New Goulston & Storrs Co-Leader Planning Diversity Focus

Goulston & Storrs’ newest co-managing director is a real estate lawyer with a history of advocating for diversity and pro bono efforts at the Boston-based firm.

William “Bill” Dillon, co-chair of the firm’s Inclusion Advisory Committee, will serve alongside Martin M. Fantozzi, who has been co-managing director since 2009. Dillon succeeds Barry Green, who recently left Goulston & Storrs to oversee legal operations at Lighthouse Real Estate.

In an interview with Bloomberg Law, Dillon said the firm plans to grow its corporate practice and its regional offices in Washington and New York, where it recently added five litigation attorneys. The firm has approximately 200 lawyers.

“A big part of our practice has always been around real estate in Boston, and that will continue to be a big part of our identity and work,” he said. “But we are focusing and seeing some exciting growth in other areas.”

Since joining Goulston & Storrs 20 years ago, Dillon has served in various leadership roles, including co-chair of the firm’s pro bono committee, head of its real estate group, and co-chair of the inclusion committee. He said he plans to continue to spend significant time and energy on diversity efforts as co-managing director.

As co-chair of the inclusion committee, Dillon has overseen the implementation of the “Mansfield Rule 2.0,” which is being implemented by Diversity Lab, a company dedicated to increasing diversity in the legal field.

The rule requires law firms to consider applicant pools with a minimum percentage of women, attorneys of color, and LGBTQ attorneys for new hires, leadership roles, partner promotions, and laterals.

“We’re participating now in the annual evaluation,” said Dillon. “We’re aiming to be certified at the end of the year.”

According to the Goulston & Storrs’ website, five of eight of the firm’s industry group co-chairs are women, and women make up 37.2 percent of all internal committees, which is on the high end compared to other firms in the industry.

Earlier this year, Dillon participated in Diversity Lab’s diversity in law hackathon, where his team of lawyers and law students took second place in a competition of ideas to increase legal industry diversity.

Their idea, a real-time associate feedback app called “Huddle,” is now being developed by Diversity Lab for future implementation at law firms. It is designed to combat unconscious bias in performance evaluations.

“The idea was really, the faster you get feedback to an associate, the less likely there is to be an implicit bias impact,” said Dillon. “It’s also just good to give associates of color or otherwise feedback on a regular basis.”

Dillon said Goulston & Storrs also plans to devote resources to diversity pipeline programs in the future, specifically those targeting high school and college students from groups underrepresented in the legal industry, to get them to consider the law as an accessible career path.