The Silicon Valley Lawyer Shining a Light on Bias in Corporate Culture

David Lowe’s employment law work gives him an up-close view of the worst of corporate culture. Yet he remains an optimist.

“It’s an occupational hazard,” Lowe told an audience of leaders in HR and related fields at From Day One’s Silicon Valley conference. “I’ve got to believe there’s justice in the world and that things are going to be better.”

Why is he optimistic? Lowe illuminated the forces that are pushing companies to address discrimination, lack of diversity, and related issues. One is the fact that companies with strong cultures have better results. Another is that employees are demanding change. 

“When you have happy, productive employees, they’re going to work harder, be more efficient, and collaborate better,” Lowe said. “You’re going to have overall a more productive, efficient, and profitable enterprise.”

Lowe, managing partner of employment law firm Rudy, Exelrod, Zieff & Lowe, represented Françoise Brougher, the former chief operating officer of Pinterest, in a gender discrimination and retaliation lawsuit that the company agreed in 2020 to settle for $22.5 million. The lawyer, who has over 25 years of experience representing executives and employees at tech, finance, and other firms, was interviewed by Rachael Myrow, senior editor of KQED’s Silicon Valley News Desk.

Lowe said employees’ voices are critical. When it’s not just the HR department but the broader employee base asking about diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, for example, “senior leadership can’t ignore it,” he said. “That is the thing that is going to create real, lasting change: When organizations begin to integrate these values into everything that they do.”

Lowe offered several strategies for companies looking to remove bias from their corporate culture:

Start at the top: If the people at the top of a company treat sexual harassment training, for example, like a box to be checked rather than an important value in the organization, “then no amount of training is going to affect the culture of the workplace,” Lowe said. Rank-and-file employees will emulate the top leaders’ behavior. 

Don’t relegate diversity to HR: In some companies, DEI initiatives may be viewed as disconnected from–or even impeding–the more important work being done in other departments. But Lowe said that is too narrow a view.

“If your employees are being discriminated against, or being distracted by a toxic environment, how are they going to be able to work efficiently?” asked Lowe. “I think it’s totally unfair of companies to think that diversity, equity and inclusion or systemic discrimination in the workplace is HR’s problem or Legal’s problem. That’s not realistic. It has to be an issue that the entire company takes seriously and addresses.”

Emphasize diversity at all levels: Diverse voices are critical throughout the organization, including at the top. “If the board doesn’t care about discrimination or diversity or equity, if there aren’t people on the board who have a personal investment in those issues, they’re not as likely to hold the management team accountable,” Lowe said. “And if the management team isn’t being held accountable to those values, then it’s very unlikely that the rest of the organization is going to be held accountable.”

Tie DEI efforts to compensation: “If you’ve got a company that is measuring and compensating people based only on how many widgets you’re selling and what your profit margin is on those widgets, then you’re telling your employees that’s all we care about,” Lowe said. Employees are increasingly seeking out companies that are putting real effort into broader goals. “When I start seeing compensation schemes which reflect the values of the organization, that’s the company I want to stay at. When we get to that point is when we’re going to see lasting, systemic change.”

Despite his optimism, Lowe has learned that progress is not always linear, and even widely publicized court cases don’t necessarily lead to systemic change. “It may not be as common to hear the overtly racist, the overtly sexist or homophobic language being uttered publicly,” Lowe said. “But the sort of more subtle, insidious patterns of discrimination that are impacting people in the workplace have persisted.”

Lowe encouraged his audience to keep working on corporate culture. “Don’t give up,” he said. “The work that you all are doing is incredibly important.”

Margaret Steen is a freelance writer and editor in the San Francisco Bay Area.