Grace Speights takes a look at the future of the workplace in MSBA talk

A prominent labor and employment attorney, Grace E. Speights says that as a Black woman who is passionate about equity she is often asked how she can justify working for employers, rather than employees, on issues such as employment discrimination claims.

“We’re not out to teach employers how to discriminate against their employees or how to do any kind of bad things against their employees,” she said. “We are trying to teach them and counsel them on making sure their workplaces are safe, inclusive and respectful.”

Speights, a partner at the international firm Morgan Lewis, will speak Wednesday at The Center Club in Baltimore as part of the Maryland State Bar Association‘s 125th anniversary speakers series.

Her talk, which will also be streamed online, will focus on “The Future of the Workplace,” including how remote work has changed the ways that companies should ensure employees feel included, and the need to incorporate diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Speights has led high-profile internal investigations and reviews of corporate culture, particularly in the wake of the recent #MeToo and racial justice movements.

She led a team that won a jury verdict for PBS against former host Tavis Smiley, who claimed the network wrongfully terminated his contract when he was accused of sexual misconduct. The jury found in favor of PBS, determined that Smiley had violated the morals clause of his contract and ruled that he had to pay the network.

“I’m not somebody who’s going to call it the way the company wants me to call it, and they know that,” Speights said. “I have been responsible … for many CEOs and COOs and people in the C-suite being exited from their companies because of bad conduct and the results of our investigations.”

Speights said her worldview was shaped by her experience being raised by a single working mom in Philadelphia. Speights’ mother worked in a factory and sometimes brought her daughter to work on weekends when child care wasn’t available, so Speights saw the conditions her mother and other workers faced.

“I always wanted to make sure that whatever I did in my life, no matter what side of the aisle, I was always going to have in my mind trying to make the place better for workers,” she said.

That includes making sure that companies are continuing to promote diversity, equity and inclusion efforts despite the pandemic and remote work. She co-leads Mobilizing for Equality, Morgan Lewis’s task force dedicated to racial equity and justice.

The legal sector also needs to look inward, Speights said, and assess how it can make employees feel welcome and heard. Those efforts need to start at the top, she said.

“A lot of times in the past, law firms have made the individuals with the biggest voice or the biggest book of business the CEO or chair of the law firm,” she said. “I’m not telling any law firm how to run their operations, but I think law firms have to think better about leadership and who is the right kind of person to be in leadership.”

Law firms should also hold partners accountable for the company’s culture, she said.

“I’m just a firm believer that those types of issues have to be looked at when rewarding our partners,” Speights said.

The MSBA‘s  Spark Series is designed to start “critical conversations for the legal profession” and to examine how lawyers can use their skills for the pursuit of justice. Previous speakers included Sherrilyn Ifill, the president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc., and Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta.