Law schools, firms create programs to build pipeline of diverse attorneys

Every law school has faced the challenges of creating a diverse student body, even before last year’s Supreme Court decision that dramatically changed how universities could admit students.

Race can no longer be a direct consideration in admissions.

Law schools, and by extension law firms, have already been trying to create pipelines to legal careers through outreach programs and scholarships aimed at recruiting high school and college students from traditionally underrepresented populations.

With the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to effectively end affirmative action in college admissions, universities and law firms are looking for new ways to continue diversity efforts they had in place and create new initiatives to make their campuses and law offices more representative of society as a whole.

Norris Cunningham, one of the founders of Katz Korin Cunningham, which merged with Kentucky- and Indiana-based Stoll Keenon Ogden LLC in 2022, is among those pushing the envelope.

He helped create a KKC program, which has been continued at SKO, called “Classrooms to Courtrooms,” where the firm partnered with Arsenal Technical High School to create a program to help get more Black and Brown students into the law industry.

The program started in May 2020.

Cunningham said his daughter had just graduated from Indiana University and got a job in Wisconsin working for then-presidential candidate Joe Biden’s campaign.

Around the time his daughter arrived in Wisconsin, George Floyd, a Minneapolis man, was murdered by a police officer, with his murder sparking nationwide protests.

His daughter asked him to do something within his firm to address social justice issues, Cunningham said.

He and other attorneys began discussing ideas and Cunningham pitched the idea of creating a community-based program in Indianapolis that could serve as a pipeline for high school students to the practice of law.

After a friend introduced him to Tech’s principal, Cunningham spoke to a social studies teacher at the high school who taught a law education class.

“I said, ‘hey why don’t we help you teach the class?’” Cunningham said.

In 2021, the program at Tech started with two law education classes and 32 students total, with KKC attorneys and Defense Trial Counsel of Indiana volunteering and assisting Tech students and teachers.

With the Classrooms program also came the advent of a Tech team to compete at the Indiana Bar Foundation’s annual High School Mock Trial State Championship.

Cunningham said he noticed there was only one Indianapolis Public Schools high school—Shortridge High School—represented at the annual competition.

Now, Tech expects to have three teams at Mock Trial, with 167 students participating in the Classrooms program, now entering its fourth year.

“I’m really pleased that we’ve ignited passion in these kids,” Cunningham said.

Deans talk about reaching, preparing law students

The state’s law schools are also looking to build their own pipelines to legal careers.

The leaders of the Hoosier law schools each represent diverse “firsts” of their own, including Dean Karen Bravo being the first person of color to lead Indiana University’s Robert McKinney School of Law, Dean G. Marcus Cole being the first Black person to lead Notre Dame Law School and Dean Christiana Ochoa being the first Latina to lead the IU Maurer School of Law.

At Indiana Lawyer’s Oct. 2 Diversity in Law program, the deans shared their personal stories of how they pursued legal careers and ultimately ended up in leadership roles at the state’s three law schools.

All three deans spoke of the importance of coordinating with their schools’ admissions offices and building pipelines to recruit students from diverse backgrounds.

“Giving opportunities to young people is the shared responsibility of us all,” Bravo said.

Bravo said IU McKinney has pipeline programs in place, as well as features like the school’s Professional Development Institute, to not only recruit students but also prepare them at the school for successful law careers.

The IU McKinney dean said that institute is geared toward first generation law school students and helps them learn about the “unwritten rules” of the profession.

Bravo said McKinney also has academic and bar success programs where students in their first semester can engage in facilitated study groups with their peers and professors to ensure they get off to a strong start at law school.

To maintain a diverse student body, Ochoa said the Maurer school also operates a lot of pipeline programs that focus on undergraduate students.

She said law schools, in building their pipeline programs, need to look deeper and call on partners in business, industry and law firms to help them.

Ochoa said law schools need to partner with firms to target high school students and spark an interest in them to enroll in college and pursue legal careers.

In 2023, IU Maurer hired an assistant dean of diversity, equity and inclusion to help students as they navigate through law school.

Cole said when he arrived at Notre Dame, there were five Black students in the university’s law school, or about 1 to 2% of the student body.

He said those numbers have increased to 12 to 13%, although that progress has been challenged by the 2023 Supreme Court decision that struck down affirmative action in college admissions and removed race as a direct consideration for admission.

Notre Dame’s law school draws students from all over the country, Cole noted.

The dean said the school has created partnerships with other universities like Xavier University of Louisiana, a historically Black Catholic university in New Orleans.

Cole said Xavier has the distinction of producing more Black doctors than all U.S. colleges and universities combined.

He said Notre Dame also has partnered with Florida International University, Texas A&M University and St. Mary’s University in Texas in an effort to maintain a diverse pipeline of undergraduate students into the law school.

“At the end of the day, we must have a legal profession that represents the people of this country,” Cole said.

Firms, organizations reach out through programs

Like SKO, there are other law firms and nonprofit legal organizations committed to helping students with an interest in law.

The Indiana Bar Foundation has its Mock Trial Diversity Initiative, which began in the summer of 2021 to retain, expand, and diversify participating schools in the Indiana Mock Trial program by reducing financial and systemic barriers to participation.

According to IBF, the program focuses on under-resourced schools with a large population of students of color, with grants allocated to fund costs associated with Mock Trial, including but not limited to: teacher stipends, transportation, food, business clothing, supplies, registration fee, lodging, sub pay, and technology.

The Indiana Conference for Legal Education Opportunity is a state-based program under the Indiana Supreme Court that helps college graduates from historically underrepresented backgrounds pursue a law degree and a career in the Indiana legal community.

The ICLEO Summer Institute is an intensive, six-week, in-residence program designed to simulate the law school experience and prepare students for success in law school, according to the McKinney law school.

At Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, the firm awards one-year diversity and inclusion fellowships annually to law school students and has partnered with more than a dozen national organizations to address issues important to diverse communities, both in the legal profession and in general.

Pablo Svirsky, chair of Faegre Drinker’s diversity collective, said he believes everyone at a firm needs to be involved in diversity-related initiatives, from the top down.

“As much as we can, we try to find as many opportunities as we can,” Svirsky said.

Getting some high school students interested in becoming lawyers sometimes is just a matter of exposing them to attorneys and the legal profession, Svirsky said.

He said some students know they are interested in pursuing a legal career after high school, but aren’t sure how to get there.

Caryn Glawe, a Faegre Drinker partner in its Indianapolis office, serves on Central Indiana’s Center for Leadership Development board, where she also worked to establish Faegre Drinker’s scholarship for CLD graduates who are interested in the legal profession.

CLD’s focus is on developing and preparing the area’s minority youth to be future professional, business, and community leaders.

Glawe said the firm established the scholarship in 2019, with CLD accepting applications and sending them to Faegre Drinker.

In reading application essays and conducting interviews, Glawe said a lot of applicants express interest in being a “helper” in their communities by pursuing a career as an attorney.

“They see it as a way they could have an impact on their community,” Glawe said.•