This month, we bid 2020 a fond farewell, and focused on growth and forward momentum.
As a firm, our greatest gifts of 2020 were resilience and personal growth. The pandemic has truly tested the ability of all of us – the firm as an organization and each of us individually – to fly an airplane while we build it. We acknowledge that there is much to mourn, yet we pause to celebrate the fact that as a team we have continued to work hard and garner results for our clients in spite of the many hurdles presented by 2020. In fact, our clients, cases, and team have grown, and we hit and exceeded other firm goals related to diversity and benefits.
We are proud to have made great strides in the realm of diversity, equity and inclusion in the past year. We were honored to partner with Diversity Lab as one of 20 firms to participate in the 2020 launch of the inaugural Mansfield Rule for Midsize Law Firms. The Mansfield Rule’s goal is to broaden the pool of women, LGBTQ+ lawyers, lawyers with disabilities, and/or racial/ethnic minority lawyers considered for attorney openings, leadership opportunities, partner promotions, and opportunities to connect with clients.
SHG Partner Jackie Richardson led the formation of our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee and within the last few months they have established initiatives and action steps to meet the Committee’s goal to act intentionally to foster a diverse, equitable, and inclusive community that encourages, respects, supports, and celebrates the diverse voices of our employees and partners and enables everyone to flourish.
In 2020, we acquired 15 new clients, were recognized in Vault.com’s Top 150 law firms under 150 and were named among the top 150 in Law Firm 500’s annually published list recognizing law firms that have achieved significant growth in revenues. Additionally, this month we reached a milestone with a record number of active cases, a new all-time high in SHG history. In response to our continued growth and the ongoing stream of new prospects, coupled with the simultaneous need to foster our existing client relations, SHG Partner Ashley Shudan has taken the position of Marketing and Client Development Director and we look forward to introducing new efforts and initiatives under her leadership.
Since January 2020, we have welcomed SHG Attorneys Dan Lowe, Jesse LaFlamme, Lora Zommer, Melissa Siew, Jason Orr, Alice Vautour, Luke Wingo, Brittany Sayer and Chapin Scheumann. Additionally, we have added Kim Savon in our new role of Chief Operating Officer and Lori Merz to our team of paralegals.
As we grew in number, we grew our benefit offerings to include expanded bereavement leave, and Short-Term Disability coverage and duration, and introduced new adoption and infertility reimbursement policies and SHG HSA contributions. Most recently, we added a life-time subscription to CALM, to support everyone in their personal growth and mindfulness efforts.
To celebrate our communal resilience, we came together (virtually) to cultivate positive intentions for 2021. We partnered with Terrarium Therapy to send each team member a build your own terrarium kit. Over a spirited Zoom workshop, we layered the elements to create an ideal environment for continued growth in 2021.
