Mission

To create a diverse, representative and collaborative environment within legal services in order to provide accessible, welcoming and culturally competent services to clients of all backgrounds and their communities.

History

The Massachusetts Legal Services Diversity Coalition was established by MLAC in 1990 to raise awareness of diversity issues and provide technical assistance on diversity to legal aid programs across the Commonwealth. In 2007, Joyce Allen-Beckford became director of the Diversity Coalition. Since then she has made an annual presentation to MLAC's Board of Directors summarizing the Diversity Coalition's accomplishments. View the Power Point presentations for 2007, 2008 and 2009.

Steering Committee

The Steering Committee furthers diversity work among legal aid programs and provides direction to the Diversity Coalition. The current members and the organizations they represent are:

Carolina Africano
Greater Boston Legal Services

Brian Angel Burke
MetroWest Legal Services

Rosa Previdi
Legal Advocacy and Resource Center

Richard McMahon
South Coastal Counties Legal Services

Richard Villavicencio
Disability Law Center

Contact

For more information on the Diversity Coalition, contact Director Joyce Allen-Beckford at jallen-beckford@mlac.org.

Resources

The Diversity Coalition recommends the following web sites for more information on diversity-related issues:

• The Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School
• DiversityInc - offers articles on a wide variety of workplace-related topics
• The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University
• The Race Equity Project: A Special Project of Legal Services of Northern California