Schiff Hardin actively participates in various pipeline initiatives designed to encourage the next generation of legal professionals. These initiatives include:

Cristo Rey Jesuit High School's Corporate Internship Program

Schiff Hardin is an active participant in Cristo Rey Jesuit High School's Corporate Internship Program.

In order to make private, college-preparatory education affordable to at-risk young people from Pilsen, an economically challenged area of Chicago, Cristo Rey developed an innovative work-study program for high school students called the Corporate Internship Program (CIP), which combines two commonly used business concepts, employee leasing and job sharing. This initiative gives Cristo Rey students the means of financing their education — allowing them the chance to earn 65% of the cost of their education by working five full days each month in entry-level positions at corporations in downtown Chicago.

Our attorneys and senior staff also mentor these students to assist them in pursuing college degrees and professional careers.

For more information about Cristo Rey Jesuit High School's Corporate Internship Program, visit their Web site at http://www.cristorey.net/cwsp/become_sponsor.html.

EduSeed

Schiff Hardin is pleased to offer our support to EduSeed, an organization dedicated to promoting education, particularly among historically disadvantaged and under-served communities. EduSeed furthers the pursuit of higher education and life-long learning by using models of peer-mentorship and self-empowerment.

Our firm has assisted EduSeed by hosting, promoting and providing funding for the 10th Anniversary Celebration and Fundraiser for SisterMentors, an EduSeed project. Additionally we provide office space and other office resources to the staff of EduSeed.

Schiff Hardin counsel Montina M. Cole serves on the organization's board of directors.

More information on EduSeed can be found on the organization's Web site: http://www.eduseed.org/.

Just the Beginning Foundation

Schiff Hardin provides free facilities to the staff of the Just Beginning Foundation, whose mission is to:

• Commemorate the contributions of African-Americans to the federal judiciary;
• Develop and nurture interest in the law among racially and ethnically under-represented young people and support their continued advancement, with the long-term goal of increasing racial and ethnic diversity in the federal judiciary and the legal profession;
• Educate the public, particularly underprivileged communities, about their legal rights;
• Collaborate with organizations committed to increasing diversity in the legal profession and the federal judiciary.

Additionally, Schiff Hardin partner Patricia Brown Holmes serves on the organization's board of directors.

For more information on the Just the Beginning Foundation, visit their Web site: http://www.jtbf.org/.

Justice Allen E. Broussard Scholarship Foundation

This San Francisco/Oakland area foundation is committed to the continued pursuit of the late California Supreme Court Justice Allen E. Broussard's lifelong desire to assist minorities in their pursuit of higher education, better job opportunities and careers in the legal profession.

Schiff Hardin is a sponsor of the Law Day student luncheon, which is coordinated by the foundation. The function of Law Day is to educate the public on our legal heritage and the role of law in a constitutional democracy. The highlight is always the student luncheon. Participating students include all the Alameda County Mock Trial Competition teams, high school civics students, and JusticeCorps/AmericaCorps college students.

For more information about the Allen E. Broussard Foundation, visit their Web site at  http://www.broussard-scholarship.org/.

My Sister's Keeper

This is a nonprofit organization working to improve the lives of high school junior and senior girls throughout Chicago, and Schiff Hardin has provided fundraising event support.

SisterMentors

Schiff Hardin is pleased to support SisterMentors — an organization that helps women of color to complete their dissertations and get their doctorates. The women in turn, while in the program, give back by mentoring disadvantaged girls of color in middle and high schools in the Washington, D.C. area, inspiring them to go to college. The women and girls are African-American, Latina, Asian-American and women and girls who are immigrants of color. In ten years, SisterMentors has helped 27 women of color to get doctorates, mentored more than 75 girls of color, and sent their first group of girls off to college in the fall of 2007.

SisterMentors is an EduSeed project. More information on SisterMentors can be found on their Web site: http://www.sistermentors.org/.

Thomas Kelly High School Debate Team

Schiff Hardin makes ongoing annual donations to the Thomas Kelly High School Debate Team to help support this Chicago public school, located in the diverse Brighton Park neighborhood on the city's southwest side. These donations help the school to field a debate squad that can continue to grow and compete with better-funded programs locally and nationally.

The Thomas Kelly High School Debate Team has achieved significant success and is considered among the leading Chicago-area high school debate programs. It also has received publicity from the WBEZ-FM (Chicago Public Radio) "Against All Odds" program and the Chicago Tribune. In fact, it was such media coverage that brought the squad to the attention of Ronald S. Safer, Schiff Hardin's Managing Partner, when he learned that the Kelly High School debaters had insufficient funding to travel and compete with other schools that were more fully financed.

In addition to donations, Schiff Hardin hosts an annual luncheon at our firm's Sears Tower headquarters in Chicago for the Thomas Kelly High School Debate team to honor their accomplishments and encourage the students to apply the debate skills they are learning to future higher education and career goals.

For more information about Thomas Kelly High School and the Debate Team, visit their Web site at http://www.kellyhs.org/.

Institute for Inclusion in the Legal Profession

Schiff Hardin supports and participates in the recently-formed Institute for Inclusion in the Legal Profession (IILP). The IILP's mission is to drive real progress on diversity in the legal profession through comprehensive outreach and programming that will replace barriers with bridges between legal, judicial, professional, educational, and governmental institutions. Schiff Hardin has committed to one of the IILP's major initiatives, the Pledge to the Profession, which works to bring more diverse candidates into the legal pipeline through programs that expose students to options for careers in the law, and that help them excel. The Pledge is a commitment by law firms, corporate law departments, and other legal organizations to have at least 10% of their lawyers spend a minimum of one day (or its equivalent) during the year interacting and working with students through existing pipeline diversity programs, and individual classroom visits, among other similar activities.