New York-based Compensation, Governance & ERISA Group partner John Cannon was profiled in a “Men Who Get It” feature on The Glass Hammer, an online community for women executives.

In the article, Cannon discusses his early understanding of the obstacles faced by women, minorities and other groups and his dedication to help correct the imbalance. Cannon is co-chair of Shearman & Sterling’s Diversity Committee, which he volunteered to join almost immediately after becoming a partner twenty years ago.
 
Cannon says that he has long understood “that despite our best intentions, we are prone to making assessments of other people based on mental shortcuts, including both conscious and unconscious assumptions about the backgrounds, talents and character traits of the members of various groups.” As such, under his leadership, the Diversity Committee has long encouraged partners across the firm globally to “seek out and personally encourage women and other individual members of non-dominant groups.”
 
While he notes that the legal profession’s gains in the diversity realm have been surprisingly modest since he started practicing thirty years ago, Cannon points out that clients are insisting with increasing regularity that “diverse teams staff their matters, and I expect that they will continue to reward the law firms that perform best in this regard.”