Lawyers Are Uniquely Challenging Audience for Anti-Bias Training

Cindy-Ann Thomas, co-chair of Littler Mendelson’s employment and diversity practice, has been giving unconscious bias trainings to clients for nearly two decades. This year, she’s training the firm’s own lawyers, and she’s preparing a little bit differently.

That’s because lawyers can be a tough audience, resistant to the idea that they might be behaving unfairly, according to Thomas.

“As attorneys, from 1L, it’s ingrained in us that we are there as advocates of and champions for justice,” Thomas said. “So when we are being taken to task for our biases, which are part of the human condition for everybody, it ...