Over the past two decades, the Philadelphia Diversity Law Group (PDLG) and its members have developed and successfully deployed various tactics to achieve their collective goal of increasing diversity and inclusiveness within the Philadelphia legal community. We not only support members in their efforts to promote diversity in initial recruitment and hiring and retention of diverse lawyers, but we also help our members patch holes in the legal talent pipeline by expanding and cultivating the pool of diverse law students that Philadelphia firms may not otherwise have the opportunity to consider for initial associate hires.

First-year law students are now beginning classes. To the PDLG, diverse students are those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, have overcome significant and unusual obstacles in the pursuit of a legal career, or are from a background or group that is underrepresented in the Philadelphia legal community. It is a broad definition of diversity and deliberately so. We know from the PDLG Fellows Program that there are many diverse students in the area law schools. The question is how to increase the number of these diverse law students who leaders of traditional area law firms seriously consider in interviewing and hiring decisions.