Mina Jones Jefferson

I look at my field as leading talent, and from that perspective, I've been doing this for about 30 years - working with students at law schools and supporting attorney careers in law firm settings. Until the end of February, I was the Chief Culture and Engagement Officer at the Bricker, Graydon-Wyatt Law Firm, and now I'm on sabbatical. In my role, I was in charge of integrating our attorney talent, which could include conducting experience meetings with newer hires to focus on their workflow, becoming part of practice areas, and becoming socially connected. I managed employee engagement through qualitative and quantitative measures, taking information from poll surveys and other methods of collecting feedback, then mining the data for insights to operationalize. As a practicing attorney, I was active with recruiting at the firm, and I found that I enjoyed helping identify and develop careers. I was the person that people would come to with questions - 'do you have a second?' - and we would strategize to come up with a plan for them to tackle the issue. I just found that this was an area where I could add value and I was passionate about. My most notable professional achievement has been creating sustainable initiatives that increase opportunity in the legal profession.