Bay Area Minority Summer Clerkship Program - Contra Costa County Bar Association

The Bay Area Minority Summer Clerkship Program (the Program) is sponsored by the Contra Costa Bar Association (CCCBA), the Santa Clara County Bar Association (SCCBA), and Alameda County Bar Association (ACBA) to provide first-year minority law students experience in law firms that they might not otherwise be able to access.

The program’s most important objective is to increase the number of minority attorneys in the hiring pipeline, giving them a better opportunity in subsequent years to be competitive for second year clerkships and post law school employment.

BAMSCP selects students for its program through an application process, which is based on writing skills and an interview. The interview is administered by a committee made up of practicing private and public attorneys, as well as judges who select the best and brightest students. BAMSCP then matches students with employers based on their practice area interest. Participating employers then screen students to ensure a good fit. Placements are based on the mutual preferences of both employers and students.

PURPOSE

Given the historic under-representation of minority lawyers in large law firms, the Program seeks to provide a means for exposing minority law students to large law firms and vice versa. The objective is to establish a vehicle through which participation of minority students in large law firm clerkship programs is increased with the long-term goal of increasing minority hiring.

The specific purposes are:

To expose minority law students to the work, requirements and culture of majority law firms.
To help students develop skills, confidence, resume credentials and to make professional contacts for the future.
To encourage students to consider majority law firms in their career planning.
To introduce majority law firms to talented students who might not have been selected for the firms’ traditional summer programs and to demonstrate that these students, as well as other students with similar qualifications, can successfully meet the demands of law practice.

The Program is primarily an educational and introductory tool, not a recruiting program.

MORE INFORMATION

Please visit the Santa Clara County Bar Association’s website for program schedules and application forms.