Diversity Committee
The Diversity Committee has served a historically important role in the promotion of opportunities for racial minorities in the Nashville Bar Association and the community. The work towards that purpose is ongoing and remains the primary focus of the committee. The Diversity Committee’s efforts have expanded to include diversity and inclusion based on other characteristics within the Nashville legal community by continuing to implement programs that provide employment opportunities, assist with career development and professional advancement, and increase the number of diverse students attending and successfully completing law school.
Our cultural, social, and racial diversity is one of the many reasons that Nashville is an exciting place to practice law. In recognition of the benefits that diversity brings to the practice of law, the Napier-Looby Bar Association ("NLBA") and the Nashville Bar Association ("NBA") have established a partnership—The Nashville Bar Exchange—that will foster lasting relationships between each organization’s respective members.
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In its inaugural year, this partnership will consist of establishing a mentorship program that will pair a mentor from one organization with a mentee from the other organization.
The Damali Booker Project involves recruitment and screening of applicants for the first year minority clerkship project, which places first year diverse law students with majority firms and organizations as summer clerks. This program creates opportunities for candidates to gain experience during the summer after their first year of law school and improves their marketability, making it easier for them to gain employment during their second year and after graduation.
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Several students are placed each summer as a result of this project. Beginning in 2003—the job fair was named for Damali Booker—who passed away unexpectedly in September 2002 while in her third year of law school. Ms. Booker was a participant in the Job Fair in 2001 and had accepted a permanent position with an employer she first met at the job fair.
The NBA Diversity Committee High School Intern Program offers a paid internship to rising and graduating seniors in Nashville, providing them with personal experience in the day-to-day legal workplace of private law firms, corporate law divisions, governmental law offices, and other legal organizations.
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If you are interested in participating as an employer OR you know a student who would like to apply for the High School Intern Program, contact Traci.Hollandsworth@nashvillebar.org. If you would like to participate in the program but are unable to hire an intern, please consider a sponsorship to the program to help cover the costs of the Lunch & Learn sessions.
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Diversity Recognition Program
The Nashville Bar Association recognizes legal offices that have supported the NBA Diversity Committee each year at its Law Day Lunch. Recognition is given for diversity efforts in several categories.
Typically held at a high profile venue in the downtown Nashville area in June or July, this social summer event includes the minority summer associates working in Nashville law firms and is a great way for the associates to be introduced to the Nashville legal community and its leaders.
