Barry Fields
Partner
The Kirkland & Ellis approach to diversity starts with setting clear, realistic, and attainable goals. Under its diversity plan, Kirkland & Ellis has nearly doubled the number of first-year minority associates, and quadrupled the number of minority summer associates, within the last two years. Since the 1994 inception of its Minority Recruitment and Retention Committee, Kirkland has undertaken a firm-wide, integrated, practical approach to tackle the pipeline issues that plague diversity hiring efforts.
Kirkland & Ellis’ attorneys participate in hands-on mentoring for minority students as early as elementary school and continuing through high school. Law school students know the firm through the annual Kirkland & Ellis Minority Scholarship Program, which awards scholarships to students at Northwestern University School of Law and the University of Chicago Law School in their second and third years. The $12,500 award is just one way the firm recruits law students for Kirkland’s Summer Associate Program, which sponsored 18 minority summer associates last year.
Kirkland actively participates in minority job fairs across the country, playing a part in efforts as varied as the Cook County Minority Job Fair, regional Black Law Students Association events, Asian-Pacific American Law Students Association job fairs, and diversity initiatives for the Hispanic National Bar Association.
Kirkland’s other recruitment activities are also designed to include law schools with significant minority attendance rates.
Return to List of 2001 Award Winners
From the March 2002 issue of Diversity & The Bar®