Our Mission
Our mission at CLI is to educate, empower and establish future leaders in the rapidly changing legal ecosystem. We are creating a community-based movement to connect students and employers committed to increasing diversity, inclusion and innovation in the legal industry.
Our Approach
We are focused on creating a community-based movement based on connecting people.
- Community-based movement. Everyone involved believes in this mission, and is donating their time, ideas, and expertise. We know that real change only comes from a community of people passionate about a shared cause.
- Scale. We do not want to focus on the problems of a few; we want to serve the needs of many. A key principle for us is making our resources and programs available to all.
- Sharing of expertise. Our initial program, the Tipping the Scales summer internship series, is an example of the kind of information- and skills-sharing that we believe in. Here, we are providing free access to some of the leading experts providing short webinars on topics ranging from data analytics, to AI, to career development, and many more.
- Innovation/feedback loop. We want to create something new and different, a novel partnership between private sector and academia with a special emphasis on the needs of students. We seek to foster innovation and feedback from the community.
- This partnership initially took root as a result of a connection with the Southern University Law Center, a historically black law school based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.