Diversity in the Community

 

• An annual scholarship for a law school student in partnership with the Hispanic Lawyers Association of Illinois.
• In honor of Wiley A. Branton, former dean of the Howard Law School and our partner until his untimely death, Sidley has established an annual scholarship for the Howard law student who achieves the highest grade point average in the first year.
• We support the Ronald Kennedy Fellowship program at the Northwestern University School of Law, which provides scholarships and employment opportunities for minority law students.
• One of our African-American partners recently chaired the Dean's Advisory Committee on Community and Diversity at Northwestern University School of Law. This Committee examined, among other responsibilities, issues facing minority law students at Northwestern.
• At a firm-sponsored commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, Sidley awarded scholarships to outstanding minority students from Illinois law schools. In March 2004, the firm established a chair at Howard to support the law school’s lecture series on diversity matters.
• Sidley is an active supporter of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association’s (MCCA) mission and programs. We are a premier sponsor of the MCCA’s Continuing Legal Education Seminars, and through additional advertisement and subscription dollars, the firm supports both publications that are associated with the MCCA, Diversity and the Bar and The Minority Law Journal.
• We are working to increase the firm’s usage of women-owned and minority-owned businesses, in addition to hiring racially diverse high school students from Cristo Rey Network Schools in New York and Chicago as term-time interns. The firm encourages its lawyers to become affiliated with minority and ethnic bar associations and underwrites membership dues.
• In New York, we also actively participate in the Justice Resource Center’s MENTOR program, pursuant to which the firm is paired with the High School for Leadership and Public Service, a public New York City high school where most students are racially and ethnically diverse. Throughout the school year, our lawyers mentor and coach participating students who compete in state-wide Moot Court and Mock Trial competitions. The firm also provides summer employment for at least two of these students each year.
• Similarly, in Los Angeles the firm has established an educational partnership with Dorsey High School’s Law Magnet Program in order to interest high school students in law as a profession.

The Diversity Committee subsidizes lawyers’ membership fees in those organizations for lawyers who commit to active membership and leadership positions in them. We support these associations’ activities both monetarily and with volunteer time.


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