Estudio Echecopar promotes diversity and acknowledges their members' talent, offering equal opportunities for professional growth to male and female lawyers. We believe diversity fosters creativity, diverse viewpoints and, thus, helps us better meet our clients' needs. The Firm has written policies on diversity matters, but more importantly, it has zero tolerance towards any kind of discrimination.
Estudio Echecopar has implemented different initiatives and programs as part of its diversity and inclusion policies, which seek to establish a better balance between the professional and personal lives of our members, and to encourage more women to reach leadership positions in our Firm. Every year, we review our strategy in terms of diversity and inclusion, and launch new programs aimed at addressing our lawyers' needs. Furthermore, our partner responsible for Diversity and Inclusion guarantees that this topic is always first on our agenda.
bAgile represents our commitment to provide a range of flexible and agile working arrangements to meet our team's needs, always caring about the quality of the service provided to our clients.
Since 2009, the Firm has had a flexible schedule policy, which has now been relaunched. It has reached a new level and is now backed by our current technological support. bAgile is available both for men and women.
Essentially, Estudio Echecopar has two flexible working policies for lawyers:
We know that motherhood is a tough moment in the professional life of every woman, and at many times it restricts her professional growth. In order to support mothers and keep their talent, we have implemented a Maternity Companionship Program. We want to make sure that the mothers of our Firm find the space and support they need in order to develop their professional careers while fulfilling their role as mothers.
As part of this initiative, we have a Mentoring for Moms program, in which the new mothers can choose as mentors any female partners of our Firm who already have children. We believe that passing on experience through mentorship and companionship during that time plays an important role in keeping female talent in our Firm.
Policy on Harassment Prevention, Investigation and PunishmentWe want to promote a work environment of respect and friendship at the Firm, free of any type of harassment. To that effect, the Firm has strongly dedicated to foster and adopt all necessary measures to prevent and sanction harassment within the organization. We are firmly committed to:
We have a Policy on Harassment Prevention, Investigation and Punishment, and clear reporting channels. We have also offered training sessions on the matter to all the members of the Firm.
The benefits provided by the Firm are even greater than those established by law. Maternity leave is extended to 4 months for lawyers.
Estudio Echecopar acknowledges the importance of new fathers spending more time with their newborns and supporting their partners during the first days of this new stage. We believe that helping break stereotypes and promoting a greater participation of men in house chores is an essential mechanism to reduce gender gaps. Therefore, the Firm has established 10 business days of paid paternity leave for lawyers.
In order to explore the way in which we make decisions, raise awareness about the unconscious bias that we may be subject to and create a truly inclusive culture, our Firm offers workshops on unconscious bias to all the members of the Firm, such as lawyers, employees, and interns. Moreover, every new member has to take an online training during their first week at the Firm.
We also offer training sessions, talks and internal events that seek to make us think about the role that each one of us has in our road to equality. We further offer workshops and other sessions to discuss family issues and how to manage our work and life balance.
