Blog — Around the water cooler

Each week I will highlight a different case or legal happening, and solicit your thoughts on the impact of it in the legal community.

Reed Smith opened its law school fellowship program to students attending U.S. law schools nationwide.

The national Reed Smith Fellowship will provide six awards of $10,000 each toward tuition for the second year of law school, as well as a paid summer associate position after completion of the second year in any one of nine U.S. Reed Smith offices participating in the program.

The fellowship is open to first-year students who have demonstrated excellent scholarship while overcoming economic or social adversity. Students can select to be summer associates in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Oakland, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., or in Richmond or Falls Church, Virginia.

The fellowship can provide more opportunities for students with a variety of life experiences to get their legal education, and learn more about Reed Smith in the process, said Tyree P. Jones, partner and director of global diversity at Reed Smith.

The firm’s fellowship program began in 2002 in Pittsburgh, but has grown since that time, Jones said. Previous recipients have included an African-American woman who overcame social adversities to excel in law school, and a man who served in Iraq.

“The success behind it is attracting really stellar, diverse candidates,” Jones said. “We are really excited about the program. Going national with it is just an important step, I think, for our firm.”

First-year students in good standing at any law school in the United States have until May 15 to submit an application. The information and materials required include a completed fellowship application, a resume, first semester law school grades, a writing sample, and an undergraduate transcript.  In addition, fellowship applicants must complete two personal statements – one describing any significant adversity they have faced, how this adversity was overcome, and how it affected them, and the other detailing their community and extracurricular involvement.

The Reed Smith Fellowship application is available online at

http://www.reedsmith.com/_db/_documents/Firmwide_Fellowship_Application.doc