Recruiting a Diverse Group

To attract the best and brightest legal talent, Skadden seeks a diverse range of candidates, including in terms of culture, race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation. Our attorneys’ diverse backgrounds in turn provide the firm with an expansive range of skills, experiences and perspectives from which to meet our clients’ needs and enrich the Skadden community.

We collaborate with affinity groups at more than a dozen law schools throughout the country, including the Black, Latino, Women’s and Asian Pacific American Law Students Associations, and OUTLaws (for LGBT students). We strive to provide meaningful attorney-student interactions, ranging from formal events (such as panel discussions, career workshops and job fairs) to less formal ones hosted by the firm (such as lunches, dinners and receptions either at Skadden or near campuses). The programs allow law students to learn more about our culture and practice, and to gain the skills essential to transitioning from students to lawyers.

Through our new Skadden 1L Scholars Program, which the firm piloted in New York in 2012, we are seeking to attract exceptional law students whose life experiences, demonstrated interests and achievements align with our firm’s commitment to diversity, inclusion and client service. This distinctive paid internship begins with four weeks at Skadden, followed by four weeks at a firm client and two weeks at a public interest organization. In addition to our Skadden 1L Scholars Program, we also participate in the New York City Bar Association’s Diversity Fellowship Program for law students from racial, socioeconomic and other orientations and backgrounds that are underrepresented in the profession and the Sponsors for Educational Opportunity’s (SEO) Corporate Law Program in New York and Washington, D.C., a program which prepares high-achieving college graduates of color for legal careers.

We believe our efforts are bearing fruit. Women constituted 59 percent of our most recent summer associate class, and students of color constituted more than one third.