#OurHouseIsYourHome – A Fundraising Campaign to Increase Diversity in the Legal Profession

The City Bar’s Office for Diversity & Inclusion has launched a social media fundraising campaign entitled “Our House Is Your Home” which celebrates the professional journeys of students who have walked through the House of the Association as City Bar Pipeline program participants. Featured alumni share their first experiences at the City Bar, how mentors have played a role in their professional and personal development, and what advice they would give to their younger selves. For many students, engagement with the City Bar began in high school through the Thurgood Marshall Summer Law Internship Program and now continues, as practicing attorneys, in the form of City Bar committee service.

Read the alumni profiles here: http://www.nycbar.org/serving-the-community//diversity-and-inclusion/diversity-celebration/our-house-is-your-home and on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Support for this campaign will provide critical financial resources to City Bar Pipeline Initiatives, which  include:

• Thurgood Marshall Summer Law Internship Program (TMSLI), which places high-achieving New York City high school students with legal employers for the summer and provides them with weekly professional development programs. TMSLI has served over 1,200 students since its founding in 1993.
• LSAT/Law School Prep Series, a comprehensive all-day workshop for college students and recent graduates, providing free sample LSAT prep courses and information on the entire admissions process from application through the first year of law school. The Series has run for nine years and has served over 2,500 students since 2009.
• Launching Your Career Seminar Series, a 5-week series for a cohort of 30 undergraduates and recent graduates involving interactive workshops on discrete professional development subjects including resume-writing, networking, and etiquette, among others.
• Law Preview Scholarship, which provides recipients with a tuition scholarship for a 6-day BARBRI Law Preview law school prep course covering the 1L required coursework. Since 2012, over 200 scholarships have been awarded.  
• 1L Diversity Fellowship, which provides first-year law students from underrepresented populations the chance to spend a summer in one of New York’s leading law firms and corporate/government law departments. The program’s 600 alumni include partners in law firms, association general counsels, Assistant District Attorneys, Assistant Attorney Generals, an Assistant US Attorney, executive directors, and founders of their own companies

You can help strengthen pipeline programming and opportunities for the next generation of legal professionals by donating to the #OurHouseIsYourHome campaign at bit.do/citybar18 or by texting CITYBAR18 to 91999.

To learn more about the programs our alumni participated in, please visit the Diversity Pipeline Initiatives page.