Testimony of District Attorney Daniel M. Donovan, Jr. before the Equal Employment Practices Commission of the City of New York

November 30, 2006

     I would like to begin by thanking the Chair and members of the Equal Employment Practices Commission for holding this hearing on diversity initiatives.

     I am quite proud to say that since taking office as Richmond County District Attorney in 2004, my work in enhancing the diversity of the office has been recognized by the Asian-American Bar Association of New York and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York; which honored me as a 2006 “Diversity Champion.”

     Those recognitions did not occur by accident or random selection. They were the result of a concerted effort not only to attract the best and brightest talent to my office, but also to assemble a staff which better reflected the community we serve. It gives me great pleasure to report that we have succeeded on both counts by hiring, retaining and advancing a highly talented and diverse work force.

     Upon taking office I instituted initiatives that recognized the fact that my prosecutors needed to reflect the community they served. We quickly increased the representation of minority groups as well as added prosecutors who spoke languages that could serve our borough’s growing immigrant population.

     In 2004 the Equal Employment Practices Commission issued an audit report which covered the period immediately preceding my term in office. That report found, in the two years prior to my assuming office, that of the eight prosecutors hired, all were male and only one was of a minority background. Since taking office, in a county which, according to the 2000 United States Census, is 77% white, over 35% of our new Assistant D.A.’s are from communities of color. For the record, the “feeder schools” for my office are the law schools at NYU, Georgetown and the University of Michigan.

     When I was sworn into office there was not a single attorney on my staff of 43 prosecutors who could fluently converse with victims in Spanish; this despite a growing population of Mexican immigrants in the borough. We acted quickly and the first two hires I made were females, both of whom were fluent in Spanish. I have subsequently added prosecutors who speak Korean, Hindi, Italian, Mandarin and Cantonese, as well as several other languages.

     This change of philosophy in the Richmond County District Attorney’s office has required me to undertake a “hands-on” approach to recruiting a diverse team of prosecutors. In each of the least two summers I have attended the National Black Prosecutors Association and Job Fair and personally interviewed dozens of applicants for positions within my office. In February, I will be spending two days personally interviewing students at the Public Interest Law Center’s Legal Career Fair at NYU. This event, featuring over 20 law schools, is the largest public interest career fair in the country.

     The process of fostering a diverse workforce does not end when you have received a commitment to join the office. I meet with each new assistant regularly, and after each trial, to assess the progress they have made as prosecutors as well as how they are adapting to their roles in the office. This interaction, along with the tutelage of their supervisors allows them to quickly take-on active roles and become productive members of the office.

     I believe that you are not really promoting diversity in your organization unless you are willing to create a diverse management team. Last year I had the distinct pleasure of naming Quentin Smith, a veteran African-American prosecutor as the Chief of my office’s Criminal Court Bureau. Quentin is the first African-American to ever serve as a Bureau Chief in the Richmond County District Attorney’s office. This commitment to diversity in leadership also extends to gender, where more than half of my office’s Bureau Chiefs and/or their deputies are women.

     Some critics of diversity initiatives will often try to tell you that diversity can only be achieved by a lessening of standards and a decline in results. Our experience has been the opposite. Nearly every one of our new prosecutors has been from a top-tier law school and many ranked in the highest percentile of their classes. Additionally, in the courtroom our results have been no less spectacular. We have led the City of New York in the conviction of felonies each quarter that I have been in office.

     When my office was honored by the Asian-American Bar Association, their president, Andrew Hahn clearly summarized my philosophy thusly, “The Richmond County District Attorney does much more than preach diversity – he practices it in the hiring and retention of his staff.” It is a philosophy that has served us well and I believe could serve as a reference for other organizations.

     Again, I sincerely thank the commission for hosting this hearing and for allowing me the opportunity to testify today.

Contact: William J. Smith (718) 556-7150 William.Smith@rcda.nyc.gov