The heart of the problem is that too few talented young people of color are giving serious consideration to legal careers.

April 1, 2005 | Pittsburgh, PA

As law firms and corporate legal departments struggle to address the lack of diversity within their halls, high school students are not frequently on their radar, Street Law. Inc. and the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) are striving to widen the scope of diversity initiatives 10 include those often-overlooked future lawyers.

Simply put, there are not enough lawyers of color graduating from law schools to diversify the legal community. Special attention within corporations to promote lawyers of color and the hiring of minority firms to provide legal work are two effective and imprtant strategies. But in a sense they simply result in reshuffling the same deck of cards. These strategies do not bring more diversity to the legal profession. The heart of the problem is that too few talented young people of color are giving serious consideration to legal careers.

Street Law, Inc., a renowned nonprofit provider of education about law, democracy and human rights, has teamed up with the ACC to create a program to prime the pipeline to the legal profession. While there are programs in place to encourage minority college students to enroll and succeed in law school, there is a shortage of programming to encourage younger students to take the steps necessary to begin their journey to law school and the legal profession.

The Corporate Legal Diversity Pipeline program is designed to encourage high school students of color to continue their educations and consider a career in the legal profession. The program pairs corporate legal departments with at-risk students in nearby high schools, informed by the knowledge that exposing young people at an early age to information about the law and lawyers of color who can serve as role models is critical to developing their interest in the profession. As a classroom resource, legal professionals can provide the students with information, help them develop attitudes that promote law-abiding behavior, and learn communication and problem-solving skills.

The Corporate Legal Diversity Pipeline programs are constructed from three primary components: classroom visits, a one-day conference at the corporate campus, and enhancements such as job shadowing, summer internships or college scholarships. Teams of volunteers from the corporate legal departments (including paralegals, legal assistants, and administrative staff) visit the students' classrooms to teach about civil law topics. The students then attend a conference with topical law-related interactive workshops and a career fair. The pipeline is continued by offering the most promising students opportunities for further experiences such as summer internships or mentoring relationships.

In Pittsburgh, Street Law, Inc. and the ACC have teamed with PPG Industries, Inc, to build a partnership with three Pittsburgh-area high schools. PPG's program grew out of discussions, facilitated by Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham's Carl Cooper, between the Allegheny County Bar Association's diversity committee and PPG senior vice president and general counsel Jim Diggs in the fall of 2004. The legal department paired with two civics classes at Schenley and Taylor Allderdice High Schools as well as the Street Law course at Oliver High School (the school system's law magnet program).

Legal department teams taught two classes for each of the participating schools on each of the four topics to be featured at the one-day conference-dispute resolution, intellectual property, employment discrimination (sexual harassment), and advertising/warranties.

At the one-day conference, students participated in two 80-minute interactive workshops and a lunchtime career fair. The workshops featured a variety of hands-on activities, including mock arbitrations in a sexual harassment case, and a three-party mediation related to a defective component of a manufactured product. In another workshop, students invented names for a new type of sneakers and then learned about the trademarking process.

After a successful first semester of the program, the legal department volunteers at PPG are looking forward to expanding next year. PPG, Street Law and ACC hope to expand the partnership to include several more government, civics, history or law classes in the city and to bring in new corporations.

Source: Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham LLP Diversity Committee Newsletter, April 2005 (Reproduced with permission)

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Corporate Legal Diversity Pipeline Program

Topic: Diversity