This release was just issued through Chief Justice Shepard's office:
Fifty-one minority law students from 14 law schools throughout the country were urged to seek judicial clerkships in a special program at the American Bar Association's Mid-Year Meeting in San Antonio, Feb. 5-Feb. 7, 2004. The fourth annual Judicial Clerkship Program was organized and conducted under the co-sponsorship of the ABA's Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession and its Judicial Division, and with the generous financial support of LEXIS-NEXIS.Posted by Marcia Oddi at February 10, 2004 03:26 PMJustice Frank Sullivan, Jr., of the Indiana Supreme Court chaired the program on behalf of the Judicial Division. Sylvia A. Bier, Arlene Brens, Robyn N. Carr, and Lu-celly Duenas, students at the Indiana University School of Law—Bloomington, were among the students participating.
“The ABA launched the Judicial Clerkship Program three years ago in response to a study by the National Association of Law Placement that showed minority representa-tion among judicial clerks generally lower than in the law school population and to pub-licity over the absence of minority clerks at the U.S. Supreme Court,” Justice Sullivan said. “Feedback from the participating law students, judges, and former clerks has been extremely positive. Many past participants have pursued clerkships and virtually all of this year’s participating students said they intended to seek clerkships.”
Over parts of three days, the Program brought the minority law students together with 30 judges and several former law clerks for panel discussions, a research exercise, and informal social events, Sullivan said. These activities were designed to introduce and then reinforce reasons for pursuing a judicial clerkship: (1) allowing a new lawyer to de-velop a close personal working relationship with a judge; (2) improving a new lawyer's legal research, analytical, and writing skills; (3) enhancing a new lawyer's career oppor-tunities; and (4) permitting a new lawyer to participate directly in the process of shaping the law.
Both ABA President Dennis W. Archer and ABA President-elect Robert J. Grey addressed the students, congratulating them on their participation and encouraging them to seek clerkships.
This was the third consecutive year that Sullivan has chaired the Judicial Clerk-ship Program on behalf of the Judicial Division. In 2002, the Program won the ABA Section Officers’ Conference Meritorious Service Award as the best program sponsored by an ABA subdivision that year. Sullivan himself received the Indiana State Bar Asso-ciation’s 2002 Rabb Emison Award which honors demonstrated commitment to promote diversity and equality in the legal profession, in part for his work on the Judicial Clerk-ship Program.