Improving diversity through pipeline programs

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ACC Chicago hosted two of these programs, one in the city and one in Elgin. ACC Chicago members, and lawyers from DLA Piper and Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal volunteered their time to educate students about the law and about legal careers. The program includes attorneys visiting classrooms to help teach law-related lessons, and a one-day conference involving interactive workshops.

”It’s hard to describe how it makes you feel to see something like this come to fruition,” said Jenifer Robbins, general counsel of FPL Advisory Group and immediate past president of the ACC Chicago chapter. Starting the program was a focus of hers during her term.

”We ask students to fill out evaluations at the end of the day and one of the students from Mather wrote, ‘I loved everything about this program. In fact, it was the best experience I ever had.’ And a student from Hirsch wrote, ‘I liked everything about today. It was a great experience that I will remember forever.’

”Overall,” Robbins said, ”exposing them to new experiences, positive role models, and engaging them in things they’ve never done has a myriad of benefits we probably cannot see.”

The students participating in the program are at a stage in their lives where they are trying to decide who to become, said Jason L. Brown, president-elect of the ACC Chicago chapter and director of legal for PepsiAmericas, Inc.

”We want to leave the profession better than what we came in with — at least that’s my goal,” he said. ”If we have an opportunity to impact young minds, and young kids can realize that becoming a lawyer is something possible, something even within their grasp, I think it’s important for us to do that.”

The ACC Chicago chapter also has a summer minority internship program for first-year law students, Brown said.

Diversity in the legal community is improving, but more must be done, he said.

”You are still hearing some major corporations having their first woman at a certain level or their first insert minority group here,” Brown said. ”And it’s 2008. At 2008 we are still seeing women and minorities completing firsts in a profession that has been around since the beginning of this country.

”Yes, we have made strides. Yes, things are improving. But we can definitely do much, much better.”

Street Law, Inc. is a national program that started in 1972 as a way for Georgetown law students to go into Washington, D.C., high schools and work with students. Since that time more than 60 other law schools participate in Street Law programs, said Lee Arbetman, director of U.S. programs at Street Law, Inc.

Around 2001, Street Law created its diversity pipeline program, which began with corporate legal departments and ACC chapters going into classrooms and talking about the law and about legal careers, Arbetman said. It also includes students visiting law firms, legal departments, and courtrooms to learn hands-on about the profession.

”The challenge is, it’s hard for any high school student to envision what he or she is doing seven or eight years down the road, especially with certain financial challenges,” he said. ”I think the key thing is to get started with a partnership with high school law classes. As a result of that, these bright young high school students can have a positive experience with one or more lawyers.”

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