As the parent of two adopted, biracial children, I am very familiar with the oft-used question: “What are you?” Sometimes the question seems rude, and other times, it’s an opening to a meaningful discussion.

We are all a complex mix of attributes that comprise our identities – some may be obvious to others – gender, race, age – to some extent. Others are not as obvious – sexual orientation, gender identity, religion – for example. And of course, these attributes do not define us, and for some of us, they may be less important than things like where our parents came from, whether they owned their own home or went to college, whether we love the city or the country (or both!), what music we listen to, etc.

At OIG we believe our diversity is an important aspect of who we are as a law firm. The fact that we are 75% women and four of our five partners are BIPOC may be obvious. The fact that three of our attorneys are veterans (as is our office administrator) is less so.

So, we sent a questionnaire to our team, asking everyone to tell us about some of the ways they identify themselves – where we were born, the languages we speak, our sexual orientation, our religion, our age, whether we are partnered or single, etc. With the answers, we have created this interactive word cloud showing the various responses. It doesn’t tell you what music we listen to, but it is a window into some of the many ways that we bring diverse perspectives to our work.