For years, King & Spalding lawyers have been involved in community and professional organizations and have participated in efforts and programs aimed at increasing diversity within their communities. Many of our lawyers held, or currently hold, leadership positions or significant roles in community groups and local bar associations. The following examples highlight our commitment to diversity within the legal community.
Leadership in the Legal Community
- King & Spalding is a charter member of, and provides ongoing legal support to, the Atlanta Legal Diversity Consortium, an Atlanta non-profit organization whose mission is to enhance the diversity of the legal profession. Sam Matchett, Chairman of the firm’s Diversity Committee, was the President.
- Partner, former Diversity Committee Chairman and former firm-wide Managing Partner, Ralph Levy, received the Commitment to Equality Award. The award is given by the Georgia State Bar Commission on Women and Minorities in the Profession.
- Partner Sam Griffin serves on the Board of Directors of the Stonewall Bar Association of Georgia. Stonewall is an organization of legal workers who use their professional expertise to support the right of Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender ("LGBT") people and oppose discrimination based on sexual or gender orientation.
- Brian Basinger coordinated the second year of the Stonewall Bar Association’s LGBT attorney/law student mentoring program for students at all five law schools in Georgia. The program has now paired more than 40 students with mentors.
- Dawn Jones planned and implemented the Third Annual Georgia Black Law Students Retreat, co-sponsored by the Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys and the Gate City Bar Association. The retreat was hosted at King & Spalding’s Atlanta office and was attended by 65 law students from the five law schools in Georgia. Ms. Jones also serves as co-chair of the Atlanta Bar Association Minority and Diversity Clerkship Program.
- Partner Harold Franklin is the past President and current Historian of the Gate City Bar Association, the oldest African-American bar association in the state of Georgia.
- Associate Ed Sohn is a member of the Board of the Georgia Asian Pacific Bar Association.
- Sam Matchett was the past president of the Atlanta Legal Diversity Consortium, which, through its STAR Lawyer Training Programs, offers classes in success skills and habits to lawyers, recent law-school graduates, law students and pre-law students. In 2010, he continued to participate in the program, mentoring students and teaching a class.
Activities and Support for Law Students
- King & Spalding has established a national diversity fellowship program for law students as part of its ongoing efforts to increase ethnic and cultural diversity in the firm and the legal profession. The King & Spalding Diversity Fellowship Program awards fellowships to up to four qualified second-year students who show promise of contributing meaningfully to the diversity of the legal community. Each recipient receives a $10,000 stipend and a summer associate clerkship at one of King & Spalding's four offices in the United States the summer following the completion of his or her second year of law school. The Program is available to students with an ethnically or culturally diverse background.
- The firm has pledged $30,000 over three years to sponsor the Minority Corporate Counsel Association's Lloyd M. Johnson, Jr. Scholarship Program.
- The firm participates in job fairs throughout the United States including the Southeastern Minority Job Fair, Lavender Law, Mid-Atlantic BLSA Job Fair, Harvard BLSA Job Fair, and the Howard Law School Job Fair.
