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GILTI Conscience Spotlight Series: Embracing Diversity
Episode 2917th July 2024 • GILTI Conscience • Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP
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In our second episode in our spotlight series focused on celebrating diversity, GILTI Conscience’s David Farhat and Stefane Victor are joined by colleagues Brian Breheny and Jordan Schwartz for an earnest dialogue on DEI in big law. The guests discuss some of the challenges they faced as gay professionals, including their experiences coming out at work and questions they faced, as well as their efforts to advocate for diversity in the workplace and embrace its importance.

💡 Featured Guests 💡

Name: Brian Breheny 

What he does: Brian Breheny is a partner and co-head of Skadden’s SEC Reporting and Compliance practice. Brian formerly held numerous leadership positions at the SEC leader and now concentrates his practice on mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance, and general corporate and securities matters.

Organization:  Skadden

Words of wisdom: “Keep in mind what you think people are thinking of you and be careful to address that — not to fix your personality to meet what you think they need.”

Connect:  LinkedIn

Name: Jordan Schwartz

What he does: As counsel in Skadden’s Mass Torts, Insurance and Consumer Litigation Group, Jordan Schwartz represents clients in purported class actions, multidistrict litigation and mass tort proceedings in federal and state courts. 

Organization:  Skadden

Words of wisdom: “I think it's really incumbent on us to highlight how enjoyable [DEI efforts are], how enriching the experience is. That’s why we have a Diversity Committee.”

Connect:  LinkedIn

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GILTI Conscience is a podcast by Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, and Affiliates. Skadden’s tax team is recognized globally for providing clients with creative and innovative solutions to their most pressing transactional, planning, and controversy challenges. The insights and views presented in GILTI Conscience are for general information purposes only and should not be taken as legal advice for any individual case or situation. The information presented is not a substitute for consulting with an attorney, nor does tuning into this podcast constitute an attorney-client relationship of any kind.

Transcripts

Voiceover (:

This is GILTI Conscience, a casual discussions on transfer pricing, tax treaties, and related topics, a podcast from Skadden that invites thought leaders and industry experts to discuss pressing transfer pricing issues, international tax reform efforts, and tax administration trends. We also dig into the innovative approaches companies are using to navigate the international tax environment and address the obligation everyone loves to hate. Now your hosts, Skadden Partners, David Farhat and Nate Carden.

Stefane Victor (:

Hello and welcome to another episode of GILTI Conscience. This recording is our second in celebration of Pride Month. I'm Stefane Victor, an associate in Skadden's Tax Group in Washington DC, And I'm joined by David Farhat, co-host of the GILTI Conscience Podcast and a partner in Skadden's Tax Group. We are joined today by fellow Skadden DC Attorneys, Brian Breheny and Jordan Schwartz. Brian is a partner and co-head of the SEC Reporting and Compliance Group in DC, and is a former member of Skadden's Policy Committee, the firm's highest governing body. He's a former co-chair of the Global Diversity Committee, and Brian has also served as an adjunct securities law faculty member at Georgetown University Law Center and Howard University School of Law. Jordan is a council in the Mass Torts group and is a member of the firm's global Diversity and Equity and Inclusion Steering committee, and in recognition of his efforts to champion inclusion within the workplace, Jordan recently was named LGBTQ+ Advocate of the Year at the Legal Bench. Brian and Jordan are active members of the LGBTQ Affinity group, and we're really excited to have them. Welcome.

David Farhat (:

And congrats again, Jordan. Great work there.

Jordan Schwartz (:

Thanks so much.

Stefane Victor (:

So jumping right in, can you discuss your career path and your current role, and how did you guys get into your respective groups and kind of work? Brian, we'll start with you.

Brian Breheny (:

Okay, great. Good to be here with you. So as Stefane mentioned, I'm the co-head of our SEC Reporting and Compliance practice. So I'm the M&A Capital Markets partner, but what I do is very specialized. It's more on the regulatory side of things. So a typical corporate associate lawyer would draft contracts and negotiate structure, and some part of that would be SEC compliance [inaudible 00:02:21] involved public companies and voting by shareholders in an M&A context. Went to college and studied accounting, and then I worked at KPMG where I got my CPA. I was an auditor for about four years. I decided to go back to law school. I kind of knew I wanted to be or thought I wanted to be a corporate lawyer, and I slowly, through my law school experience, started taking all the classes you would think that a corporate lawyer would take, like corporations and securities regulation.

(:

I took advanced securities regulation, I interned to New York Stock Exchange, so I kind of always had that in mind. I worked for about seven years at a different firm, mostly in New York. I got sent to London for a bit, and I was a typical corporate associate. I did IPOs, offerings, M&A, public reporting disclosure, all sorts of different things. Towards the end, I was focused mostly on mergers and acquisitions, and then I got the opportunity to go work at the SEC in Washington at their headquarters and to be the chief of the office of Mergers and Acquisitions, which honestly, as a securities nerd, the guy who always wanted to be in securities, I honestly felt like I won the lottery. It was absolutely incredible. I always wanted to work at the SEC as an accountant or eventually as a lawyer.

(:

I thought, "Boy, if I could ever go there and work in the M&A office, wouldn't that be kind of fantastic?" Then, when the M&A chief to apply for that job and get it was just like, honestly, something I never thought would happen. I'm a typical New Yorker, so I said, "I'll move to DC. I'll spend two years down there, I'll go right back to Manhattan where I was living, and then instead I got down to Washington and I absolutely love it here and I stayed for seven years at the SEC. I was the M&A chief for about four and a half years, and then I was deputy director in the division of Corporation Finance, overseeing the big part of the divisions work, and then I joined Skadden about 14 years ago, and so that's kind of the path of how I got to where I am today.

Jordan Schwartz (:

So I also grew up in New York, and came down to DC for college and was very interested in politics, and so I wanted to be in DC. I went to George Washington University and studied political science, graduated a year early and knew that I wanted to do something beyond college, and so I didn't have a math or science background, and I just thought that going to law school was a natural fit. I stayed at GW and went through that with, really, very little understanding of big law. I was kind of first generation college graduate, first generation law graduate, so I knew I wanted to at least try out big law.

(:

I went through the fall recruitment process and met with Don Salzman, at the time, who is still a pro bono counsel at the firm, and we hit it off and I really liked the vibe that I got from him, and managed to get a callback and interviewed with some of the lions of Skadden, several of whom have since retired, and I just really enjoyed the culture I felt when I was in the DC office. I was a summer associate, thought that I was going to start off in the political law group, did most of my summer associate projects with the political law folks, although I also did some general litigation, and ultimately thought that I was going to join the political law group, but I joined the firm right after the financial crisis of 2008. The demand was such that I was needed in general litigation.

(:

When I started in general litigation, I got my first assignment from a mass tort partner who had just come over from another firm, and that kind of spawned additional work with the mass tort folks. 14 years later, I am a mass torts' consumer class action litigator. I had no idea this is what I would be doing. When I was in law school, I didn't take any complex civil litigation courses. I took, primarily, lobbying law and campaign finance law, and so I think my example really highlights that sometimes there is no rhyme or reason, and I'm not saying that's necessarily the best way to go about it, but I think you should enjoy law school and take the classes that you think are going to be enjoyable for you, not necessarily the ones that are going to advance your career. That's my philosophy.

Stefane Victor (:

Yeah. I didn't realize, until just now, that we all three are from New York, so maybe we should title this podcast a little bit differently, Gay New Yorkers on GILTI Conscience, and David. We won't have the listeners guess who the three gay New Yorkers are.

David Farhat (:

No, but again, thank you so much for coming on a tax podcast and talking to us about Pride Month. One of the things, for me, when it comes to talking about inclusion and diversity in the workplace is your identity kind of influences how you see the law. While that is primarily, in the world we live in, a negative thing, I think the silver lining to it is, especially in the tax world where creativity is necessary and different point of views are necessary, that approach to how you look at the law does impact the kind of lawyer you are and the practice you are. I think it's really valuable for clients when you have those different viewpoints and different views of the laws. That's something that has impacted your career, your identity and how you see the rules you deal with and how you see the day-to-day.

Brian Breheny (:

That's an interesting question. I came to the SEC into a pretty senior role from the outside, and you could imagine there was a lot of like, "Who is this guy, and where did he come from?" and tried to build my credibility with the folks who I was supervising, but also throughout the building, and eventually to get promoted into my position. It took a lot of creativity and building connections with people. I'd like to think that hopefully my background I explained, but also my looking at things in the light of being inclusive helped in that regard, because I think coming from the outside and not knowing people put a priority on building relationships with people and understanding how people might be viewing me. I think that the advice I give to people who joined the SEC, while I was there or even since, is to be very mindful of that. Keep in mind what you think people are thinking of you, and be careful to address that, not to fix your personality to meet what you think they need, but just keep that in mind.

Jordan Schwartz (:

I think that my background, coming out and having to deal with some personal and family challenges, definitely shaped my approach to the law, and working at Skadden, I generally represent corporate interests, but I do so through the lens of class action law, product liability law, and figuring out how you balance equity and just norms that we're dealing with on a daily basis. I mean, I do think sometimes I struggle with that balance between an aggrieved plaintiff, who has been harmed, but whether a product that my client manufactured caused that harm, and if it didn't, how do you still sympathize with the plaintiff who may have a debilitating form of cancer or may have some otherwise cognizable injury that you want to be sensitive to, and I think that my equity ethos definitely is a backdrop for how I approach things, and I do think it has made me more sensitive, more empathetic. We have a huge trial practice, and think that I provide a unique perspective in dealing with some of these really challenging cases.

Stefane Victor (:

So how did you each navigate power structures early in your career versus later in your career when you had a more formal leadership role? Brian, you talked about being mindful of how people perceived you, but that might have been when you had already had a leadership role over your colleagues. Was there a switch, or was there a change of how you thought about your perception?

Brian Breheny (:

So I didn't get around to accepting my sexuality until a little bit later than perhaps others. When I joined the firm that I was at after law school, I was not out. I, obviously knew I was gay. I had been gay my whole life. It just took me a while to kind of figure it out. So I went through a process where I came in as a summer associate, went back to the firm afterwards, had all these sorts of friends and relationships, and was struggling whether I was going to accept it or not, and thankfully I did. That was the best thing I could have done for myself, my life, and my personal health, but it was a struggle. It was, and then I had to tell the folks, my parents, and others, and then now what am I going to do? I've had this relationship. As it turns out I was a corporate M&A associate, but I was sort of the right-hand associate to the head of the M&A group, who was fantastic.

(:

I was like, "Well, what do I do?" and I remember telling my dad at the time, who was an immigrant, came to the US, worked super hard.

(:

He had thought, "Boy, my son made it. Here's this working at this big firm, making these kinds of salaries."

(:

I was like, "Tell him I'm gay."

(:

He's surprised. Super accepting of it, which was great but, "Are you going to tell people the office? Are you going to tell people the office?"

(:

And I said, "Yeah, I'm going to tell people at the office. I'm not going to have a big coming out party, but I'm going to tell people."

(:

He said, "Is it going to impact your career?"

(:

I said, "It might, but this is who I am, and I hope it doesn't. To the extent that it does, I'm just going to have to deal with it," but it was a struggle Stefane, because you could imagine, because I knew all these people. Then, you have those people, you and Jordan May have experienced this as well, "Have you been lying to me all this time? Why haven't you told me? Why did you wait? Were you keeping me in the closet along with yourself?" which wasn't the case. I wasn't sort of living a gay lifestyle. I was actually closeted, in the sense that I was not out. I hadn't accepted it. Then, out of the SEC, thankfully, after seven really good experiences, I had a lot to choose from, thankfully, but I was very focused on that. And remember, now I'm out, so now I'm looking for a firm I can be myself at and I'm going to be accepted at, and so it was a different recruiting process on the second time around.

Jordan Schwartz (:

So for me, I came out while I was at Skadden. I was well into my first year as an associate. I remember it quite vividly. It was summer of 2010, and I was also closeted. I was living a straight lifestyle, did not think I was gay. I was just very, very suppressed. And I happened to be asked a question over the phone, just a routine call with my mother, and I was asked if I was gay. It was actually the first time that it had ever been propounded to me in such a direct manner, and so, of course I was very surprised and really didn't know how to answer it, but I'm a pretty decisive person and pretty impulsive. And so, over the next several days, I quickly came to terms with my sexuality and, unfortunately, had issues with my mother, who was not accepting and ended up trying to take her life, and I had to go home to New York, be there for my dad, and deal with hospitalization.

(:

Ultimately, several months later, she ended up passing away, and doing all of this while also simultaneously being a first year associate. I was, I think, 24 years old. First real professional paying job, and so it was a lot to deal with. I think a lot of people probably would've taken a leave of absence or gone to find themselves. I just didn't think that that was something that I wanted to do. I just wanted to continue to work and grow, and I immediately immersed myself in the Affinity Network here in the Skadden DC office. This was 14, 15 years ago, and even at that time when DEI was not what it is today, Skadden was kind of at the vanguard of those initiatives. I mean, that's how I met Brian. I mean, I think we basically started right around the same time, and I just did not have any issues with Skadden lawyers, Skadden employees accepting me.

(:

So I was never concerned about how my sexuality would influence my trajectory at Skadden. It was the family situation and trying to make up for these years where I didn't have the opportunity to form relationships and other important bedrock aspects that a healthy gay person would want to have in this country, and so that's what I was dealing with. Everyone's experience is different, and I could not have made a better decision coming to Skadden. I think the reason why I've been here consistently, most people, government or go do a clerkship. I mean, I've just been here because I've been so comfortable. I've enjoyed the people that I work with, and I enjoy the people that I work with outside of my immediate group, people in the DEI space, and seeing people in the Affinity Network come and go and being involved in recruitment, those are things that I really find enjoyable. They ground me, and they are a really nice balance to the billable work that I do on a daily basis.

David Farhat (:

I do appreciate you guys both sharing those experiences and those stories. I'm extraordinarily appreciative of that. Another question I have, kind of thinking about your own experiences, and I love how you did the juxtaposition, Jordan, of your life at Skadden and your life outside, lots of times with marginalized peoples. It's not just, we may be in a very welcoming working space, but what's happening outside can also impact that, right? So we bring a lot to work with us, and also we take a lot into the world.

(:

Both of you are very involved in recruiting and talking to not just young people, but laterals coming into the firm. How do you deal with some of that, talking to folks that are coming into very straight space? How do you talk to them about what's going on here, what your experience is going to be, and also dealing with that balance, dealing with the balance of what happens here at Skadden. You may have an amazing experience here at Skadden, but it doesn't change what you've seen your whole life and what you bring in and what you bring in with you, so what's that process like?

Brian Breheny (:

I always tell a story. At my first partner meeting when I was at Skadden, at the end of the first dinner, somebody said, "What are you doing after dinner?"

(:

I said, "I don't know. What do people normally do?"

(:

They said, "Well, some people play cards, and some people go to the bar people, and then some people go back to the hospitality suite and they sing songs and stuff."

(:

I said, "What? They sing? What do you mean they sing songs? What type of songs?"

(:

"Ah, mostly tunes."

(:

I was like, "Okay. Well, this I have to go see it," and sure enough, there was this big, white piano in the rec room, and somebody was jamming out on the piano and singing songs. I'm like, "This is amazing." I didn't sing, by the way. But anyway, I thought, "That's awesome."

(:

I tell that story, because I got to find him a place where I wanted to work after having 14 years of legal experience at a firm in New York and London and then at the SEC, so I had a lot. I came in as a very educated consumer and I wanted to find a place where I would feel like I'm going to be accepted, but I always say to recruit Steve, I say, "Look, what I love about Skadden," interestingly, we just celebrated our 75th anniversary, which seems like a long time, but when I joined the firm, I joined in 1996. We celebrated the hundred 25th anniversary of that firm. Some of our competitors were around for 200 years. Skadden is a relatively young firm, and if you go back and look at the folks who started the firm, in those days it was white guys, but they started Skadden, as you know, because they couldn't make it elsewhere.

(:

They were Catholic, or they were Jewish, or they just weren't accepted at those white-shoe firms, and so they were like, "Well, we're going to do it ourselves." If you read many of Malcolm Gladwell's book, where he talks about Joe Flom, and how he was one of the sort of founding partners of Skadden, and how he did a bunch of work that other people didn't want to do, including hostile takeovers, and as a result, he was able to get experience in an area before anyone else did. It gave him a leg up, that 10,000 hours sort of theory. I like to think that that ethos is still within Skadden. I'm not naive to think that there aren't issues that people who are not part of the sort of mainstream are dealing with, but I like to come to Skadden and do a really good job for my clients. I'm very good at what I do. I'm number one ranked in my space. My team is number one ranked in my space.

(:

I pride myself on that. I like to be really good at what I do, but I also have a lot of other stuff. I have my husband, I have children. These guys know I like to go out and have a good time, and I hope everybody who comes to my team does that. My hope is that we are all, all of us are involved in diversity in DC and throughout Skadden. I hope that that's happening. I like to say to people, "Come be yourself," and remember my dad's question to me, "What's it going to do to your career?" and I told him like, "Hey, I don't know"? Well, I have to say, at Skadden since, it's like opened me up to these amazing relationships with Jordan, Stefane. Obviously, you, David, but the rest of LGBT group, which is fantastic and all these things, and it's got to be a really good spot, so I think it's actually, obviously it's who I am, and I've accepted and that's the best part about it, but I think it's actually given me relationships that I value above kind of anything.

Jordan Schwartz (:

I really can't imagine going through all of this without the DEI component and without the leadership opportunities that the Affinity Network and Skadden have afforded me, and the relationships that Brian was just talking about are huge. I mean, I love the people that I work with, on a daily basis, in my substantive practice area, but the opportunity to meet people, become friends and good friends, and then stay connected with people who have left the firm to go on to do other things, it's just something that a lot of other people who might not be involved in DEI efforts don't get to experience, and so I think it's really incumbent on us to highlight how enjoyable it is, how enriching the experience is, and I think that's why we have a diversity committee. That's why we have the Affinity networks. And I know for a fact that our peer firms just can't hold a candle to what Skadden offers its lawyers and its employees, and I'm just so thrilled to be a part of that.

Stefane Victor (:

I had grown up with the understanding that if one wanted to be promoted within a corporation, that they might have to manage different parts of their identity and how they let that out at work, but by the time I joined Skadden, about eight or ten years later, I had been out for quite some time, and I never felt that I had to make that decision, and I haven't felt that I had to make that decision, but something in the mind of junior Associates is not necessarily, "Can I be promoted if I'm gay or if I'm Black, but how do I get the buy-in of people in my group early on, even if we don't have very much in common?" and I think that has been something, and that's an easier question. I think that's a better question. There's not something blocking your progress when the time comes, but the better question that people are still working through is, how do I continue to foster those relationships? How did you get and foster those mentorship relationships, and how do you do that with more junior attorneys regardless of their affinity affiliations?

Jordan Schwartz (:

I mean, I can start. In terms of mentorship, I mean, I've really considered Brian to be a mentor. I've really admired everything that he's done when it comes to DEI and recruitment, and becoming a leader at the firm, and also the pinnacle of the particular practice that he provides for his clients, and so I've really tried to emulate him. I mean, I've had mentors in my own practice areas, but I really see his trajectory as someone who is very involved in the DEI efforts, and that's something that I really look up to. I've tried to play that kind of role with Junior Associates, and so that's why, with the Affinity Network, I really try to be proactive with Stefane, with you, and others in the Affinity Network, trying both inside and outside of the office to grow our relationships, check in, and make sure that, how are you balancing your billable work and your life outside of Skadden?

(:

That's important to me. It's important to me vis-a-vis the associates that I work with on a daily basis. I view myself as an advocate for the associates that work on my team. I'm always looking out for them, and I will not hesitate to go to a partner and say, "I think this person is underwater. I think this person needs some help. I think we need to have a more equitable distribution of work. Sometimes there'll be pushed back, but I'm always remiss if I don't register those concerns. And so, now that I'm talking about it out loud, I think it probably has to do with my background and commitment to inclusion and equity, and that, I think, has bled through, not just what I do in the Affinity Network, but also in my substantive practice area.

David Farhat (:

I really appreciate that point, Jordan, and I think one thing I'd like to say for folks who are listening to our Spotlight series and, "How can I help? How can I be an ally?" I think that's a great point. Stefane's question was, "What can the associate do when they have these feelings?" but honestly, in many instances, there's not much they can do, because they're newer, this is how you feel, you've brought your experiences to work. I think it's incumbent on us, senior associates, partners, counsel, to do that check-in, like you said, Jordan like, "How are you doing? Are things okay? How are you adjusting?" and you don't want to pry right?

(:

Sometimes some people are private and you don't want to pry, but you just have to let people know, "Hey, listen. I care about you. I'm an advocate for you. You are a team member," and as partners, I think it becomes more important, because part of our job is not just to serve our clients, but to protect and build the firm, and how do we do that? That's by building, training, and bringing in great associates, and great associates are going to come from everywhere. Talent and intelligence doesn't know age, it doesn't know sexuality, it doesn't know race. So we have to make sure all of these people feel included and feel welcomed, and I think listening to the last Pride month episode with De Lon, saying employees that feel like they belong, and employees that feels like people want them there, do much better work.

Brian Breheny (:

To your point, when I was teaching at Georgetown and Howard, I used to tell students, "As you know, this is Skadden, right? There's formal mentor relationships that are set up. That's great, and get the most out of that," and to David's point, it should be both ways. It should be the partner and the council, the senior associates, and the associates, but I'll also say, and I've seen both of you, Jordan and Stefane, do this over the years since you joined the firm, "You need to take ownership of your own, sort of like what's important to me," so the associates that I've seen do the best at this are the ones who take advantage of the formal programs, but more importantly, take advantage of the informal programs. I think at Skadden, it was for a while, carve your own path, like figure out what you want to do and try to make it happen, and don't necessarily wait for folks to come your way.

Stefane Victor (:

All three of us are very involved in LGBTQ recruiting, so how can firms or practice groups better attract and retain LGBTQ candidates when our work on its face doesn't exclude LGBTQ or otherwise diverse candidates? Do you think retention or attracting those candidates has been an issue that firms have been facing?

Brian Breheny (:

I remember when I first got appointed as one of the global heads of diversity, I was at a partner meeting, and one of the workshop topics was, "How do we improve diversity?" And very quickly, all the partners at my table were pointing at me, "What about this?"

(:

And I was getting really defensive, like, "Oh," and then I realized, I finally stopped and said, "What a second. I've been here the shortest amount of time of any of you folks. Why are you looking at me? Why aren't you looking at yourselves? Because diversity starts in your office and it starts on your team," and I took that to heart.

(:

I proudly have a diverse team, a super smart, super accomplished, many of them from the SEC, but that takes time and energy. I guess to the question, I think it's a harder question about identifying that talent, Stefane, but as you know, if we ever get wind of any super accomplished, smart, hardworking, diverse candidate, whether they're gay or lesbian, we're all over them. But I like to think it's a combination of hopefully you find people who want to do the work you're doing, but also the point we talked about earlier, which is allowing people to be themselves and understanding that there's obviously a lot more to life than this job, and this is important, but I like to give my folks as much flexibility as possible to be like, "Go do what makes you happy outside of the office," and I model that. They know that I do that.

Jordan Schwartz (:

I think that the group that I work for, that I'm part of, has become more diverse. I think we've got a long way to go in terms of people of color. We've got a lot of women partners and associates, but I think we have a lot to do in terms of recruiting more people of color and people that are diverse across the board, and so I do look at that as a mission of mine. I'm always recruiting for the firm, and if we can expand DEI outside the mass tort group, that's great, but of course, I would love to have a more diverse team, because as people have said on this podcast, the more diverse the team is, the more effective, the more productive, the more creative you're going to be, and our clients don't hire us to just kind of repurpose things. They hire us to think outside the box, to be creative, and to solve very, very complicated legal problems.

David Farhat (:

No. Absolutely, Jordan. This goes back to the point I was making before. Our identity impacts how we see the law, and it impacts our creativity and the way we practice, so I think diversity is important, but to answer your questions, if I'm with regards to recruiting to the group, I think representation is important. Going out to people and saying, "I'm like you. I understand your experience. You can find comfort in this group, because I am here," I think really helps. The other thing is, with a lot of our groups, we're in very nuanced areas that people don't think about when they go to law school, right?

(:

A lot of people know about litigation, a lot of people know about M&A, but a lot of people don't know what tax is. A lot of people may not know what SEC reporting is. They may not understand what exactly you do in mass torts. So as a Black partner, and I go out and I say, "I do tax, and this is what I do, and this is what you can do in tax," I think that's important so people can start researching, right? So you get the representation, and then they say, "Okay. What does David do?" and they look at it and they say, "Well, maybe I can do it," so I think that representation is really important. To your point, Jordan, about getting talent, I think if we're fishing for more ponds, we're going to get better talent.

Stefane Victor (:

Are there any last words or thoughts that do you guys have?

Brian Breheny (:

Well, happy pride. That's what we're here for, right? I think we're deep into the month of June, so glad that you guys deviated from your normal tax discussions to cover this topic. I think it's great and fantastic. I'm happy to be a part of it, and yeah, I think that's all. That's kind of my final thought. Happy to be on here. Thanks for all the great questions. Good topics.

Jordan Schwartz (:

Yeah, this has been just awesome. This is not anything I've done here. I mean, I've spoken publicly to law students, other lawyers, and given presentations, but this is my first podcast, so I am happy to have my inaugural podcast be in celebration of Pride Month and my esteemed colleagues here who are committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and so I look forward to doing more of these in the future, and just so happy to have been invited to participate.

David Farhat (:

Awesome. Thank you both for joining us. That's what we do on GILTI Conscience. We think outside the box and change the paradigm, as they say.

Jordan Schwartz (:

I love it. That's awesome.

David Farhat (:

Thanks, all. Another episode of GILTI Conscience.

Jordan Schwartz (:

Thank you.

Voiceover (:

Thank you for joining us for today's episode of GILTI Conscience. If you like what you're hearing, be sure to subscribe in your favorite podcast app so you don't miss any future conversations. Skadden's tax team is recognized globally for providing clients with creative and innovative solutions to their most pressing, transactional planning and controversy challenges. Additional information about Skadden can be found at Skadden.com.

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