The Contra Costa County Bar Association is
committed to achieving true diversity within our county’s legal
profession, including better representation of people from diverse
backgrounds on our local bench. The
following highlights specific initiatives of the CCCBA Diversity
Committee (“The Committee”):
Diversity
Initiative: This
pledge was signed by many CCCBA-member solo practitioners and law
firms in our county:
- Follow-up
Survey: All
signatories to the Diversity Initiative were surveyed to evaluate
how they are doing vis-à-vis their pledge, as well as to identify
areas where The Committee can assist them in their efforts to
increase diversity by attracting and retaining attorneys from
diverse backgrounds. Results
of the survey will be posted later.
- Power
Point Presentation: The
Committee developed a power point presentation entitled
“Investing in the Future of Diversity: Building a Better Law
Practice”, which qualifies for 1 hour of elimination of bias in
the legal profession MCLE credit.
Members of the Committee will present this seminar at no
cost, in-house, to member law firms with 10 or more attorneys.
Arrangements will also be made for presentations to smaller
groups of CCCBA members.
The seminar focuses on why diversity matters; the
state of diversity in the legal profession nationally, state-wide, and
locally, as well as in law schools and on the bench; reasons for the
lack of progress; perceptions of lawyers from diverse backgrounds;
what the organized bar is currently doing; model law firm programs and
practices; and, finally, what lawyers and law firms can do to increase
diversity by attracting and retaining attorneys from diverse
backgrounds.
- Summer
Minority Clerkship Program:
The CCCBA participates in the Summer Minority Clerkship
Program by appointing representatives from larger firms in our
county to participate in the annual applicant interview process.
Because our county is unique in that law firms here do not
hire first year students as summer interns, we have not placed any
interns from this program to date.
However, our goal is to develop a program that would match
prospective second year minority law students with local law
firms, as well as to encourage lateral hires.
