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Courses/Law/Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Bias

What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You: The Hidden Impacts of Unconscious Bias

Uncover the hidden cognitive biases and systemic barriers that keep legal organizations from achieving true equity and inclusion.

Created byKathleen Nalty
BeginnerUpdated May 18, 2026
What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You: The Hidden Impacts of Unconscious Bias

What You'll Learn

check_circleIdentify the differences between conscious and unconscious thought processes and their impact on decision-making.
check_circleAnalyze how cognitive biases like affinity, confirmation, and availability bias create systemic inequities in the workplace.
check_circleRecognize the ten hidden barriers that disproportionately affect the career progression of underrepresented legal professionals.
check_circleApply structural interventions to talent management processes to mitigate bias and promote equitable outcomes.

About This Course

Despite our best intentions, research shows we all have it – unconscious, unintentional bias. Unconscious attitudes and beliefs are shaped by all kinds of influences – some of which we would not agree with or even accept on a conscious level. Yet, these unconscious thoughts influence decision-making and can have a profound impact in the workplace. The key is to learn how to recognize your own unconscious biases. In this interactive session, attendees will engage in a competitive game and visualization exercise that help reveal how unconscious biases exacerbate workplace inequities.

Topics addressed in this workshop:

  • Bias is what undermines diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts
  • Two systems in the brain – conscious and unconscious
  • Most thinking happens automatically in the unconscious
  • The unconscious mind has been conditioned over our lifetimes; stereotypes, attitudes and biases have been incorporated (often unknowingly)
  • Everyone has unconscious biases – both social and cognitive
  • Six cognitive biases – illusion of objectivity, availability, attribution, anchoring, confirmation, and affinity – that can team up with social biases
  • Traditional diversity efforts focused on recruiting alone have not worked and never will without adding inclusiveness
  • Ten hidden barriers to success that disproportionately affect people in historically marginalized and underrepresented groups that are operating in legal organizations
  • Research in legal industry demonstrating views on gender and race discrimination
  • Major cause of the hidden barriers

Participants will create their own personal action plan for identifying and interrupting their own affinity bias based on what they learned in the workshop.

Your Instructor

Kathleen Nalty
Kathleen Nalty

Award-Winning Diversity, Equity & Inclusiveness Consultant | Fortune 100 DEI Training Specializing in Unconscious Bias Education

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Kathleen Nalty is a lawyer, author, and expert in diversity, equity, and inclusion. She works as a consultant with a wide variety of organizations, including law firms, corporations, nonprofits, and government organizations across the U.S. and Canada. In 2015, she published a “how to” book for law firm leaders entitled Going “All-In” on Diversity and Inclusion: The Law Firm Leader’s Playbook that includes new tools for advancing diversity and inclusion. In April 2017, Kathleen was invited to give a TEDx talk – Diversity Makes You Smarter – at the University of Colorado. Kathleen founded the Center for Legal Inclusiveness (CLI) in Denver, Colorado in 2007 and led the nonprofit as its Executive Director through January 2013. In this role, Kathleen developed the only “how to” manual for legal organizations with a comprehensive step-by-step process for removing hidden barriers to retention and creating an inclusive workplace. In 2012, Kathleen led 10 half-day training sessions across the U.S. on diversity and inclusion for the Minority Corporate Counsel Association as part of its new Academy for Diversity & Inclusion. Kathleen also served as an adjunct professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law School from 2012-2018, where she taught a course on diversity and inclusion. Kathleen earned a B.A. from the University of Denver and a J.D. from the University of Colorado Law School. After law school, she was selected to participate in the Attorney General’s Honors Program at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. As a federal civil rights prosecutor in the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division, Kathleen worked on cases involving hate crimes, police brutality, and slavery. Kathleen has earned 12 awards for her thought leadership and advocacy in DEI and social justice. To learn more about Kathleen, visit www.kathleennaltyconsulting.com.

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We are a registered provider with 327+ associations and regulatory bodies worldwide. We operate across 29 global markets including Canada, the US, Australia, and the UK. Every course page clearly displays its specific accreditations. Upon completion, you receive a professional certificate that can be validated online. Our certificates include all necessary accreditation details, credit hours, and completion dates, and are formatted specifically to meet the submission requirements of most global regulatory bodies.

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