Sharon E. Jones
Sharon E. Jones, President and Chief Operating Officer
312.850.0600 | sharon.jones@o-hcommunitypartners.com

Ms. Jones is a lawyer by training and has specialized in providing diversity/inclusion strategy consulting to leaders of law firms, corporations, government and not for profit organizations. She was formerly the President of Jones Diversity Group LLC. Ms. Jones has also served recently as Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice-President for the Chicago Urban League, a community based organization focused on economic development within the African American community.                    

Ms. Jones has practiced law and been a community leader over a 20 year career, including positions as a federal prosecutor, with major law firms and with Fortune 500 Corporations.  She has been highly successful as a litigator, strategist, manager, counselor, an educator and a problem-solver with regard to extremely complex and sensitive matters.  From 1985-1989, Sharon served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, based in Chicago, where she conducted federal grand jury investigations and trials in high profile white-collar criminal cases. In private law practice, she was a partner at Bird, Marella, Boxer, Wolpert & Matz in Los Angeles. She has taught Trial Advocacy, both as an Adjunct Professor at Northwestern Law School and at the National Institute for Trial Advocacy.  In the corporate sector, Ms. Jones managed litigation matters worldwide for Abbott Laboratories, as well as advising senior management in matters of crisis management and in fashioning creative solutions to highly complex business issues.  More recently, she acted as Senior Counsel at SBC Communications (now AT&T).
           
She is a co-author of two bar association reports providing consulting advice to Los Angeles County: The City in Crisis—A Report by the Special Advisor to the Board of Police Commissioners on the Civil Disorder in Los Angeles (October 1992) and Report of the Los Angeles County Bar Association Advisory Committee for the Office of the District Attorney (September 1994). Ms Jones has served as Counsel of Record in the amicus curiae briefs filed in the United States Supreme Court in 2003 and 2006 by the Black Women Lawyers Association of Chicago in Grutter v. Bollinger and the University of Michigan in support of diversity in higher education and in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District supporting the right to voluntarily desegregate public schools.

Ms. Jones is a past President and co-founder of the Black Women Lawyers Association of Chicago.  She is currently on the Board of Directors for the Harvard Law Society of Illinois and Women Employed.  She is a past Chair of the Chicago Bar Association Committee on Racial & Ethnic Diversity and was instrumental in the 2006 adoption of the Chicago Bar Association’s Diversity Initiative and Commitments on Racial & Ethnic Diversity for law firms and corporate legal departments. Ms. Jones is the First Vice President of the Harvard Law School Alumni Association and will become its President in June 2010. She is an alumnus of Leadership Greater Chicago.

Ms. Jones has received numerous awards including most recently the Black Women Lawyers Association of Chicago’s Woman of Vision Award (2006); Chicago Bar Association’s Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges Award (2008); and the Young Women’s Leadership Charter School’s Industry Leader Award (2008).  She is co-founder of the Association of Black Radcliffe Women (1975) and Black Women Lawyers Association of Chicago (1986); two organizations which continue to thrive. Ms. Jones is a co-author of a guide published by the American Bar Association in May 2004 entitled, “Walking the Talk:  Creating a Law Firm Culture Where Women Succeed” which deals with the retention and promotion of women in law firms.

Ms. Jones is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Harvard College with a degree in Economics.