M&DCP
Consider Participating in the 2014 Minority and Diversity
Clerkship Program
By Charles T. Lester, Jr.
Sutherland
[email protected]
A
s law firms, judges and corporate legal departments
begin to make plans for 2014, please consider
including the Minority and Diversity Clerkship Program
of the Atlanta Bar Association.
In 1985, then Atlanta Bar Association President, W. Seaborn
Jones, established the Minority Clerkship Program (now
Minority & Diversity Clerkship Program) to address a concern
that few minority lawyers were practicing in majority law firms.
The number of minority associates and partners in major law
firms had not increased significantly over the past decades,
and the program was, in part, designed to address that
trend. Under the program, first-year minority and diversity
students are interviewed and hired as summer associates
by established Atlanta law firms.
Since the program’s inception twenty-eight years ago,
the Atlanta Bar Association has sponsored the Minority &
Diversity Clerkship Program with the assistance
and cooperation of the law schools at Emory
University, University of Georgia, Georgia State
University, and Mercer University, along with
Atlanta law firms and corporate law departments.
Upon its accreditation, John Marshall Law School
joined that group.
The Minority Clerkship Program was the first program of
its kind in the country and has inspired the development of
minority clerkship programs by many other bar associations.
Since its inception, almost 250 law students have served
clerkships in over 25 Atlanta law firms, judges’ chambers and
corporate law departments. Clerkships are for six to twelve
weeks, depending on the employer’s preferences, and, for
firms without other first-year clerks, a base salary is set. For
firms with other first-year clerks, the same salary for all is
preferred.
Initially, participation in the program was by larger law firms
and legal departments, but, over the last several years,
medium-sized and smaller firms, judges and corporate legal
departments have signed on. Thus far, the following firms
and corporate legal departments are hosting clerks in 2014
and several more are expected:
The goals of the Minority and Diversity Clerkship
Program are:
• To give the first-year clerks the opportunity to
observe and participate in actual law practice with
the expectation that their second and third years
of law school will be enhanced by that experience.
• To demonstrate to both the students and the
participating firms that the students have the ability
to practice productively in such firms.
• To increase the number of such students
practicing in Atlanta law firms, corporate law
departments, judges’ chambers and public interest
groups. (While this is the ultimate goal, all students
and firms are advised that participation in this
program is not intended to lead to a second-year
clerkship).
• To supplement the clerkship experience provided
by the participating firms with support functions
provided by the Atlanta Bar Association.
16
THE ATLANTA LAWYER
December 2013
The Official News Publication of the Atlanta Bar Association