Thomas L. Sager Award

The Thomas L. Sager Award is presented to large Am Law 200 law firms (500+ attorneys) that champion a more diverse and inclusive workforce and have demonstrated a sustained commitment to improving the hiring, retention and promotion of diverse attorneys. The Sager Award was first presented in 1999 and is named after former DuPont Senior Vice President and General Counsel Thomas L. Sager, a widely-respected leader in diversity.

MCCA selected three national finalists who had an opportunity to showcase their diversity and inclusion efforts in a 90 second video at the MCCA Diversity Gala at the American Museum of Natural History in New York on October 16. Each video was reviewed by the Sager Award Selection Committee and the video was a deciding factor in determining the national winner.

The three finalists will also be profiled in Diversity & the Bar magazine, the official magazine of MCCA. The winner was announced at the Gala, where more than 1,000 people attended including over 500 in-house lawyers. The national winner’s Firm Chair was invited onstage to accept the award and deliver an acceptance speech on behalf of the firm.

To see how nominations were evaluated, download the scorecard template.

About Thomas L. Sager

For more than two decades, DuPont has worked to achieve a stronger, more equitable balance of race, ethnicity and gender throughout the organization. Like environmental stewardship or on-the-job safety, the company has made diversity a corporate value — and driven it into every segment of its operation, from recruiting to training to professional development.

In DuPont’s legal department, Senior Vice President and General Counsel Tom Sager is a driving force for improving the hiring, retention, promotion, and involvement of minorities and women. Sager helped pioneer DuPont’s Convergence and Law Firm Partnering Program and continues oversight of the program today. Through his leadership, the DuPont Legal Model has received national acclaim for infusing business principles into the practice of law.

2019 Thomas L. Sager Award National Winner

2019 Thomas L. Sager Award National Finalists

2018 Thomas L. Sager Award National Winners

Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP and Proskauer Rose LLP tied for the national winner of the 2018 Thomas L. Sager Award.

Award Accepted by: Jami Wintz McKeon,
Chair of the Firm

Award Accepted by: Joe Leccese,
Chairman of the Firm

2018 Thomas L. Sager Award National Finalists

Click on the logos below to view the finalists’ videos presented at the 2018 Diversity Gala awards ceremony.

Past Honorees

MCCA is proud to honor and distinguish firms that have demonstrated a sustained commitment to diversity, inclusion and equity and tried something new and succeeded, whether in recruitment and retention, mentoring, pipeline programs, or LGBT initiatives. Click here to view the complete list of our past Thomas L. Sager Award honorees.