Biglaw Firm Encourages All Employees To Use Gender Pronouns In Email Signatures

This is a move that goes far in setting the tone of inclusion at law firms.

onNovember 22, 2021 at 11:42 AMNovember 22, 2021 at 10:36 AM

Biglaw firms continue to promote diversity and inclusion among their ranks by instituting transgender-friendly workplace policies. To that end, many firms have decided to embrace the full gender spectrum by encouraging any and all employees — not just their transgender, genderqueer, gender fluid, and nonbinary employees — to use gender pronouns in their email signatures.

We can now add one more firm to the constantly growing list of those that have offered approval and support for employees to add their gender pronouns to their email signature blocks.

Kramer Levin recently announced that as part of the firm’s commitment to creating and maintaining an inclusive work environment — and in honor of Transgender Day of Remembrance — it would offer employees an optional, standardized mechanism for sharing gender pronouns in their email signature blocks. For those who opt to add pronouns to their email signature block, the word “pronouns” will be hyperlinked to the Human Rights Campaign’s fact sheet on “Talking About Pronouns in the Workplace,” available here.

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In support of this move, Nada Llewellyn, the firm’s chief diversity and inclusion officer, said, “Normalizing the use of personal pronouns and sharing them publicly is one way to create a more inclusive environment for our LGBTQ+ community members and reduces the possibility of misgendering our colleagues.”

This is a remarkably simple move, but one that goes pretty far in normalizing the practice and setting the tone of inclusion. Does your firm support the usage of gender pronouns in email signatures? Please let us know.

Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.