Join us for the Mecklenburg County Bar's annual

Saturday, February 9, 2013

10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Johnson C. Smith University

Click Here for Directions

REGISTRATION HAS CLOSED. WALK-INS ARE WELCOME

Would college students and high school students of color consider the law as a career? What are the challenges and rewards of going to law school and becoming a lawyer?

These questions will be the subject of a student outreach program sponsored by Johnson C. Smith University, the Mecklenburg County Bar, the Mecklenburg Bar Foundation, the John S. Leary Bar Association (the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Black lawyers association), North Carolina Asian Pacific American Bar Association, North Carolina Association of Black Lawyers and the Latino Affairs Committee of the North Carolina Bar Association. The Increasing Diversity in the Legal Profession Conference will take place from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, February 9, 2013, at Johnson C. Smith University, Grimes Lounge, 100 Beatties Ford Rd., Charlotte, NC 28216.

The goal of the Conference is to engage undergraduate and high school students of color in discussions about the legal profession, in the hope they will consider attending law school, thus increasing the diversity of the profession. The Conference will offer students a chance to hear about roles individuals with legal training play in everyday society through 3 panels and provide them an opportunity to talk with lawyers, judges, law school admissions officers and law students about their experiences.

The first and second panel consists of law school admissions directors and current students and will be moderated by Winston Crisp, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Participants for these two panels have been invited from

·         Campbell University School of Law

·         Charleston School of Law

·         Charlotte School of Law

·         Duke University School of Law

·         Elon University School of Law

·         North Carolina Central University School of Law

·         University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law

·         University of South Carolina School of Law

·         Wake Forest University School of Law

The keynote speaker will be Reginald T. Shuford, Executive Director at ACLU of Pennsylvania, and UNC-Chapel Hill alumnus. Reggie Shuford joined the ACLU of Pennsylvania as executive director in September 2011. Prior to joining the ACLU-PA, he served as the director of law and policy at the Equal Justice Society (EJS), a national strategy group based in San Francisco, heightening consciousness on race in the law and popular discourse. From 1995-2010, Reggie served as senior staff counsel in the national ACLU's Racial Justice Program. During his tenure, he helped to pioneer legal challenges to racial profiling practices nationwide. He was the ACLU's chief litigator in challenges to racial profiling, leading national litigation efforts and consulting with ACLU state affiliates and others in cases of "driving while black or brown," airport profiling, and profiling related to the war on terror. The author of articles related to reclaiming the 14th Amendment, racial profiling, affirmative action, and the mass incarceration of African-Americans, among others, Reggie is a graduate of the University of North Carolina School of Law in Chapel Hill, where he was his graduating class president and the recent recipient of the Law School's Distinguished Alumnus Award. Reggie is also a graduate of the Georgetown Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate Program and has been a Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow at Harvard Law School.

The last panel consists of experienced minority lawyers and will be moderated by Dr. Deborah B. Quick, Department Chair of Social Sciences at Johnson C. Smith University.

In addition to the law school career and admissions officers participating in the panel, local minority affinity bars also have been invited to host exhibits at the event so the students can obtain information about the wide range of bar programs, services and networking opportunities available when in law school and once they become attorneys.

While this program is focused on undergraduate students of color from North and South Carolina, the program may be of interest to all undergraduate students as well as high school students from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

The Diversity Day Conference is free. Breakfast and lunch will be provided to registered attendees. The registration deadline is Friday January 25, 2013. (Day-of attendees may receive breakfast and lunch on an as-available basis.)

For more information about the conference, please contact Jasmine C. Hines, Diversity & Inclusion Coordinator at 704/375-8624 or jhines@meckbar.org.

A Special 'Thank You' To Our Sponsors: