absolutely right. And you know, we have the time on our hands. And why not put this to good use? So I wanted to go back, you had mentioned legal services organizations and you highlighted that. Can you tell us what the role of legal services organizations and race equity advocates is in the LFAA?

Brenna DeVaney: Yes. All pro bono at law firms, or at least the vast majority of it is done in a safe and responsible way. When we are guided by and led by and in partnership with legal services organizations. This is no different than that.

Marlene Gebauer: They’re the experts, right?

Brenna DeVaney: That’s exactly right. Law firms, however, have a lot of personal power, pro bono power, and resources. And have the opportunity here in a very special way to be a value add to legal services organizations and raise equity advocates in a real value add way. Just like the pro bono of the past, we intend to be guided by, led by, and formed by the experts in that community. We hope that they will tell us where we should step up, and where we should do the work. We’ve been very clear in all of our messaging about the LFAA, both to its members and to the legal services organizations that will work with that this is intended to be a value add. This is intended to be more on top of what we already do. We do not want to do any sort of redirecting of resources or funding from legal services organizations and race equity advocates to LFAA This is more, better, laser-focused, on systemic racism.

Marlene Gebauer: Got it. So you know, you’re talking about systemic racism. And you know you’re talking about this is an add on, this is an extra value to what firms can do in addition to their existing pro bono work. So how does the work of the LFAA? How is it different? You know, what, what is that laser focus? What are they doing differently from the pro bono work that many of the firms that are already doing?

 

[18:00]

Brenna DeVaney: What is different about the work of LFAA? is a very good question. And it’s one that we’re getting a lot because law firms have throughout the history of their pro bono programs done pro bono work that is focused on addressing the symptoms and manifestations of racism on individual’s lives. Occasionally, we get to do some work that is more impact-focused or systemic in nature. But the real difference here is twofold. One, we want to do, as I said, more than that, although we’re really aware that that work has to continue full steam ahead. There is an urgent need for pro bono services that help people, individual people who are experiencing racism. So we want to do more in that we want to get into the roots, into the systems understand whole structures, and where we can dismantle the codified racism that’s in our structures, and also just the impact of what exists in our society and dismantle that to the best of our ability. The second thing that’s different about this Alliance is that pro bono has long been the connective tissue among a group of law firms. We have the same players in that collaborative space. Most of the time. Thus we’ve been so excited about because we’ve been able to reach small, medium, medium-large, and large law firms in every single state in the United States. That’s very different. To bring in new pro bono players into what’s possible, in terms of what we can deliver as a value add to legal services. And we hope that what that means is that we’ll be able to connect with legal services and raise equity advocates that don’t already know how to access pro bono power of law firms. So we think that that will be very different. In terms of the work of LFAA, we’re thinking about it in three prongs. One will be this convening and training function, where we’ll bring together the member firms, and we will talk about just like we did at the first summit, what is antiracism? What is systemic racism? How do we understand these structures so that we can dismantle them? So convening and training. Two will be this the development of systemic racism, legal inventory, that’s what we’re calling it for now. And what we think that will look like is a sort of think tank function, where the experts will tell us what do they need to know more about in terms of where racism is in our society, in health care and education and the criminal justice system and so on? We’ll provide a research-based resource that we’ll make available to legal services, organizations, and advocates in their work. The third prong is providing this sort of Portal or connectivity to the legal services organizations and raise equity advocates that don’t already know how to access pro bono power. So that’s the three-pronged approach of LFAA.

Marlene Gebauer: Well, first of all, it sounds like you’re going to need some information professionals, as part of that gets part of that group.

Brenna DeVaney: And that’s right up your alley. Right?

Marlene Gebauer: Well, food for thought. And the other thing is, the second thing that I took away from that is like the idea that you know, you’re getting new players and new voices. So it’s not just sort of the normal cast of characters, but you know, you’re getting additional firms involved, and I think that probably is going to lead to different types of discussions. And the third thing, this is a question, I read your charter and so do I answer And to correctly that you’re going to have like firms and the associations, are they going to be working together on large scale projects? So not just kind of very granular projects but larger and they’re all going to be working as a group? Is that right?

 

[21:52]

Brenna DeVaney: So the structure of LFAA has its own separate independent nonprofit is in progress. And so I think I’ll have more to report to you in the near future in terms of how that will be organized. But I can say that we hope that every member firm is now informed about what we mean about doing antiracist work. They want to continue to be signed on. They understand the three functions of LFAA and they know that some of that work will certainly be collaborative across firms. So I can envision research on say education where 10 firms dig in on that and create the work product, the knowledge management tools, those sort of things that they can offer to someone else. And LFAA would in fact, be the client for that work. That work product would be delivered to LFAA to make available to its legal services, friends and raise equity advocates. Because we’re law firms and we’re accountable to ethics rules and conflicts rules, we also have to remember that the pro bono work of any individual law firm will be the pro bono work of any individual law firm. And so the member firms will have to take that on through their own intake and engagement procedures in order to make sure that it’s the right fit for them. We’re also really aware that we created, very intentionally, a big tent, that we did not want there to be barriers to entry for firms of any size with different resources with different practices. And so some firms will be well-positioned to do certain work, and not well-positioned to do other work. We’re counting on the number of firms to sincerely be engaged and to be on the lookout for what they can do, but also we understand that not everybody can do everything. And that’s why it’s so exciting. We have 255 law firms.

Greg Lambert: That was going to be my next question was I knew last count, I think was 240. So we’ve seen a number of law firms in I guess you’re saying from small to large join. What are the requirements that you’re asking of these firms when they join? And what type of commitment is the Alliance asking of these firms in order to not just join but also to maintain his membership in the Alliance?

 

[24:18]

Brenna DeVaney: We very thoughtfully created a situation where there would not be barriers to entry. If your firm and the people at your firm wanted to be engaged in antiracist pro bono work, we wanted you to be a part of this. And so we did not invent and do not at this point intend to ask for any member firm to be forced to commit to a certain amount of financial resources or pro bono hours or metrics of any sort. That said, we hope through the training and convening function of LFAA, that we are going to inspire law firms to do everything they can to be involved in this work. And to create a sort of bulletin board of projects that need help that law firms of different sorts will be able to pick off that bulletin board and work on. So we are not intending to ask for particular requirements for law firms to sign on. That said, as I mentioned before, we’re in the process of forming a nonprofit. And so we’ll be creating a board and there will be requirements for being involved. And there will be member agreements and those sorts of things. So that because we’re lawyers, right, so we, we have to make sure that this works from those perspectives as well. And so we’re working through those issues.

Marlene Gebauer: So I’m curious is one of the goals, sort of establishing some sort of KPI to determine if the program is accomplishing its purpose and focus? Or, you know, do you have ROI goals for the projects of the Alliance? Because you know what I’m asking that because it’s sort of important to measure if it’s actually accomplishing the goal that you want to achieve.

Brenna DeVaney: We agree with you that making sure that we actually have an impact is the goal and that we have to succeed with all of these resources. I mean, think about starting a nonprofit with 250 law firms behind you. And you know, the donation of technology services and, all that’s at our fingertips if we don’t succeed in this in some way. That’s just tragic. That’s really…

Marlene Gebauer: It’s not too shabby what you’ve done. Right?

 

[26:35]

Brenna DeVaney: Right. What will those metrics look like? Think one of thematically, what we’re doing is taking very intentional steps. We know that there’s an urgency here, we know that we need to get going, mindful of the fact that our pro bono programs are still full steam ahead on the existing antiracist pro bono work. But we really want to take our time to make sure that we are informed by the smartest people in the world, the people with the most important life experience. We want to hear what those people have to say before we make any assumptions about what success looks like. I think that the first summit was focused on a grounding a level setting. What does an antiracism mean? Are you all still signed on? How will we proceed as much by consensus as possible? And this next gathering is where we’re going to dig into the substantive issue areas and learn from the experts about what is the most critical work that we need to prioritize? And then the last law firms that sign on to follow those workstreams will work through the metrics. So 100%, we have to make sure that we’re making a difference. I just want to be informed before we decide what success looks like. And who gets to define success. I’m not sure it should be the law firms. It’s probably not the law firms.

Greg Lambert: Do they know that?

Marlene Gebauer: We’re all shaking our head. Like that. I mean, it makes perfect sense. I mean, you can’t put measurements into place until, you know, you have more of that information gathering and able to make sure that they are, you know, they have, you know, some sort of impacted meaning. So, Brenna, you’ve talked a little bit about the virtual summit that you recently conducted and the summit that’s going to come forward, and is there any way that we can dig a little deeper in terms of what was actually covered at the last summit?

Brenna DeVaney: Yes. The first summit was structured so that day one was a grounding in definitions and in what systemic racism is and what it might look like for law firms to be a part of dismantling systemic racism.

Marlene Gebauer: Was there a lot of conversation about that? I’m just I’m just curious. I mean, I’m I don’t want to put anybody on the spot. And yeah, I’m really curious if, if it was everybody was silent. Or if everybody really talked about it.

 

[29:00]

Brenna DeVaney: I wish that there could have been more conversation. But, you know, one of the strengths of the summit was that we had at least 500 people logged on virtually at any moment, throughout the entire thing. But that also means having conversations.

Marlene Gebauer: It’s amazing that you didn’t crash.

Brenna DeVaney: Right. The conversation though the aspect of it was more difficult. We really had to think that through what does it look like to bring together the chairs of law firms, the pro bono professionals from law firms, the D E & I professionals from law firms. For six hours and make it meaningful to them, knowing that conversation among them was going to be very difficult. We were very fortunate to partner with the Shriver Center Racial Justice Institute, in my mind some of the best trainers in the universe around race equity issues. And they provided several hours of training to the members and the people who logged in around definitional concepts, how systems interact, where law firms have been successful in the past and related concepts. That was the first day. The second day we broadened our panel of experts a bit to include some other legal services organizations that focus on race equity, including the Mississippi Center for Justice, the Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, plus a partner from WilmerHale, Debo [P. Adegbile] who has a strong civil rights background. And at one point worked for the NAACP, LDF. And we heard from them, not necessarily about work that’s been done in the past, or what has been successful in the past but really very forward-looking. They were experts in telling us, this is how law firms successfully work with race equity advocates. This is how you approach that work with humility. This is how you might direct your energy. And so that was, I think, important for us to start with. And then the final bit of the first or the second day rather, of the summit, was focused on the structure and work of LFAA. So that these couple hundred law firms could hear about how are we actually going to work together and get anything done? And so we had some conversation about that to preview what’s coming next.

 

[31:30]

Greg Lambert: Well, speaking of next steps, what are the next steps for the Alliance and how do you get to maintain the momentum that you have now, over the next five to 30 years?

Brenna DeVaney: Yes, maintaining momentum has been thematically very important for us to talk about. Over and over again, we continue saying to ourselves, this has to be more than a moment. This has to be a movement. What I think pro bono professionals know is that there are some markers of a potentially successful project. And those include four things. Need, Interest, Resources, and Structure. And so moving forward, we are looking to make sure that we can check all those boxes. Is there a need? Of course, I don’t think that’s debatable. In this moment, and far before this moment, we know that racism is a problem in the United States. Is there interest? Clearly demonstrated right now. Protests. Lawyers asking for work they can do globally, not just in the United States. And I note that beyond the 50 states that we have represented, we have law firms that have signed on from Canada, Australia, South Africa, Austria, and beyond. So there is interest. Resources? Also not really debatable. We have, you know, lawyers from some of the best law firms in the world. We have Thomson Reuters, that’s donating significant technology to us and services to make sure that we have a visible platform and work ways to work together. So then it’s really structure. And that’s what we’re working on now in terms of next steps. How do we form a nonprofit without any staff? That still makes sure that work gets done, and that we continue to have buy in from everyone significantly, including the leaders of the law firms that have signed on? And that’s been a remarkable thing about LFAA is that the chairs, managing partners of these law firms, raised their hand, showed up, stayed engaged, and continue to stay engaged. So we need to continue that as well. So the other thing we know about successful projects is that if we build community around something, we are more likely to sustain interest and momentum. And that I think is going to be another gift of the LFAA is that we are creating community and connection among people who didn’t know each other before, beyond the law firm world into the legal services world and race equity world. And I am hopeful that that means that we’ll continue doing this work for the next five to 30 years or whatever it takes.

Greg Lambert: All right. Well, Brenna DeVaney, I appreciate you taking the time to talk with us. It sounds like a great Alliance. And we’re I think we’re both expecting great things from it.

Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, I’m really looking forward to hearing your next steps.

Brenna DeVaney: Thank you.

 

Post-Interview

 

[34:39]

Greg Lambert:

Marlene I yeah, I think one of the best things that Brenna mentioned in there, when she says, you know, we’re all sitting here in our discomfort when it comes to racism specifically here in the US. So I liked how she and the law firm antiracism Alliance is making sure that we don’t simply just put on a Band-Aid to ease our discomfort and pretend that the underlying conditions don’t exist anymore.

Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, I think that the LFAA is seizing the moment and making sure that in fact it is it is more than just a moment and is going to put firms to work to address this.

Greg Lambert: Yeah, it’d be interesting to see how it does progress over time. So you know, I hope that they keep reminding the 250 law firms about the cause of their discomfort and what they need to be doing to actually make long term changes to the systemic racism that exists in our society, and what those law firms can actually do about it. So great talk. Thanks again to Brenna for coming on here and giving us more info.

Marlene Gebauer: Yeah, I mean, I think Brenna really nailed it. In the interview when she talked about how we’re, you know, we’re going to get, you know, pro bono organizations as well as law firms together to work together. All right, not just you know, everybody’s kind of doing their own thing, which is, which is great. But this is more of a, you know, more of a larger project between multiple groups where we can really target something more systemic on a long term basis. So it’s, it’s not just sort of following one case, but looking at something more broadly and addressing it more broadly. So I look forward to see what they do.

Greg Lambert: Me too.

Marlene Gebauer: Before we go, we want to remind listeners to take time to subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Rate and review us as well. If you have comments about today’s show, or suggestions for a future show, you can reach us on Twitter at @gebauerm or @glambert. Or you can call the geeky review hotline at 713-487-7270 or email us at geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com. And as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DeCicca. Thank you, Jerry.

Greg Lambert: Thanks, Jerry. All right, Marlene, I will talk with you later.

Marlene Gebauer: All right. Adios.