rethinking otherness

educate. equip. empower

Testimonials

Professor Leslie Culver is a fantastic educator who led our Journal through several dialogues about implicit bias. She turned what is usually a difficult subject to discuss into an engaging and insightful dialogue. Our editors learned helpful tools on how to approach biases in our work of publishing leading legal scholarship. It was an absolute pleasure to work with Professor Culver because she was receptive to feedback and endeavored to fully understand our organization, needs, and goals for the dialogues.

Yale Law Journal

Professor Leslie Culver is a talented brilliant legal educator who inspires excellence by her own example. She has limitless energy and is exclusively focused on the development of her students to become skilled legal Professionals while expanding their minds to the fine points of legal writing, research, complex legal analysis, while also holding the beacon height of the importance of equality and social justice.

Marietta Geckos (Groepler)

Federal Attorney

Leslie provided helpful, empowering insights that shifted attendees from a stance of passive receiving into a position of intentional action. She helped attorneys and business professionals at various stages of their careers with Husch Blackwell critically assess their networks, diversify their “personal board of directors” and reframe the internal stories that hold us back into fuel that propels us forward. Leslie’s deep-rooted commitment to communities historically underrepresented in professional settings is clear and inspiring, and infuses principles of diversity, equity and inclusion into the very real, day-to-day work we all perform.

Amanda Garcia-Williams

Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer, Husch Blackwell

Have you noticed…

Diversity trainings

that remind the marginalized that they are marginalized, don’t work.

or

handing White people (particularly men) a reading list to “get woke” also doesn’t work.

Simply creating

DEI committees

or drafting an

anti-racist statement

is NOT changing your culture.

That’s where I (Leslie) come in…

Not Your “Normal” Diversity Talk

As a legal scholar I spent years immersed in interdisciplinary research and scholarship on cultural awareness and identity performance. Impassioned toward practical and meaningful application of my work, I created an upper-level law school seminar on this topic, and was later encouraged to share my insights within the broader legal academy and profession.

Founded in 2020, the ReO Institute is an initiative to equip the legal profession with inter-cultural awareness and identity performance tools to help: Recognize and confront harmful bias; Empower conscious identity choice; and Enable attorneys to better understand the complexities of representing clients within marginalized communities.

ReO Institute | Project 81/62

81%

Of the legal profession is comprised of White people

62%

Of the legal profession is comprised of males

The Story of ReO®

Recent Workshops

Speaking Topics

Identity performance for traditionally underrepresented and dominant groups.

Cultural awareness in legal education & profession.

Strategies to engage in difficult dialogues and increase inclusive actions in organizations and universities.

Equipping law students, faculty, and firms with inter-cultural communication tools.

LAW JOURNALS & LAW ADMISSION.

Role of implicit and confirmation bias in the anonymous and solicited author submission process, and evaluation process.

STUDENT LEADERS.

Understanding identity formation through effective dialogue as part of professionalism and leadership.

LAW FACULTY.

Providing faculty with tools toward cultural awareness and skills to partner with students to foster difficult dialogue.

LAW FIRMS & LEGAL ORGS.

Empowering Conversation on Conscious Identity Performance for Traditionally Marginalized Attorneys & Staff; Professional empowerment, and avoiding self sidelining via conscious identity performance;
Personal brand identity.

Presentation and Workshop Formats

Virtual and In-Person

Keynote Speaker

Consultations

Continuing Legal Education (CLE)

Orientations

Faculty & Admin Training

Large group presentations

Small group facilitated dialogues

Half-day Workshops

Let’s Talk!

ReO Institute®



1.619.206.0776



[email protected]

ReO® Institute Values

Empower

Others to Need Others

The goal of ReO is to provide individuals with tools and language to engage bravely in difficult dialogues. It is time that both critical thought and brave engagement become the norm. It is further time that we learn from others what we cannot learn on our own.

Educate

On Cultural Awareness

ReO exists to equip the legal profession with inter-cultural awareness and identity performance tools to confront harmful bias, empower conscious identity choices, and enable all attorneys to better understand the complexities of representing clients within marginalized communities.

Teach

Self-Accountability

Much of the institutional work done under the banner of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), while well-intentioned, results in shallow virtue signaling, or tries to enforce a new mindset and culture from the top down. ReO, however, takes a grassroots approach, asking us to acknowledge a scarred American history founded on division, and grapple with how that history has benefited or injured our own identity journey.

Honor

Fear and be courageous

“The natural resistance we feel in connection with fear is a signal that we’ve encountered an opportunity to grow past limitations to our current mindset, abilities, or beliefs.” https://www.drewamoroso.com/blog/honor-your-fear Through the work of ReO, I have been challenged, and I challenge others to rest in that fear to move us toward courage; that is, to act even though we are afraid.

Walk

By faith, not fragility

With every conversation, class, and training I am humbly reminded that we, as broken humans, have created divisions that so deeply divide. As a Christian, I take seriously the charge to use ReO as a platform to remind us of the responsibility we bear in how we govern our own actions.

Acts 17:27