Jerry Gonzalez of Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan LLP was featured in “Paradigm Shifts: Jerry Gonzalez Fosters Relationships Between Corporations and Minority- And Women-Owned Firms”, published in the 2014 Wisconsin Super Lawyers Magazine.
Gonzalez and Harlan noticed many self-identified, minority-owned firms going out of business. “It troubled us,” Gonzalez says. “Part of the problem was that there was no bar organization that focused on minority-owned or women-owned law firms in the country.” So he and Harlan contacted five minority-owned firms, and in 2001, the National Association of Minority & Women Owned Law Firms was born.
NAMWOLF promotes diversity in the legal profession by fostering relationships between member firms and its partner corporations, including Walmart, Marriott International and The Coca-Cola Co. Gonzalez, who chaired NAMWOLF’s law firm admissions committee for 10 years, remembers when corporations would complain that the minority-owned firms couldn’t handle “their kind of work.”
“I haven’t heard anyone say that in the last few years,” says Gonzalez. “I’m very happy about that.”
To read the entire article, please click here and see page 11.