Pittsburgh – Global law firm K&L Gates LLP and the University of Pittsburgh School of Law (Pitt Law) are again partnering to offer the K&L Gates Diversity Fellowship. Now starting its sixth year, the Fellowship provides a full-tuition scholarship to an entering student at Pitt Law for all three years of law school, as well as a paid summer associate position at K&L Gates in the student’s first summer of law school with an opportunity to return for a second summer.
 
The K&L Gates Diversity Fellowship, which began in 2016, was the first of its kind at Pitt Law, and the first such partnership in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania between a law firm and a law school. Past and current Fellowship recipients include Cheryl Choice and Jessica Liu, both now associates in K&L Gates’ Pittsburgh office, as well as Pitt Law students Nadia Brooks, Alex Le Blanc, and Gloria Chibueze-Azinge. Learn more about some of the recipients on the Pitt Law website. 

University of Pittsburgh School of Law Dean Amy J. Wildermuth praised the five-year partnership for the many ways in which it has been a success: “The Fellowship allows us to recruit top students to the law school who contribute fully to the life of the law school and leave a lasting mark. Those individuals have the opportunity to work at a world-class law firm where they learn from some of the best lawyers in the business. Finally, the Fellows often make Pittsburgh their new home and actively engage in and contribute to our community. We are all better off as a result of this program and we are grateful for the opportunity to continue it.”

“Our Pittsburgh office is very proud to have established this Diversity Fellowship with Pitt Law, and especially proud that the first two recipients have earned their law degrees and have chosen to practice law with our firm here in Pittsburgh,” said Thomas Smith, K&L Gates’ Co-Managing Partner, United States, and Managing Partner of the firm’s Pittsburgh office. “That is exactly what we hoped would happen when we started this program six years ago.”

K&L Gates has a long-standing commitment to diversity and inclusion and takes an aggressive approach in the recruitment and development of diverse and women lawyers. This includes K&L Gates: The Power of Partnership, a national program that offers a first-year law school student a unique opportunity to experience legal work in both firm and in-house settings that K&L Gates and its clients have now expanded to six of the firm’s U.S. offices. In addition, K&L Gates and Ms. JD recently launched the K&L Gates Pathway to Success business training program to aid the firm’s women associates in building their careers.

K&L Gates also regularly participates in a variety of other programs and partnerships to attract and support top legal talent from wide-ranging backgrounds, including the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity 1L Scholars Program; K&L Gates Seattle office’s 1L Diversity Fellowship; the Charlotte Legal Diversity Clerkship Program; the Gregoire Fellows Program; and the North Carolina Bar Association Minorities in the Profession 1L Summer Associate Program. Read more about these and the other diversity-related events and organizations the firm supports on klgates.com. 

Formally established in 1895, the University of Pittsburgh School of Law is the oldest and largest law-school program in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Always looking forward, Pitt Law prepares its students for real-world practice through traditional legal coursework and hands-on experiential learning opportunities that emphasize the value of diverse perspectives and backgrounds. With more than 10,000 alumni, Pitt Law emphasizes both mastery of legal principles as well as practical skills training, which allows its students to enter the field of law ready for the challenges facing twenty-first century legal professionals.

K&L Gates is a fully integrated global law firm with lawyers located across five continents. The firm represents leading multinational corporations, growth and middle-market companies, capital markets participants and entrepreneurs in every major industry group as well as public sector entities, educational institutions, philanthropic organizations and individuals.