Four Locations, One Diverse Day! CLA’s Environmental Law Section Hosts DEI Conference

California Lawyers Association’s (CLA) Environment Law Section will host its third Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Conference on Friday, June 6, 2025. The collaborative event will be held at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, California, with three remote locations livestreaming the impactful day in Sacramento, San Francisco, and San Diego. Conference organizers think the opportunity for dialogue is so important that participants may register on-site in order to learn and engage about growing inequality, climate change, and environmental racism. Participants will earn up to 4.25 hours of MCLE.

The conference is designed as a meaningful way for community leaders, attorneys, policymakers, and students to discuss todays shifting legal landscape. The host location was selected in light of the devastating fires experienced earlier this year in the greater Los Angeles region. Many CLA members dedicated volunteer time to helping those affected by the blazes with legal and other matters.

Section Chair, Miles Logan, says that DEI is key to CLA’s Environmental Law Section. “CLA’s mission statement includes our belief that we want to enhance the legal profession by cultivating a diverse group of lawyers,” he explains. “We particularly value diversity in our practice specialty section, and this conference allows people to discuss and engage in a meaningful way about critical policies.”

Four panel sessions will be held, along with lunchtime roundtables, allowing attendees across the state to report back about their discussions. “Members can talk about things that concern them,” says Peter Ton, section vice chair and co-chair for the event. “Attorneys need a place to gather, and it’s rare to bring the private, public, and nonprofits sectors together. We want everyone to leave knowing that there are others out there that share the same concerns and are moved to action.”

Planning for the DEI conference began more than a year ago. A 12-member team drew from an open call to its general membership asking for recommendations about the types of panels they wanted to see. “People share from a perspective you haven’t necessarily thought about before. I call them the ‘in between moments’ where you get to connect and hear reflections,” notes Hogan. Ton adds, “We can talk about issues in various regions around the state and the innovation that’s occurring.”

Paige Samblanet, co-chair for the conference, says that people are very committed to the DEI conference. “CLA tries to involve diversity, equity, and inclusion in everything it does, and is committed to this.” She continues, “There’s a saying that if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. It’s powerfully true.”

All three section leaders say that both DEI and environmental matters are on the forefront of people’s minds. They agree that the government must be inclusive regardless of the issue, and that many matters cut across a variety of areas of the law.

“There are complex issues in governance, and we have to have a balance,” states Samblanet. “People can’t address issues without the facts, and the true root of impacts comes from frontline communities.”

Ultimately, event organizers say the goal of the DEI event is for stakeholders and constituencies to feel they are all moving in the same directions and that they are being heard in California.

For more information and to attend the in-person or livestream events, please visit here.