Spencer Fane is pleased to announce attorney Ruthie White was posthumously named a 2024 Houston Business Journal (HBJ) Outstanding Diversity Champion. The firm also earned recognition as an Outstanding Diverse Organization.
These accomplishments recognize Ruthie and Spencer Fane for exhibiting an exceptional commitment to promoting practices that advance diversity and inclusion in the workplace. On March 28, Ruthie and the firm were formally honored at the HBJ Diversity in Business Awards luncheon. Spencer Fane DEI Chair James Crumlin; Executive Committee Member, DEI Committee Member, and 2023 Diversity in Business Honoree DeAndrea Washington; DEI Committee member Bernadette Lawson; Laura Alaniz; Tiffany Santhavi Watts, Thalia Villagomez; and Victoria Narezo were pleased to attend alongside Ruthie’s husband Keith, son Evan, and daughter-in-law Samantha in celebration of Ruthie’s “admirable and replicable” legacy.
As Ruthie’s award profile states, “she worked tirelessly every day to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion not only at Spencer Fane but also in the broader legal community. This included reckoning with the obvious challenges the legal industry faces. However, Ruthie made a difference by helping women, and specifically women of color …[through] intentional and visible efforts to help break past stereotypes and outdated practices and identify professional paths that lead to leadership roles for female and/or minority attorneys.”
“The numbers are going to change. The outcomes are going to change,” Ruthie would often say. Through a variety of initiatives aimed at building, maintaining, and leveraging a diverse law firm, Spencer Fane strives to foster that very change. These efforts include supporting DEI-focused networks both inside and outside the firm, embedding diversity into our recruitment strategy, and providing career development and advancement opportunities for all our professionals. Spencer Fane understands these endeavors breathe life into the fundamental principles that make the firm strong and a better place to work while also strengthening our clients and communities.
Read Ruthie’s full HBJ profile here, and read the full list of honorees here. Please note, a subscription may be required.
