News Blog

Diversity pipeline programs are all the rage these days in the legal profession. Well, maybe not exactly, but they are gaining momentum, and that's a step in the right direction.  The idea is that taking a more active role with students prior to the actual legal job application process will increase the profession's chances of creating and maintaining a diverse group of attorneys. 

NALP arguably spearheaded this pipeline approach when it announced the creation of the Diversity Pipleine Initiative and its Street Law Program. The Street Law Program pairs participating NALP member law firms with local high schools, and commits practicing lawyers and other legal professionals to teaching law-related topics to high school students. As reported today on Law.Com, many other companies, firms, and organizations are involved in this program.

Another such program is the San Francisco Bar Association's 'Destination Law School' project, which aims to increase the number of members of underrepresented groups attending law school through partnering with bay area middle and high schools.  Similarly, Gordon Rees announced a pipeline initiative-- theirs starts with middle school children, sponsoring trips for seventh and eighth graders to the firm's San Francisco office.  Another firm, Farella Braun & Martell has a similar program in place.

Then recently, top law firm Akerman Senterfitt, announced that it had created a pipeline initiative with FAMU Law School. That firm's Diversity Committee Chair, Joseph W. Hatchett, is a FAMU alumnus. The pipeline initiative ultimately aims to place more FAMU Law grads at Akerman.

We hope to see more pipeline initiatives like these, as they can only help to increase diversity in the profession. Perhaps other sectors of the legal profession besides law firms could create such programs so that students will be exposed to many different aspects of the profession, rather than just law firms. We also hope that the attorneys who participate in these pipeline programs will play active and consistent roles in them. Too often we hear from law students and young attorneys who say that they heard from their mentors once or twice and then never heard from them again. Middle and high school students are far more vulnerable to disappointment than adults, so dependability will be key. 

Writing an article geared towards hiring (and firing) managers within Philadelphia firms, Wesley R. Payne, partner at White & Williams, and Chair of that firm's diversity committee, shared his thoughts on diversity within the context of economic downturn.

As firms cut budgets, he recommends that they maintain strong diversity programs, saying "...fewer dollars should not mean the lessening of a firm's diversity efforts . . .  nor should the weak economy be used as an excuse to disproportionately affect a firm's diversity efforts . . . good business sense dictates that, in a weak economy, diversity efforts must be part of a firm's long-range plans."

Click here to read the full piece.

Although the school year is coming to a close, not all of the law student scholarship deadlines have passed.

Two wonderful scholarship opportunities are featured in our Featured Fellowships Section this week. Both opportunities have deadlines of May 15th.

You can read about them here. Good luck!