Connie Brenton, Senior Director of Legal Opperations at NetApp. Photo: Jason Doiy/ALM

NetApp's in-house legal department collaborated with Southern University Law Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, part of the historically Black Southern University System, and a group of companies from across the U.S. to create the Community of Legal Interns. CLI, which already has 1,100 members, roughly 35% of whom are law students, seeks to connect students and employers committed to increasing diversity, inclusion and innovation in the legal industry. The Recorder is recognizing NetApp for its Innovations in Diversity and Inclusion as part of the California Leaders in Tech Law and Innovation Awards on Nov. 6. The Recorder recently caught up with Connie Brenton, the company's senior director of legal operations, who was central to the partnership with SULC.

The Recorder: Quickly walk us through the story of how the Community of Legal Interns came about.

Connie Brenton: This year we built a partnership with Southern University Law Center to increase access, opportunity and ultimately representation from historically underrepresented groups in the legal industry. This was an initiative we designed collaboratively with partners from across the legal ecosystem in response to our belief that we, as an industry, can and must do better. I'm proud that NetApp is leading the way in this important arena.

Community of Legal Interns started with an introduction to Southern University Law Center in Baton Rouge and Chancellor John Pierre where the diverse student body works differently—from the cost of the education to the experiences and innovation afforded the students. They recruit for Grit and Gratitude and are making a difference in the lives of the students, in the community and in the legal industry.

Chronicle (an Alphabet company); Juniper Networks; Keesal, Young & Logan; LexCheck; Liberty Mutual; NetApp; and Walmart have each partnered with SULC. We are collaborating to develop a joint educational experience that is now open to ANYONE (Interns, GCs, legal ops executives, law firm partners, in-house attorneys, service providers, law school deans and career counselors, business school attendees, your internal clients, etc.).

What are the problems that the network is seeking to address?

CLI's mission is to educate, empower and establish future leaders in the rapidly changing legal ecosystem. We are creating a community-based movement to connect students and employers committed to increasing diversity, inclusion and innovation in the legal industry. CLI is seeking to address the problems of a lack of diversity, inclusion and innovation in the legal industry by fostering connections, exposing participants to thought leaders and new technologies, and providing access to rich educational experiences.

How will you measure the success of CLI?

By the end of the summer there were over 1,100 members and each of the 24-speaking series session had between 150 and 300 attendees.

CLI is a certificate program that continues to be leveraged by law schools across the country. The program is free for anyone and can be found at OurCLI.com and continues to be relevant. The entire legal ecosystem is invited to leverage the training for their organizations.

Last year, two of us visited Southern University Law Center, and seven invited companies participated on the core team. This year, 10 of us visited Southern University Law Center—members of the entire legal ecosystem—and we expect that more than 25 companies will take interns and collaborate to provide access to an entire class of Southern interns. We anticipate that more than 20 law schools will participate in the CLI program throughout the year.

P.S. We are looking for a new name. If anyone has an idea, contact [email protected]. Even before the program officially kicked off, the program extended beyond the intern community (CLI— Community of Legal Interns). This is a collaborative industry initiative, engaging law students as new active entrants to the legal ecosystem.