Gibbons P.C. Chairman Shares Benefits of Diversity at Work

Steve Adubato and Patrick Dunican, Chairman and Managing Director of Gibbons P.C., discuss the positive impact of diversity within companies, the future of law practice in New Jersey and his advice as a leader in the profession.

8/4/18 #218

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:

"Welcome to State of Affairs. I'm Steve Adubato. We, in fact, are coming to you from the Agnes Varis NJTV Studio in beautiful Newark, New Jersey. We welcome back Patrick Dunican, Chairman and Managing Director at Gibbons P.C. By the way Patrick, for people who don't know what Gibbons is? We're a 200 lawyer firm, five offices in four states, based here in Newark, New Jersey. Founded in 1926, as you know, by Andrew B. Crummy. So for most of our lives, we were the Crummy lawyers. [laughter] But you branded differently? [laughter] We're now the Gibbons firm. For good reason. Yeah, by the way, I've known Patrick a long time. I do some leadership coaching at his law firm, and we've known each other, and talk about legal issues all the time. The state of the legal... not just profession, but the legal system? I know, a broad question. State and nation? Go. Let's talk about New Jersey first. Sure. 90,000 lawyers admitted to practice here in the state of New Jersey. And the funny thing is, you need every one of them. [laughter] The complex society in which we live right now requires counsel, requires you to think like a lawyer. What does that mean? You're trained in law school to think differently. Not just, "Oh, take one side of the issue" as you see in politics, but to look at all issues from a multi-faceted perspective, and then come up with solutions. So here in New Jersey, we have really hard-working lawyers doing a whole bunch of different things. You can be in government, you can be in the judiciary, you can be in a large firm like me. There are CEOs who are lawyers as well? There are CEOs. It's excellent training. And people in the media? No question about it. Most of your anchors, Steve... your colleagues... Right. You're a PhD. But a lot of those people on TV that you see everyday, they have JD's, and they're providing useful insight into what we're seeing going on in the news every single day, and we know there's a lot going on in the news. So... Patrick... we're here with Patrick Dunican, Steve Adubato here, this is State of Affairs. I'm curious. Those who say, "Wait a minute! We already have, quote unquote..." You know where I'm going, "...'too many lawyers'"? Yeah. The truth is, there's been a crisis in legal education for the past decade. We're not going to have enough lawyers in about five years. Let me give you a perspective... Sure. ...that I share with Mark Cuban. Mark Cuban sounded a clarion call. He said, "Look, the STEM jobs, we were good to have three..."