Overview
(February 25, 2020, Washington, DC) — Steptoe & Johnson LLP partner Amanda Varma has joined the 2020 Fellows Program for the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity (LCLD). As a fellow, Varma will participate in a landmark program created to identify, train, and advance the next generation of leaders in the legal profession. Previous LCLD fellows from Steptoe include partners Brigida Benitez, Kendall Enyard, Vishal Gupta, Michelle Levin and Patricia Palacios.
Founded in 2009, LCLD is a growing organization of more than 320 corporate chief legal officers and law firm managing partners who are personally committed to creating a more diverse and inclusive legal profession. The LCLD Fellows Program, which has trained more than 1,600 mid-career attorneys since 2011, is one of LCLD's most important initiatives.
According to LCLD President Robert J. Grey, Jr., the program offers participants "a year-long, in-depth program devoted to relationship-building, in-person training, peer-group projects, and extensive contact with LCLD's top leadership and the best teachers in the business."
Varma is the chair of Steptoe's Women's Forum, which is devoted to connecting, developing and supporting the firm's women lawyers. As chair of the Women's Forum, she has implemented numerous training programs to help women develop and enhance their skills in a supportive environment, recognizing the special challenges often faced by women in the legal profession. During Varma's tenure as a leader of the Women's Forum, Steptoe has been selected as one of the Best Law Firms for Women by Working Mother Magazine and has received Gold Standard Certifications from the Women in Law Empowerment Forum.
In addition, Varma provides feedback to firm leadership on policies and strategies to promote the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women lawyers. Varma led Steptoe's efforts to enhance its policies and benefits to support lawyers with family care responsibilities, including new parents.
Varma is also involved in efforts to promote gender equity more broadly in the legal profession. She is a member of the board of directors and officer of the Washington chapter of the Coalition of Women's Initiatives in Law. Varma is the chair of the coalition's programming committee, which plans and implements the group's educational and social events.
In her law practice, Varma advises multinational businesses, family offices, and high-net-worth individuals on US federal income tax matters, with particular focus on international tax planning and controversies. She is also an adjunct professor of law in the graduate tax program at the Georgetown University Law Center, where she teaches US International Inbound Tax, a course focusing on the US taxation of foreign persons investing in the United States.
For more information, visit www.lcldnet.org.
About Steptoe
In more than 100 years of practice, Steptoe has earned an international reputation for vigorous representation of clients before governmental agencies, successful advocacy in litigation and arbitration, and creative and practical advice in structuring business transactions. Steptoe has more than 500 lawyers and other professional staff across offices in Beijing, Brussels, Chicago, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Washington. For more information, visit www.steptoe.com.
