Diversity and Inclusion: An Interview with a Young Lawyer D&I Advocate

“Diversity and inclusion” (or “D&I”) has become a hot topic in the legal profession, in areas ranging from recruitment, to interactions with our clients, and at the law society. But what does “diversity and inclusion” actually mean and why should young lawyers care? In this post, D&I advocate Rosel Kim shares her story of why D&I is important to her and how young lawyers can promote D&I in the legal profession.  

Rosel is a 2016 call who started her career on Bay Street and is now in-house counsel with a financial technology company. She is a board member of the Korean Canadian Lawyers Association and is currently involved in a committee to establish a Korean Legal Clinic in Toronto. Rosel has been celebrated for her D&I efforts, including by being selected as a CivicAction DiverseCity Fellow. She is often invited to speak on topics such as diversity, the notion of privilege, and the implications of the MeToo movement in the legal profession. 

What does “diversity and inclusion” in law mean to you?

That’s a good question. Sometimes I’m a bit afraid that “diversity” has become a catch-all phrase, diluting itself of the potential for progress or change. On the one hand, I’m glad that we feel comfortable talking about diversity and confirming its importance. On the other hand, are we really talking about diversity? Are we meaningfully talking about how to remove barriers to entry for law schools, the legal profession, and leadership positions within the profession? To do so requires us to talk about not only the celebratory side of diversity (like food or holidays), but also the hard and uncomfortable things, like systemic racism, rising law school tuition, unconscious bias and sexism. Sometimes, when I hear someone say “that person is diverse,” I press them and ask: “what do you mean by ‘diverse’?” Often the other person didn’t want to talk about the specific identity factor. Language matters. We can’t flatten our differences and identities with an umbrella term. This is what concerns me with the term “diversity and inclusion” – I appreciate the sentiment of celebrating diversity, but we also need to be specific about what we are talking about if we actually want things to improve.  

So, in sum, I guess what I’m saying is that diversity and inclusion to me means meaningful equal representation and decision-making power from the world around us, whether from our workplace, the justice system or the society at large.