At 8:30 a.m. on April 8, as New Yorkers hustled from subway stations to their offices, 30 law students navigated their way to Kirkland & Ellis’ midtown office for a daylong conference. Several hours earlier, these same 30 law students could be found networking at a bar just a few blocks down. But this wasn’t a typical networking event, and these weren’t just any 30 law students. They were selected from over 350 applicants, and they were flown in from Texas, California, Michigan—all over—for Kirkland’s first annual 1L Diversity Scholars Program.
After a welcome breakfast, the students were ushered into a conference room where Sandra Leung, general counsel at Bristol-Myers Squibb, gave the keynote address. Leung’s resume includes eight years in the Manhattan district attorney’s office. She was also the first woman hired by the litigation department at Bristol to make it more than six months, and the only person of color on the leadership team there. She had every right to act entitled. Instead, though, she introduced herself while deciding she’d prefer to pace down among the students rather than deliver her speech up on a stage, from behind a podium.
