After a tremendously successful year in 2009, ACC Chicago will once again run its corporate legal diversity pipeline program in 2010, an exciting initiative designed to help prime the pipeline to the legal profession for young people from underserved high schools in Chicago and the northwest suburbs.  This program – developed by ACC in collaboration with Street Law, Inc. a non-profit organization (www.streetlaw.org) - creates partnerships between lawyers, paralegals and others in our legal departments and nearby high school law classes serving youth from diverse backgrounds.  The idea behind the program is to encourage high school students to continue their educations and to consider careers in the law.  

The ACC Chicago Chapter Street Law Program has both a Chicago and an Elgin component, and volunteers can select which component (city or suburbs) is most geographically convenient for them.  ACC Chicago has forged relationships with both Chicago Public Schools and Elgin District U-46; together, we have identified a number of classes that would be grateful for opportunities to partner with in-house counsel through the current semester.  Over the spring semester, ACC volunteers will visit each of the participating classes, and ACC Chicago will bring all of the students to a one day conference (one for each geographic component) near the end of the spring semester.  The program kicks off with training sessions, during which we will meet the teachers, learn how to access proven lesson plans for the classroom visits, and begin to plan for the student conference.

Training Session - Elgin Volunteers

Date: TBD

Times: TBD

Location: TBD

Training Session – Chicago Volunteers

Date: TBD

Times: TBD

Location: TBD

The program was extremely successful last year with more than 50 in-house attorney volunteers reaching out to over 200 promising young students.  We received tremendously positive feedback from the students and teachers, with requests for us to add students to the program this year if possible.  In addition, volunteers found it to be a fun and gratifying way to give back to the community and, at the same time, form meaningful relationships with their in-house colleagues.  The time commitment involved is fairly flexible, probably averaging 10-15 hours over the course of three to four months – a small commitment to perhaps change the life of a deserving student.  If you are interested in volunteering to participate in this very worthwhile program, please contact ACC Chicago Members Jenifer Robbins at jrobbins@fpladvisorygroup.com (Chicago program) or Julia Jackson at juljackson@tpna.com (Elgin program).