K&L Gates has many great 1L opportunities available in our U.S. offices, and have pulled together some information about those programs and about K&L Gates that we would like to highlight. We hope you and your students find this helpful as they consider opportunities for the summer of 2023.
Most of our 1L summer associates join us as part of our signature 1L Diversity Power of Partnership Program. This program offers 1L students who self-identify as diverse the unique opportunity to work for part of the summer in a K&L Gates office as a summer associate and part of the summer in-house with the legal team of a corporate client of the firm. In 2023, we expect to host a Power of Partnership 1L in at least 10 of our U.S. offices.
Our Careers website has a wealth of good information about our hiring and open opportunities. You can also Get to Know Us, our U.S. Summer Associate Program, and entry-level hiring plans by geographic location. Be sure to learn about our commitment to LGBTQ+ recruitment and inclusion,. K&L Gates is also an active member of the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity (LCLD) and each year we appoint at least one of the 1L summer associates we hire as a 1L LCLD Scholar.
Our commitment to diversity goes far beyond rhetoric and initiatives. We seek and welcome the talents of those from different age groups, genders, identities, races, or cultural backgrounds, and work to ensure inclusivity. We as a firm have pledged to listen, be educated, take action, and work together to help in the fight to end racism and to foster a more equitable and inclusive society. We have been hosting a speaker series – titled Conversations About Race – to convene voices around diversity; the sessions we have hosted so far are available to view here. Additionally, we launched a major pro bono and diversity initiative called K&L Gates for Equal Justice, which allows us to harness our legal skills to promote equal justice through work on matters like voting rights and criminal justice reform.
As a global law firm with more than 46 offices on five continents, K&L Gates has built a workplace that is intrinsically diverse in experiences, perspectives, and ideas. We hope that your students will choose to learn more about joining our team. If your students wish to apply to one of our 1L summer associate positions, they can view the postings we will add to your job platform or visit our website and review the K&L Gates job board. Each office will review applications on a varying timeline. Please ask your students to review the job descriptions closely for more information. They are free to apply when they are ready. Please instruct students to submit only one application to our Power of Partnership Program; if they are interested in more than one location, please apply to their top choice office and indicate your other interests from the drop down menu on the application.