High School Students Reap Rewards of Corporate Partnerships
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September 1, 2006
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This summer, two Atlanta high school students held internships in the legal department at The Coca-Cola Company to learn about the company, the functions of the legal department, and business law. The students were participants in Coca-Cola’s Diversity Pipeline Program which is now entering its fourth year. Choice Hotels International and General Motors also offered internships to Diversity Pipeline students this year. All three corporations report that the internships were a valuable experience for the students, who spent time with the department lawyers throughout the year learning about civil law and legal careers.
The Corporate Legal Diversity Pipeline Program is designed to encourage students of color to pursue legal careers and to give them the preparation and connections they need to succeed. The program is a partnership between Street Law, Inc., the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC), and participatin corporations and school systems. Corporations like Southern California Edison (SCE), a utility company in Rosemead, California, partner with local high schools to teach the students about civil law and legal careers. SCE visited the students’ classrooms to present lessons on billing disputes, eminent domain, and sexual harassment and then hosted a one-day conference at their headquarters where the students participated in interactive workshops on the subjects they studied in class.
As the school year begins, five new corporations have joined Street Law’s program to increase diversity in the legal profession.
- Safeco Insurance in Seattle, WA
- Marriott Vacation Club International in Orlando, FL
- DuPont in Wilmington, DE
- Allstate in Chicago, IL, Newark, NJ, and Washington, DC
- Federated Department Stores in Cincinnati, OH, St. Louis, MO, and San Francisco, CA
- CA, Inc. in Islip, NY
Street Law, Inc. will also be conducting an evaluation of the Diversity Pipeline program at several sites nation-wide this year, with results expected in June 2007.
Learn more about this program by visiting the Corporate Legal Diversity Pipeline Program page or reading the Feb. 2006 issue of Street Law Ink. Several articles have been published about the program in major media outlets. Some of the most recent include:
- An interview with Merck General Counsel Ken Frazier in The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel (June 2006)
- An article in La Opinion, a Spanish-language newspaper in California, about Southern California Edison's program. Here it is in Spanish and English. (June 2006)
- An article in the New York State Bar's Corporate Section Spring/Summer 2006 Inside newsletter.
Source:
(Reproduced with permission)
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Corporate Legal Diversity Pipeline Program
Topic: Diversity