A sidebar with Mahesh Nayak.

Byline: Thomas Franz

As a member of Dickinson Wright's diversity committee, Mahesh K. Nayak is one of the firm's leaders in developing community outreach projects.

This past Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Nayak and others helped the firm participate in three service projects throughout southeastern Michigan.

Nayak spoke with Michigan Lawyers Weekly to discuss the firm's diversity committee along with his business and international practice.

What does your diversity committee aim to accomplish?

First and foremost, we believe the constitution of our law firm should be representative of the constitution of society and our clients.

There is a moral reason to have a diverse workforce, then there's a good business reason to have a diverse workforce for those reasons.

We strive to ensure, as part of our diversity and inclusion committee, that we are attracting diverse candidates to the law firm, and those same people are made to feel included fully and that they have a place at the table at the firm.

Part of our efforts outside of the firm is to make sure our communities know we believe that's very important, and we do our best to use that same mentality in becoming involved with community outreach efforts however we can.

What stood out to you about the MLK Day project?

We had three different projects in southeastern Michigan. We worked with Gleaners food bank. Several of us really love that organization and what they do to feed a meaningful population. Many of us outside of MLK Day attend volunteer events there, but we thought it would be great to do it as a firm again this year.

What was the transition like switching from a prosecutor's role in an attorney general's office to concentrating on business law for a law firm?

It's a difficult transition coming out of public practice into private practice, mainly because in public practice, the work is there for you, whereas in private practice, sometimes you have to go out and secure the work.

The second aspect of it is the private practice of law being no different than any other business in terms of what's entailed in running the firm's operations, which is nothing you needed to get involved with as an employee working for the government.

The third aspect of it that can be a little bit daunting or an eye opener is you're accounting a lot for...