The Puget Sound Area Minority Fellowship Program (PSAMFP) is designed to provide summer associate opportunities to minority first-year law students from the University of Washington and Seattle University Schools of Law. Students who are chosen to participate as Fellows in this highly competitive program will be placed as first-year summer associates with one of the program’s participating employers. The program is based on the National Minority Clerkship Program, which was designed and endorsed by the American Bar Association Commission on Opportunities for Minorities in the Profession. The PSAMFP was founded by representatives from interested law firms, the Loren Miller and Hispanic Bar Associations, and the two local law schools. It has been endorsed by the Asian, Hispanic, Northwest Indian, and Seattle-King County Bar Associations, and by the University of Washington and Seattle University Law School Alumni Associations. In 1997, the PSAMFP (previously the Puget Sound Area Minority Clerkship Program/PSAMCP) received the WSBA’s Affirmative Action Award, “in recognition of the Program’s contributions in creating and advancing career opportunities for minorities in the legal profession.” The program was renamed in 2010 to better reflect its similarities with other private law firm fellowship programs.
The program’s pilot year was 1991, and the summer of 2014 will mark the PSAMFP’s twenty-fourth year.
Reasons for the Program:
- The program was started in response to various surveys, including a National Law Journal survey, showing that the level of minority lawyer involvement as associates and partners in major Seattle law firms had not increased significantly over the previous decade.
- The PSAMFP is designed to identify students whose background, academic and otherwise, tends to predict successful career performance, and to provide those students with the opportunity to work in a major law firm or corporate law department environment.
- Students who have the opportunity to work in a law firm or in-house legal department following their first year will gain a better appreciation of the legal profession and practice. These Fellowships offer first-year law students experiences that will assist them with their second-year studies, and in their pursuit of opportunities for employment for the following summer.
Program details, timeline and application instructions can be found on
Symplicity. Check out job #4603
The application deadline is NOON on January 22nd.
