MAKING ITS MARK : The SCBA Summer Law Fellowship Program Completes Its Fourteenth Season

By Lawrence J. Duran • Photo by Sirlin Photography

As summer moves into fall, Sacramento area law students are now back to the daily grind of law school classes. Most of them have likely forgotten about what they did this summer. But for the lucky few who were selected to participate in this year's SCBA Summer Law Fellowship Program, they have a lot upon which to reflect.

The Summer Fellowship Program is a collaborative effort of the Sacramento County Bar Association working together with participating Sacramento law firms and the Career Development Offices of the McGeorge School of Law and the University of California-Davis School of Law. The program is designed to groom minority and other disadvantaged law students to be more competitive in the legal labor market. In this vein, it encompasses work experience and educational components that focus on first-year law students.

Back row, left to right: Janice Lai, Joseph Woloszun, Blaze Van Dine, Shaghayegh Balali, Felix De La Torre (Co-Chair), Darrell Spence, Linda Partmann (Interviewing Chair/Secretary), Christopher Gray (Co-Chair), Kou Lor, Jason Kim, Janine Esquivel. Front row, left to right: Amy Lee, Gurdeep Dhaliwal, Laura Urias, Fabiola Murillo, Angela La Riviere, Sinoun Nov, Sharon Phosaly, Kyanna Williams.

The fellows receive a stipend of $2500 per month from their law firms during the nine-week Fellowship term. The program commences in late May with a pizza social event, allowing the students to meet each other and to be introduced to the program. This is followed by a formal dinner event where the fellows are introduced to the participating law firms and vice versa. Over the next eight weeks, the fellows are working in their law firms as summer associates and participating in weekly luncheon seminars. Those seminars cover topics such as: legal writing, minority attorneys practicing in law firms, tips on working with support staff, tips on successful law practice and business development skills, and an introduction to federal and state courts. At the end of the summer, the program concludes with a dinner event held at the home of attorney Jerilyn Paik.

After fourteen years, the fellowship program now seems to be operating effortlessly as if moving forward solely on its own momentum. But looks are deceiving. In fact, there is a cadre of dedicated people who have been working diligently and selflessly behind the scenes, year after year, to make it all happen. Members of the Minority Hiring and Retention Committee and law firm attorneys contribute their time and energy to plan various program events and conduct student interviews. Participating law firms coordinate the program within their firms, including presenting educational luncheon seminars. State and federal judges contribute their time to meet with the Law Fellows. SCBA bar staff facilitate the Committee's efforts. Finally, last but not least, there is Linda Partmann, Recruiting Coordinator and Legal Assistant at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, who has volunteered her services as the program administrator for the last five years.

This year the following firms participated in the program: Cook Brown, LLP; Downey Brand LLP; Law Offices of Donald J. Deshaw (Safeco Insurance); Katchis Harris & Yempuku; Livingston & Mattesich; Mastagni, Holstedt & Amick; McDonough, Holland & Allen; Mennemeier, Glassman & Stroud LLP; Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP; Porter, Scott, Weiberg & Delehant; Rediger, McHugh & Hubbert LLP; Somach, Simmons & Dunn; Stoel, Rives LLP; Weintraub Genshlea Chediak & Sproul; and Wilke, Fleury, Hoffelt, Gould & Birney.

In order to better appreciate the significance of this program, we need to look at how the fellowship program came to be and how it has matured over the years. Now administered by the SCBA Minority Hiring and Retention Committee, the program catapulted to success even in its humble beginning. In July of 1990, Larry Duran, then Chairperson of the State Bar's Ethnic Minority Relations committee, and Frank Iwama, then serving as the Sacramento Area representative on the State Bar Board of Governors, asked the SCBA Bar Council to follow the examples of the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bar Associations, in their efforts to promote the hiring and retention of minority lawyers by major law firms in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Then-SCBA President Dick Hoffelt immediately put the request on the Bar Council agenda, and personally enlisted the help of 14 of Sacramento's largest law firms.

The response was swift and decisive. On August 16, 1990, the SCBA Bar Council created a task force. The mission of the task force was "to study and consider the need in the Sacramento legal community for minority hiring programs for minority lawyers and law students and to propose to the Bar Council for implementation programs as determined to be needed." The task force was to include representation by the major law firms, the minority and general lawyer populations, and the area law schools. Some of the task force members included attorneys Cynthia Remmers, Sherri Kirk, Forrest Plant, Sr., Steve Meyer, Larry Duran, Jim Leet, Craig Caldwell, Jerilyn Paik, Mike Nakagawa, Heman Smith, Gabriel Vivas, and Curtis Namba. In addition, Merris Darnell and Jane Thomson, the then Directors of the Career Development Offices at McGeorge Law School and UC-Davis Law School, respectively, represented area law schools.

On November 2, 1990, the Minority Hiring Task Force held its first of several meetings. Minutes of that meeting reflect that there was an immediate consensus of the task force members that "[their] goal was to increase the number of persons of color employed as attorneys in the grater Sacramento area, specifically within the larger law firms (20 attorneys or more)." The task force took as a given that the issue of minority hiring is a real one, and proceeded directly to a consideration of means to address the issue. At that first meeting, five specific proposals were suggested, one of which was the genesis for the Summer Law Fellowship Program. Although the task force believed that realistically it could not get a viable program up and running until the summer of 1992, it felt that through a concentrated, accelerated effort, it was possible that a fledgling program could be implemented for the summer of 1991.

Merris Darnell and Jane Thomson immediately spearheaded an effort to compile available information on minority clerkship programs around the country. Together with Cynthia Remmers, they drafted a proposal for a first-year Minority Summer Fellowship Program, which they presented to the task force. Since some of the participating firms did not ordinarily hire first- year law students, this meant they would have to modify their existing summer associate programs to accommodate the program's objectives. The task force determined that the program should focus on the educational aspects of the summer fellows' employment experience, with no recruitment overtones.

The response by the law firms and law students to the pilot program was very positive. Ten law firms agreed to participate, including: Donahue & Callaham; Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe; McDonough, Holland & Allen; Greve, Clifford, Diepenbrock & Paras; Kronick, Moskovitz, Tiedemann & Girard; Weintraub Genshlea & Sproul; Hefner, Stark & Marois; Downey, Brand, Seymour & Rowher; Diepenbrock, Wulff, Plant & Hannegan; and Porter, Scott, Weiberg & Delehant. Also, law students were eager to participate in this unprecedented opportunity. Thirty law students competed for the ten coveted fellowship positions, and by June, 1991, the SCBA Summer Law Fellowship Program had commenced.

Of the original ten law firms, five of those firms have continued to participate in the program since its inception fourteen years ago: Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe; McDonough, Holland & Allen; Weintraub Genshlea & Sproul; Downey, Brand, Seymour & Rowher; and Porter, Scott, Weiberg & Delehant. In addition, other firms that joined the program in later years have also consistently continued to participate in the program. These include: Cook Brown, LLP; Law Offices of Donald J. DeShaw (Safeco Insurance); Livingston & Mattesich; Mastagni, Holstedt & Amick; Mennemeier, Glassman & Stroud LLP; Rediger, McHugh & Hubbert LLP; Somach, Simmons & Dunn; and Wilke, Fleury, Hoffelt, Gould & Birney.

So why did the SCBA design the program the way it did? Whereas the bar associations in Los Angeles and San Francisco implemented a program model that focused on getting law firms to commit to achieving specified hiring goals for minority attorneys, the SCBA wanted a model that addressed the problem, not just the symptoms. It did not just want to get these disadvantaged attorneys hired, but rather, it wanted to groom them to be more competitive in the legal labor market.

The work experience and educational seminars were aimed at making first-year law students more competitive when it comes time for them to interview for summer associate positions following their second year of law school. But the luncheon seminars were not the only focus of the program. An underlying objective was to expose minority attorneys to the law firm culture so that they can enhance their chances of success in private law firms, and to hopefully inspire them to go into private practice in the larger law firms. Conversely, the program also aimed to expose the law firms to a group of talented law students who they might not otherwise consider for employment.

In the beginning, the focus of the program was on three major minority groups: African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans. The rationale was that State Bar data showed these groups to be underrepresented in law firms. In addition, historically the program has also included a category of "other disadvantaged law students," who are considered for the program without regard to race or ethnicity. Over the years, fellows within this category have typically qualified based on economic disadvantage, single-parent status, or growing up in dysfunctional family settings. In recent years, we have also seen a number of various immigrant groups included in the program as well.

After the resounding success of the first year pilot program, the SCBA Bar Council made the task force a permanent SCBA standing committee the Minority Hiring and Retention Committee. Since that time the fellowship program has flourished. Over the past ten years the applicant pool has typically been between 60 to 80 law students, and generally 14 to 16 law firms participate each year. On occasion, a couple of law firms have even hired two law fellows for the summer. Also, smaller law firms are now asking to participate. Although the smaller law firms cannot afford to finance a student for the entire summer, smaller firms have joined forces to share that burden, with each taking the law fellow for half the summer season.

The success of the program is also reflected by the caliber of students applying to the program, as well as by the professional achievements of the alumni of the program. For example, many of the students come to the program with graduate degrees and substantial work experience in other fields. Many of the students graduated from their undergraduate programs with high honors. This is the case notwithstanding that they may not have learned to speak English until they were in elementary school and that their parents didn't speak English, or that they grew up with other social or economic disadvantages. No wonder the law firms are impressed with the talent pool that the program offers.

So where do these students go after they graduate from law school? Clearly we would like to be able to say that all of the 170 plus alumni of the program now work in Sacramento area law firms. Unfortunately, we know that is not the case. As a result of their fellowship experience some students come to realize that private practice is not for them. Some move on to other cities. However, a fair number of Fellowship alumni have joined Sacramento area law firms. Moreover, these alumni have also become active in running the program. In recent years, four alumni of the program have served as chairperson of the Minority Hiring and Retention Committee: Vida Thomas, Vanessa Whang, Christopher Gray, and Felix De La Torre.

In addition, two alumni have even "graduated" from their original law firms and are now name partners in their own firms. Vida Thomas, an alumna of the very first summer program, the Fellowship Class of 1991, worked for Kronick, Moskovitz, Tiedemann and Girard for seven years before leaving in 2000 to start her own law firm, Carlsen Thomas LLP, with partner Susan Carlsen. Also, Jesse Ortiz, an alumnus of the Fellowship Class of 1993, worked for Hefner, Stark & Marois for two years before he left with Bob Biegler in 1997 to become a name partner in the firm of Biegler, Ortiz & Chan.

But perhaps the most significant indicator of program success is the continuity of support from the participating firms. Due to the generosity and commitment of participating law firms, the program is now financially self supporting, even though the stipends are now $2500 per month. Over the years we have repeatedly heard the law firms reporting how pleased they are with the fellows who have worked for them. But we think that the fact that the law firms continue to participate in the program year after year is, itself, the best endorsement. Their actions speak louder than words. Clearly, these firms are the lifeblood of the program, and without them, there would not be a Fellowship Program as we know it. The SCBA would like to take this opportunity to thank all those firms that have helped to achieve the success that the Summer Fellowship Program has enjoyed over the past fourteen years, and we look forward to many more successes together in the future.

For further information about participating in the SCBA Summer Fellowship Program, law firms can contact Linda Partmann at (916) 329-7936, or email her at lpartmann@orrick.com.

Larry Duran received his B.A. at the University of Colorado-Boulder, his M.A. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; his M.B.A. at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, and his J.D. at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C. Mr. Duran is a Deputy County Counsel with the Sacramento County Counsel's Office. He has served on the SCBA Minority Hiring and Retention Committee since its inception, and is also currently a Member-at-Large on the SCBA Bar Council.

October / September 2004