From left: Christopher Schmidt and Jacob Frost of Boardman & Clark LLP with the firm’s summer law clerk, Candace Hayes. Frost originally clerked with the firm through the Diversity Clerkship Program in 2008 as a law student before being hired after graduation.

Visit the State Bar’s Facebook page for more photos of this event, or click here. See them all on Flickr.

Aug. 5, 2015 – For 22 years, it has been a celebration of past experience and future potential, and a recognition of a commitment to law students and to diversity by employers throughout Wisconsin.

The 10-week State Bar of Wisconsin’s Diversity Clerkship Program matches employers and clerks to provide the best clerk for the employer’s needs and the best legal working experience for the clerk.

The program was founded in 1993. Since then, 425 clerks have gone through the program with 58 companies, firms, and state agencies participating as employers.

Commitment Above and Beyond

This summer, 15 employers and clerks are participating in the program. A reception at the State Bar Center in Madison on July 21 recognized each of them.

Two employers, long-time participants in the Diversity Clerkship Program, received special recognition awards: American Family Mutual Insurance Co. in Madison and Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. in Milwaukee.

“They have gone above and beyond,” said Judge Carl Ashley, chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Oversight Committee.

Not only has each participated as an employer in the program for more than 20 years, but each provides facilities and accommodations for the interviews.

“The program would be in a difficult situation if it were not for these two employers and their exemplary commitment and support of the program,” said Judge Ashley.

From Interviewee to Interviewer

“As I think back on it, I think being in this program was perhaps the single greatest contributor to where I am today,” said Jacob Frost, who spoke at the reception.

Frost is an associate at Boardman & Clark LLP in Madison, where he focuses on litigation. He was hired on graduation in 2010 from the U.W. Law School, after spending two summers with the firm as a law clerk.

The first summer, in 2008, he was a 1L in the Diversity Clerkship Program.

Frost, who uses a wheelchair, applied to the program to bring in the perspective of a person with physical challenges.

The opportunity was “incredible,” Frost said, and provided him with experience and training in interviewing, in making valuable networking connections, as well as the experience of working as a lawyer – all experience that was treasured for a student after just one year of law school.

“Boardman takes a great approach with all of their clerks: A clerk should spend their summer doing real legal work that lets you see what the law is and how to research it and how it works in real life,” Frost said.

Odalo Ohiku of the Law Office of Odalo J. Ohiku, Milwaukee, center, speaks during the Diversity Clerkship Recognition Reception. The firm participated in the 2015 Diversity Clerkship Program. On the left is State Bar President-elect Fran Deisinger and at the podium is Judge Carl Ashley, chair of the State Bar’s Diversity and Inclusion Oversight Committee.

He remembers proudly that he wrote a portion of a brief that first summer that was submitted to a court.

“For me as a 1L going on to be a 2L, that was huge,” Frost said.

That experience set him on his current path. “From there I always knew I wanted to be a litigator.”

Frost is now interviewer, rather than interviewee, for Boardman & Clark in the Diversity Clerkship Program.

“It’s a great investment for our firm. It provides us the chance to meet a lot of talented and diverse candidates each and every year, it allows us to work with one of them every single summer, and it gives us just a constant means of having access to those diverse and potential future associates and attorneys that our firm could have,” Frost said. “Diversity is hugely important in the legal profession.”

The program, he said, was one of the greatest opportunities he experienced in law school.

“I am certainly proud to say that I am in a firm that always participates in this program,” Frost said.

More Participants Sought

The participation rate varies each year; in the past it has been as high as 27, said Andrew Chevrez, chair of the Law Student Outreach Subcommittee of the Diversity and Inclusion Oversight Committee.

Chevrez encourages more employers to look into participating in the program, and said that he and members of the committee are looking for any feedback about the program.

Kathleen Chung, past chair of the Diversity Clerkship Program, participated as a summer law clerk in 1999.

“I am one of the many of us who have benefited from this program,” Chung said. “This is the best program the Bar offers. It is a program that delivers for students, for employers and for our community.”

Bright Future

Brittney Mitchell, a 2015 summer law clerk with the Institute for Global Ethics, Madison, points to her name on the comprehensive list of law clerks as fellow summer law clerk Saiba Kapila takes a photo.

Fran Deisinger, State Bar president-elect, said the State Bar is proud of the program and proud of the lawyers and law students who have participated in it.

“But we are even more grateful for the employers who have participated to give those young lawyers the opportunities that have actually launched their careers in our profession,” Deisinger said. “You are quite literally moving us step by step toward a very bright future.”

For more information on the program, see the Diversity Clerkship Program page on the State Bar’s Website, WisBar.org, or contact Jerry Vang via email or at (608) 650-6181, or (800) 444-9404 ext. 6181.

For more photos of the event, see the State Bar’s Facebook and Flickr pages.