Overview
The program tackles the lack of diversity in the legal profession by focusing on strategies that will encourage and prepare students of color to enter the legal profession. It provides students with role models, connections with legal professionals, and the opportunity to experience the types of work lawyers do. Students are able to broaden their impressions of the legal profession and fuel their interest in legal careers. The program sets out to achieve these objectives through four program components: training, classroom visits, a conference at the corporate headquarters, and program extensions for the most promising students.
To become involved in the Corporate Diversity Pipeline Program, contact:
Lee Arbetman, executive director (240.821.1310, ) or
Megan Hanson, program director (240.821.1316, ).
Program Components
Street Law pairs each participating corporate legal department with one or more high school classes. Street Law provides training to the corporate volunteers and participating teachers, as well as guidance on topic selection and lesson plans. There are four components to this program:
- Training: Street Law provides a four-hour training session for all volunteers and the partner teacher. At this session, we choose topics to teach and plan out the semester.
- Classroom Visits: Legal department volunteers visit their partner classroom 2-6 times over the course of the semester to teach about topics in civil law and the legal profession.
- Conference at the Company: Students attend a day-long conference. They participate in interactive, authentic workshops on legal topics where they utilize the skills and knowledge acquired over the course of the semester. The students also attend a career fair at the conference, where they learn about the variety of legal jobs in the corporate sector.
- Enhancements: In the second year of the program, most corporations offer some sort of follow-up with the most promising students – several have offered job shadow days, mentoring, internships, or scholarships.
Corporate partners
As of January 2010, the following corporations were conducting diversity pipeline programs in conjunction with Street Law, Inc. and their local schools:
- McDonald's Corporation (Oakbrook, IL)
- The Coca-Cola Company (Atlanta)
- Central Pennsylvania ACC Chapter (Hershey, PA)
- PPG Industries, Inc. (Pittsburgh)
- General Motors Corporation (Detroit)
- Fannie Mae (Washington, DC)
- Merck & Co., Inc. (Whitehouse Station, NJ)
- Marriott International, Inc. (Bethesda, MD)
- Southern California Edison (Rosemead, CA)
- Marriott Vacation Club International (Orlando)
- Chicago ACC Chapter (Chicago and Elgin, IL)
- Allstate (Chicago, Washington DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco)
- Macy’s (Cincinnati, St. Louis, San Francisco, New York, Atlanta)
- DuPont (Wilmington, DE)
- Discovery Communications (Silver Spring, MD)
- IKON Office Solutions (Malvern, PA)
- MoneyGram International, Inc. (Minneapolis)
- Intelsat (Washington, DC)
- General Electric (Connecticut, Atlanta, and Chicago)
- MMC (New York)
- Southern California ACC Chapter (Los Angeles)
- Bank of America (Charlotte)
- Wyndham Worldwide & Wyndham Vacation Ownership (Orlando)
- International Paper (Memphis)
- Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (Atlanta)
- Eli Lilly & Baker and Daniels (Indianapolis)
- BlueCross BlueShield of TN & Chambliss Bahner & Stophel (Chattanooga, TN)
- NBC Universal (New York)
- Washington Metropolitan Chapter of the ACC (Washington, DC)
- Burger King Corporation (Miami)
- Pfizer (New York)
- Exelon (Chicago)
- Computer Sciences Corporation (Falls Church, VA)
- Washington Chapter of the ACC (Seattle)
- Fox Entertainment Group, Inc. (Los Angeles)
- Lockheed Martin Corporation (Bethedsa, MD)
- Verizon (Basking Ridge, NJ & Arlington, VA)
- Dallas-Fort Worth ACC Chapter (Dallas)