Fox Rothschild LLP congratulates Partner Gray I. Mateo-Harris, who received the Law Firm Diversity Champion award during Walgreens’ Legal DE&I Recognition Program.
The DE&I Recognition Program, launched by Walgreens Legal Department’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee, recognizes the efforts of individuals within the Walgreens legal department as well as their legal service partners who demonstrate, through innovation and action, a shared commitment to advancing diversity, equity and inclusion in the legal profession.
Mateo-Harris was recognized during the ‘Walgreens Emerging Leaders in Law’ (WELL) program on July 25. As part of the event, she also took part in an interactive panel discussion on the relationship between in-house counsel and outside firm partners.
Based in Chicago, Mateo-Harris is the regional practice lead of Fox’s Labor & Employment Department and co-chairs the firm’s Trade Secrets & Restrictive Covenants practice group. She represents clients in a wide range of industries including education, software and technology services, real estate, financial services, retail and manufacturing. She represents companies nationally in critical labor and employment matters in state and federal court, arbitration, mediation and administrative proceedings, including the full gamut of discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wage & hour, pay equity, restrictive covenant, contract and tort litigation as well as unfair labor practice charges and grievance arbitrations. Gray has extensive and varied expertise developed over a decade prevailing for employers in high-stakes matters through trial, motion practice or settlement.
As a proven diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) leader and native Spanish speaker who emigrated at 7 years old from the Dominican Republic, she partners with clients on internal investigations, audits, private mediations, sensitive separations, policy implementation, workforce training and DEI.
Dedicated to DEI, pro bono and civic and community involvement, Mateo-Harris serves on the boards of several organizations devoted to the pursuit of justice for women and minorities, including the Women’s Coalition, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing together women who work with the government, law firms, and companies of all sizes, The Chicago Committee, a nonprofit focused on advancing minority attorneys in law firms, and the Illinois Equal Justice Foundation (IEJF), a nonprofit that funds civil legal aid programs that champion the rights of those burdened by barriers to justice. She is also a spokesperson for New Leaf Illinois, an alliance of 20 organizations that provides free legal and advisory services to help eligible individuals clear their record of cannabis convictions; Vice Chair of the Labor and Employment Section of the National Bar Association, the oldest and preeminent Black attorney bar association; and a member of the Hispanic National Bar Association, a group dedicated to empowering current and future members of the Hispanic legal community while also advocating on issues that impact the broader Hispanic community.
Recently, Mateo-Harris worked with a cadre of women executives from different backgrounds including Walgreens’ Kim Metrick to launch the Women's Coalition’s Diverse Associate & Allies Mentorship Program. The unique initiative is designed to forge long-lasting, impactful relationships between racially and ethnically diverse associates and majority in-house counsel attorneys.
Mateo-Harris is a member of Fox’s firmwide Diversity Committee and Co-Chair of its Supplemental Mentorship Program for Diverse Attorneys. She is also a member of the Associate Retention Committee. She mentors the development of several Latinx and Black lawyers she has met through the firm, her alma mater’s Latinx and Black student groups, the Diverse Attorney Pipeline Program, LegalTrek, Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, Hispanic Lawyers Association of Illinois, Corporate Counsel Women of Color and the National Bar Association.
Mateo-Harris is a valuable resource to clients seeking to elevate their workplace culture on issues of diversity and inclusion, implicit bias, gender discrimination and sexual harassment. She provides guidance on leadership and management training, employment policies and procedures and internal investigations.
Her knowledge of race, gender, bias, privilege, power, violence, intersectionality, allyship and the workplace has established her as a DEI authority, as well as a change-maker in the legal community. She is a sought-after speaker on both employment law and diversity topics, having spoken in recent years to the Women in Law & Corporate Leadership Summit, the CenterForce Inclusion & Equity Summit, the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles and the Black Women Lawyers Association.
Mateo-Harris has been named a Leadership Council on Legal Diversity (LCLD) Fellow, an Illinois Super Lawyer, a Law Bulletin Media Leading Lawyer, and was named to the “40 Under 40 Nation’s Best Advocates” list by the National Bar Association, “Top Lawyers Under 40” by The Hispanic National Bar Association, to the prestigious Chicago Daily Law Bulletin’s “Forty Under 40” list and as a Crain’s Chicago Business Notable Woman in Law.
She earned her J.D., cum laude, from the University of Illinois College of Law and B.S., cum laude, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Original source can be found here.