Established in 1993, the Philadelphia Diversity Law Group (PDLG) is committed to fostering participation of a more diverse group of lawyers in the Greater Philadelphia region in order to make our legal profession stronger, more productive and better equipped to address the challenges of the 21st century. As part of this mission, PDLG creates programs to enhance recruitment and retention of lawyers of diverse backgrounds by law firms and corporate law departments in this region.
As part of its ongoing partnership with PDLG, the firm participates in the fellows program, which offers diverse first-year law students roles in various in-house legal departments and/or law firms the summer before their second year of law school. Through this program, Morgan Lewis employs a PDLG 1L in its annual summer associate program. The firm also “adopts” PDLG fellows at client organizations and invites them to join various training programs and events held throughout the summer program. Frequently, that 1L PDLG Fellow employed by the firm will return as a 2L summer associate, and ultimately as a full-time associate at the firm.
Eric Kim, a labor and employment associate, was one such fellow who joined the firm in 2013. Eric said the experience was invaluable to him as it was his first time in any legal setting, which taught him from a client’s perspective what they are looking for in outside counsel. He shares more about his experience with the PDLG and what that has brought to him in his career.