Partnering with the San Francisco Unified School District, the Justice & Diversity Center’s Law Academy program encourages and increases career opportunities for underserved and ethnically diverse students in Balboa High School in San Francisco.

Creative and inspiring curriculum is built into several core classes where junior and senior students learn basic legal concepts and interview and job skills which prepare them to join the workforce directly out of college. The legal community contributes greatly by mentoring and hiring Law Academy students as summer interns.

This summer, the program placed 25 high school students in paid Summer internships funded by firms and individual attorneys.

The attorneys that supervise these diverse student interns play an important role in inspiring them to pursue a higher education (many of the students will become the first in their family to attend college). In many cases, attendance, grades and over-all performance improve after an internship. And, during the internships students realize personal strengths that they may not otherwise have discovered.

In addition to helping out around the offices, some of the firms, like Farella Braun + Martel, gave students the opportunity to job shadow, and even sit in on a trial.

Law Academy’s Summer Internship program can be a life changing and eye opening experience for these students and we appreciate the following firms and individuals who participated in 2014:

• David Michael Bigeleisen
• Farella Braun + Martel
• Jones Day
• Keker & Van Nest
• Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein
• Office of San Francisco Supervisor Eric Mar, District 1
• Munger, Tolles & Olson
• Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman
• Office of San Francisco Supervisor Katy Tang, District 4
• Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton
• U.S. Department of Health Services
• Winston & Strawn

Get Involved: If you would like to hire or sponsor an intern in 2015, email Jareem Gunter at jgunter@sfbar.org