About Us/Mission

In response to the data published by the Association of Corporate Counsel in its Pipeline Resource Guide 2001, which identified that minority lawyers of color are drastically underrepresented in the legal community, the NBA Arizona Diversity Pipeline Program, Inc. (the "Pipeline Program") (an affiliate of the National Bar Association) was formed to achieve the following goals:

• To educate, train, mentor and empower minority college and high school students of color to enter the practice of law where minorities are sorely underrepresented.
• To provide financial support to the minority students accepted into the program to remove the financial barriers that discourage minority students from considering the practice of law as a profession.
• To provide access to justice to under-served and underrepresented minorities communities by training future minority lawyers of color to become minority community advocates in the area of criminal, family and juvenile law as well as training future corporate/business litigation and transaction lawyers of color to support the entrepreneurial objectives of minority communities.
• To train the minority students of color accepted into the program to become leaders in their community through the use of their legal training to "give back" to their communities through the volunteer of their times, talents and financial resources. The Pipeline Program accomplishes its mission by placing its minority "Pipeline Students" on a pre-formulated critical path to success by immersing them in educational and career enhancement courses and job training programs, as listed below.

NBA Arizona Diversity Pipeline Programs include:

• Pre-Law Prep Course
• 1st Year Trial Court Clerkship
• 2nd Year In-House Clerkship
• 2nd Year - Life as a Lawyer Career Development and Management Boot Camp Course
• 3rd Year “Give Back High School Advocates Program”

The National Bar Association is the oldest bar association for lawyers of color started in 1925 by and for African-American lawyers For over 75 years, the NBA has lead the struggle in the legal community on such issues as voting rights, access to justice and other civil rights issues.