About Us

Laurie N. Robinson

Senior Vice President & Assistant General Counsel, CBS Corporation
Corporate Counsel Women of Color, Founder & CEO

Laurie Nicole Robinson—an award winning lawyer and agent of change—truly personifies the 21st century businesswoman whose skills, passion and commitments are multi-faceted and the beneficiaries of her associations and accomplishments are many.

In 2009, Ms. Robinson was promoted (for the third time at CBS) to Senior Vice President and Assistant General Counsel of CBS Corporation, where she reports directly to the company's Executive Vice President and General Counsel. In this role, Ms. Robinson assumes executive and managerial responsibilities for corporate interface with all CBS business unit legal divisions (Showtime, CBS Films, CBS Corporation, CBS Radio, CBS Interactive, Simon & Schuster, CBS Outdoor, and CBS Entertainment); facilitates training and development; and oversees the legal department's initiatives and special projects. Prior to this promotion, Ms. Robinson served as Vice President and Assistant General Counsel for CBS Corporation, and previously served as the Assistant General Counsel and Director of Training and Development for CBS Broadcasting Inc.

Prior to joining CBS in 2002, Ms. Robinson worked at two New York City law firms, Seyfarth Shaw LLP and Epstein, Becker and Green, P.C., where she represented management in labor and employment matters. Prior to working for those law firms, Ms. Robinson served as a legal intern in the labor management division of the National Football League. While at the NFL, Ms. Robinson wrote and published a legal comment in the Indiana Law Journal entitled "Professional Athletes – Held to a Higher Standard and Above the Law: A Comment on High-Profile Criminal Defendants and the Need for States to Establish High-Profile Courts."

Ms. Robinson is the author of several legal-related publications; has a quarterly column on diversity in Inside Counsel magazine; and contributes to the CBS Corporation Diversity Blog. In addition, she is a popular and highly sought-after speaker. She has presented at the American Bar Association, the Inside Counsel Super Conference, the National Bar Association and the Minority Corporate Counsel Association.

In addition to her role at CBS Corporation, Ms. Robinson is the founder and CEO of Corporate Counsel Women of Color®, a non-profit professional organization, which she created in 2004 to advance women of color attorneys and to foster diversity in the legal profession. Ms. Robinson's leadership and ability to galvanize has resulted in the growth of the organization's membership from 30 members to over 2,900 members within a nine-year period. In this role, she provides strategic leadership within the areas of branding, publishing, business development, web development and interactive, marketing, sponsorships, and fundraising. Ms. Robinson is also responsible for developing programming for diverse professional lawyers including CCWC's Annual Career Strategies Conferences, which have been held nationally in New York City, Las Vegas, Beverly Hills, and Chicago and CCWC's International Career Strategies Symposiums, which have been held abroad in Paris, London, South Africa, Dubai, Singapore, and Sao Paulo. In addition, she developed and provides creative direction to CCWC's website, which averages over two million hits per year. Ms. Robinson is further responsible for spearheading the 2011 groundbreaking research report on the career progression of women of color attorneys entitled "Perspectives of Women of Color Attorneys in Corporate Legal Departments."

In 2012, Ms. Robinson launched CCWC® Live Blog Talk—an intranet talk show—where she serves as the host and executive producer. The intranet show airs once a month and focuses on career strategies for lawyers. The popular show impressively received over 4,000 On Demand downloads in its first year. Past featured guests include Glenda Hatchett (Judge Hatchett Show), Valorie Burton (Executive Coach and Author "Successful Women Think Differently"), and Carla A. Harris (Wall Street Vet and Author "Expect to Win"). On Demand shows are available at: http://www.ccwomenofcolor.org/blog-talk-radio-past-and-upcoming-shows.html#upcoming. Furthermore, Ms. Robinson developed and launched a mobile app for CCWC which is available in the Apple iTunes store and created and launched the CCWC Elegance, Style and Classic Collection Line (http://ccwc.myshopify.com/) – a merchandise line for the organization's members to purchase high-end products for their home and office.

Ms. Robinson received accolades for her leadership including being recognized by the Coca-Cola Company's legal department and receiving the Women's Venture Fund's Highest Leaf Award, the Charting Your Own Course Spirit Award, the Groundwork, Inc. Impact Award, the Black Women Lawyer's (Los Angeles) Power of One Award and the Black Women Lawyer's (Chicago) Diversity Visionary Award. Ms. Robinson was featured in the annual women's issue of Ebony Magazine in recognition of her leadership, ability to inspire others, and effectuate change. She was named to the Network Journal's 40 Under Forty List, Precious Times magazine's 15 Christian Leaders, Pink magazine's Top 15 Women in Business, and was highlighted as one of the legal industry's women leaders in Vault's View From the Top: Advice from Legal Women Leaders.

Ms. Robinson was honored by the National Bar Association's Women Lawyers Division and recipient of the very first M. Ashley Dickerson Award by the National Association of Women Lawyers. She is a recipient of the New York City Bar Association Diversity Champion Award and the New York State Bar Association Diversity Trailblazer Award. Moreover, she is a recipient of the NAFEO Distinguished Alumni Award and the Shropshire Group, Inc.'s Humanitarian Award. She was bestowed with the prestigious recognition as one of the "10 Up-And-Coming African-American Lawyers to Watch" by Diversity & The Bar magazine; and was listed as a "Power Broker" by Inside Counsel in its GC 50 list of the most influential in-house counsel in North America. In 2010, she was a recipient of the Indiana University School of Law – Bloomington's Distinguished Alumni Award; the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem's Corporate Social Responsibility Award; and the George W. Crawford Black Bar Association Visionary Award. In 2011, Ms. Robinson was awarded the Ronald H. Brown Distinguished Leadership Award from the University of the District of Columbia and the ACC's 2011 Matthew J. Whitehead II Diversity Award. In 2012, she was awarded the Chambers and Partners 2012 In-House Counsel Up & Coming Lawyer of the Year and the National Bar Association's Pinnacle Award. Recently, Ms. Robinson was selected as a History Maker in the field of law.

Ms. Robinson's collegiate years were just as accomplished as her legal career. She attended North Carolina Central University and received her Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, in 1994. Notably, she served as a campus leader in the coveted role of Miss North Carolina Central University, where she provided public service to the Durham, North Carolina community and served as a national ambassador to the university and the school's 5,000 students. She attended Indiana University School of Law at Bloomington and received her Juris Doctorate in 1998. While at Indiana–Bloomington, Ms. Robinson served as President of the Student Law Association, the Notes and Comments Editor of the Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, and as a member on the Moot Court Board.

In 2012, Ms. Robinson completed her certificate in Entertainment Media Management from New York University (with a 3.8 GPA).