Welcome Event Highlights Diversity at Creighton Law
The Midlands Bar Association recently held a reception at Creighton University School of Law to welcome new students of color to the program.
Douglas County Assistant Public Defender and MBA President Korey T. Taylor believes events like the one held Sept. 23 are important to highlight not only ethnic diversity in the law but also socioeconomic and career diversity.
“Events like these give people the opportunity to see people that they would not necessarily come into contact with otherwise,” Taylor told The Daily Record. “That could be from an ethnic background, it could be from a work background. We’ve got corporate attorneys here, we’ve got public interest attorneys here, and we’ve got practitioners and judges that work at the courthouse all the time. So, I think that an event like this gives the opportunity to mix and mingle and meet new people that are not like themselves.”
The Midlands Bar Association — which is a predominantly, though not exclusively, Black organization — is the Nebraska affiliate of the National Bar Association, the nation’s oldest and largest nationwide association of Black lawyers, judges, educators and law students.
When MBA’s Creighton Law representative Stephen Asante-Addae first came to Omaha six years ago to pursue his master’s degree, the Chicago native didn’t see many students who looked like him, but what he did see was a lot of potential for growth.
“I saw when I first got here that there was not much representation here,” he said. “But the amount of talent that was here was great.”
Now in his third year at Creighton Law, Assante-Addae said he has witnessed that growth firsthand.
The event hosted by MBA drew about 60 students, most of whom were people of color.
“I heard it’s a good event to network and meet a lot of people that kind of look like me in the industry,” said first year law student Joann Brown. “It’s important for me because, growing up in Nebraska, Omaha, Bellevue, I feel like I don’t really see that much representation of people in high positions. So, coming to this event where I can meet judges of color and attorneys of color, it really inspires me, really tells me what I’m doing is important. I’m doing it for a reason.”
Fellow 1L Guillermo Matthew Martinez was drawn to the event for the networking opportunities.
“I think that most people who know someone that’s graduated from law school or someone in law school, they know that social events are a huge aspect of law school,” Martinez said. “It’s a facet that’s not really talked about but is definitely valued at a lot of law schools in terms of having networks and being able to find different people in the area for job opportunities, and just advice in general.”
Assante-Addae, who organized the event, said he was overwhelmed by the turnout.
“It’s wild,” Assante-Addae said. “Just absolutely great to see the amount of diversity and as well as the support of the allies to help out and be here. It’s something that, sitting at a table here in the commons, I dreamed of and thought of, and I never would have expected to be this big.”
Increasing diversity in the Nebraska legal community has been an ongoing concern in the state and has led to the recent formation of the Nebraska Legal Diversity Council, a collaborative nonprofit established specifically for the purpose of promoting diversity and inclusion in the state’s legal profession. The council is currently accepting applications for its first executive director.
Taylor is quick to point out that increasing diversity in the legal community doesn’t only mean Black attorneys.
“It’s not just about Black professionals,” Taylor said. “There’s Hispanic lawyers, there’s Asian Pacific lawyers. There are also Native American lawyers that are here. And if you go out and join these different organizations, you’ll meet them.”
Assante-Addae added: “I think it’s important to highlight, celebrate and uplift diversity in the community. I think that diversity is a strength and I think that having an event like this shows that while we have a long way to go, we do have a lot of great talent who are diverse in the Omaha area and there’s a lot of room to grow.”
Ultimately, diversity in the legal community helps ensure that everyone, regardless of background, has access to a just and fair system.
“The law is supposed to be unbiased and put everybody on a same playing field,” Taylor said. “If you have people from just one community doing most of the lawyering, or most of the judging and prosecuting, you’re not going to get different, diverse ideas.”
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