Employee resource groups

The EDGE Resource Group sponsors prominent speakers to raise awareness of historically significant events relevant to varied cultural communities and to celebrate commemorative history and heritage months. The group also plans regular networking opportunities for members, including events sponsored by regional and national minority bar associations.

Pride Alliance is our LGBTQ+ employee resource group. Members lead pro bono efforts ranging from groundbreaking family law litigations involving same-sex couples to name-change petitions for transgender clients. The group also supports and maintains strong relationships with key organizations like Lambda Legal Defense & Education Organization, Immigration Equality, LGBTQ+ Bar, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

For 14 consecutive years, our firm has achieved a top score of 100% on the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Corporate Equality Index. Our perfect score reflects our commitment in policy and practice to protecting LGBTQ+ employees from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression. In addition to firmwide diversity training, we provide health and domestic partnership benefits including tax gross-up benefits to LGBTQ+ employees for disparate tax costs related to coverage of same-sex domestic partners or spouses and their children.

Michael R. Diehl Civil Rights Forum

The Forum was established to honor the legacy of Michael Diehl, a Fried Frank corporate associate known for his dedication to civil rights for the gay and lesbian community, who died in a tragic swimming accident in 1999. Since 2000, the Forum has invited prominent activists and civic leaders to address timely and relevant civil rights and social justice issues. In 2022, the Forum presented The Anti-Queer Frontier: A Conversation on Anti-LGBTQ State Legislation.

Other notable presentations in recent years include:

• The Anti-Queer Frontier: A Conversation on Anti-LGBTQ State Legislation (2022)
• Six Months In: The State of LGBTQ+ Rights Under the Current Presidential Administration (2021)
• Pride Was a Riot: Reflecting on the History and Progress of the LGBTQ+ Movement (2020)
• The Battle for Equality for Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming People (2019)
• Workplace Civil Rights in an Era of Greater Visibility (2018) 
• Protecting and Advancing Civil Rights in an Uncivil Time (2017)
• It's Not Over: The Continuing Fight for LGBTQ Rights (2016)
• Balancing Liberties: The Tension between LGBTQ Civil Rights and Religious Exemptions (2015)

The Women's Forum promotes the professional goals of women across the firm and fosters sensitivity to issues that uniquely affect women in the workplace. The Forum’s diverse programming ranges from discussion groups with partners to promote communication with firm leadership to professional development training, such as seminars on networking and business development skills. The group also hosts small dinners, including one for women summer associates, and community-building receptions where women at the firm share their personal and professional stories.

We provide professional development and networking opportunities, and promote dialogue around issues and concerns regarding childcare, parental leave, eldercare, alternative work arrangements that balance work and family, education, financial and estate planning, and career development and advancement.

Fried Frank is a leading sponsoring employer at the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association Career Fair and Lavender Law Conference, and an employer participant at the Veterans’ Legal Career Fair.

We also reach out to minority law school graduates and experienced lawyers through The Fried Frank Civil Rights Fellowship program, a collaboration with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (NAACP LDF) and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF).

Our Fellowship program offers  entry-level lawyers the opportunity to spend two years as litigation associates at our firm, followed by two years as NAACP LDF or MALDEF staff attorneys. Many diverse law students and graduates who are not ultimately chosen as Fellows are recruited as associates at Fried Frank.

We have also participated in the Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO) career program in New York for over 20 years, and in our Washington, DC, office since the program's inception in 1963. SEO places students of diverse backgrounds in law firms for summer internships prior to their first year of law school and many of our SEO interns have returned as associates. Our New York office also participates in the New York City Bar Association Diversity Fellowship program, which offers diverse first-year law students meaningful professional experiences and networking opportunities.

We partner with Genesys Works, an organization that provides pathways to career success for high school students in underserved communities through skills training and meaningful work experiences. Every year, two Genesys interns work part time in various Business Services departments in NY and DC throughout the year.

Our London office is proud to be a member of PRIME, an alliance of law firms across the UK who are committed to helping young adults gain access to the legal profession through work experience. With the goal of extending legal sector employment opportunities to individuals of all socio-economic backgrounds, PRIME provides needed support and identifies specific job openings. We commit to providing work experience placements throughout our London office and currently have placements within litigation, secretarial services and information technology.

Supplier Diversity at Fried Frank

To be eligible for supplier diversity status at Fried Frank, businesses must be at least 51% owned, controlled, and operated by men or women who are:

• Black or African American
• Asian American
• Disabled and Service-Disabled Veteran
• Hispanic American
• LGBTQ+
• Native American
• Non-minority Women

The following business operations are eligible for consideration as part of our supplier diversity initiative:

• Construction
• Duplicating / word-processing
• Events / meetings
• Facilities
• Food services
• Professional services

If your company would like to register as a diverse supplier for Fried Frank, please submit the following information to DiversityandInclusion@friedfrank.com

• Company name
• Internet address
• Federal Tax ID number
• Dun and Bradstreet number
• Executive and primary contact information
• Product / services information
• Diversity information of company, including:
  • Diversity category certification details
  • % of diverse ownership
• Notarized affidavit attesting that your business is at least 51% owned, controlled, and operated by men or women who are:
  • Black or African American
  • Asian American
  • Disabled and Service-Disabled Veteran
  • Hispanic American
  • LGBTQ+
  • Native American
  • Non-Minority Women

Eligible companies will be included in a database of diverse suppliers. 

Pipeline partner organizations include the Minority Law and Research Institute, the New York Law School B.A. to J.D. Pipeline program, and dozens of law school affinity groups. We have also taken the lead in setting goals to diversify the legal profession through the creation and support of law firm pipeline programs.

Since 2015, we partner with Legal Outreach, a nonprofit diversity pipeline organization that inspires youth from underserved communities in New York City to pursue higher education and prepares them to compete at a high academic level. As part of this effort we welcome rising sophomores as interns for a week of simulated legal work, members of our Women's Forum host rising ninth-grade female students via Legal Outreach's Legal Justice Institute, and Fried Frank lawyers mentor high school students in the organization's College Bound program, exposing them to various aspects of the law and coaching them in constitutional law debates.