BASF's Bay Area Diversity Career Fair

In 2005, Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP and The Bar Association of San Francisco created the Bay Area's first ever Diversity Career Fair for second-year law students.

The Diversity Career Fair brings together prominent law firms and government legal departments in the San Francisco Bay Area with highly qualified diverse second-year law students. The participating students come from distinguished local law schools, as well as other top schools from around the nation to participate in summer associate programs.

Underwritten by Orrick and sponsored by BASF, the Bay Area Diversity Career Fair provides a much needed event for employers in the Bay Area, as well as diverse law students across the country, who previously had to travel great distances for job fairs that targeted minority candidates. In addition to the interviews, the fair also provides students with networking and educational opportunities. A welcome reception that includes prospective employers takes place the night before the interviews and a breakfast panel the morning of the interviews features diverse lawyers from a variety of practice areas.

This year, the welcome reception was held on August 8 at the Orrick Building and interviews took place on August 9 at the Hilton San Francisco Financial District.

2007 Career Fair Statistics

More than 320 students from 56 law schools applied to participate in the fair
More than 180 students were granted callback interviews , which resulted in over 100 offers extended
58 law firms and government agencies participated
55% of the students that received callback invitations received offers

Accolades

" The Bay Area Diversity Career Fair was a fantastic event. I really appreciated the opportunity to meet with attorneys that are committed to improving diversity at their firms. Considering the large number of students and firms that took part in the career fair, the entire event was organized superbly. Thank you for inviting me, and I look forward to learning more about the participating firms! "

---Northwestern '09 and 2007 BADCF participant

" This career fair is by far, the best run recruiting event in addition to having the best candidates we see all fall. We are looking forward to attending again this year. "

---Caryn S. Schreiber, Morgan Lewis & Bockius