A Message from the CBA Leadership

Written Tuesday, February 4, 2025

In 2015, the House of Delegates unanimously approved the adoption of the CBA’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Policy. Its words are as important today as they were then:

We are a richer and more effective association because of diversity, as it increases our association’s strengths, capabilities, and adaptability. Through increased diversity, our organization can more effectively address member and societal needs with the varied perspectives, experiences, knowledge, information, and understanding inherent in our diverse relationship.

Since that time, the CBA’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee has been charged with implementing the CBA’s policy and adopting, monitoring, and promoting a diversity and inclusion plan to achieve a genuine, sustainable, diverse, and inclusive environment within the CBA, throughout its membership, and in the Connecticut legal community at large. In 2016, the Committee brought together the state’s legal leaders, who have since worked together to create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment not only within their firms, but in the profession in general. This year, we will host our tenth annual summit celebrating our progress, exploring the ever-changing landscape of DEI, and charting where we go next to better our profession.

The CBA’s pipeline initiative programs, including Law Camp and Future of the Legal Profession Scholars, encourage talented high school and college students of all backgrounds to consider a legal career. Last year, the first class of our legal scholars graduated and became lawyers. We began supporting those scholars in 2019, reflecting our commitment to meaningful and lasting change.

Our promise to make the legal profession open to all remains steadfast. For a decade, it has been engrained in our mission and values and a focus of our strategic plan. We will continue our efforts, consistent with what the law permits. We will do so not because we favor one group over another—we do not. We do so because we are a “richer and more effective association” as a result.