The FCBA Diversity Pipeline Program (“Program” or “DPP”) is a competitive internship and legal skills development program that prepares law students with diverse backgrounds and perspectives for elite careers in technology, media, and telecom (“TMT”) law and policy. It achieves this by facilitating access to paid internship opportunities for students during law school through the Diversity Pipeline Internship Program, introducing them to the field through the TMT Law & Policy Certificate Program, and providing them with continued learning and support during their internships through the Summer Series and Mentorship Program.
The Pipeline Program facilitates access to paid internship opportunities for students with diverse backgrounds and perspectives, including those from historically underrepresented and disadvantaged groups immediately following their first year of law school. The Program also includes academic enrichment and skills development components, particularly the TMT Law & Policy Certificate Program. Students will also receive FCBA support and mentoring to develop their legal and policy careers.
The primary goal of the Program is to increase diversity within the TMT field by establishing a pipeline for law students with diverse backgrounds and perspectives into the space. This is achieved by first introducing a greater number of such law students to the field, and then by helping them secure and succeed in internships that can lead to long-term careers in the field, thus also increasing diversity within the FCBA membership and, ultimately, leadership.
The FCBA Diversity Pipeline Internship Program aims to place highly skilled candidates into meaningful, demanding, and enriching legal internships.
Our Employer Participants have committed to advance the objectives of the FCBA Diversity Pipeline Program by, in good faith:
• Interviewing Student Participants and hiring at least one Student Participant to work on TMT law and policy in Summer 2024 for a period of at least five (5) weeks, either full-time (40 hours per week) or part-time (minimum of 25 hours per week);
• Providing a salary commensurate with that of other interns at the organization/company, as applicable;
• Assigning projects and tasks that enable the Student Participant(s) to develop legal/policy skills and understanding of issues of importance in the TMT sector;
• Providing Student Participant(s) opportunities to interact personally and professionally with senior leaders in the organization/company;
• Permitting Student Participant(s) to participate in 2-3 separate academic enrichment and skills development sessions organized by the FCBA Diversity Pipeline Program during regular business hours.
The FCBA Diversity Pipeline Program Committee coordinates with Employer Participants and Student Participants to tailor internship placement that supports the needs of Employer and Student Participants.
For full details please review the attached DPP Student Packet.