diversity

Schwabe comprises more than 170 lawyers and over 200 staff from diverse backgrounds—giving back to their communities, doing great legal work for amazing clients, and representing their communities at Schwabe.

Our mission

At Schwabe, we do not simply acknowledge and tolerate our differences—we celebrate and depend on them to succeed. To live up to our vision, we must evolve and embrace change as an opportunity. Our efforts to recruit, retain, and promote diverse talent are crucial to advancing cutting-edge solutions that help our clients prosper, innovating within the legal field to improve client service, and cultivating our prized culture of collaboration to reflect the values of our clients and the communities in which we operate.

We recognize we have a long way to go. Our firm, like our profession, still has room to improve and grow. In that spirit, we are actively committed to:

fostering an environment and culture of belonging where every person feels valued and heard;
developing cultural competencies at every level of our firm to enhance collaboration;
evaluating and refining our behaviors, policies, and processes to ensure that our people are well equipped, equitably assessed, and fairly rewarded; and
leaning into discomfort by inviting and engaging in tough conversations that incite positive change at our firm.

We are dedicated to leading diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts and appreciate the opportunities to do so, both within Schwabe and in the community at large.

Diversity in our communities

We see the world beyond our law firm, and are committed to promoting diversity and equity in the legal community and the community at large.

We have a long history of supporting the Urban League of Portland, one of the oldest African American service, civil rights and advocacy organizations in the area. In fact, Schwabe’s former president served on the organization’s board of directors and its executive committee.

Schwabe attorneys are members of more than 20 affinity groups—from the Oregon Asian Pacific American Bar Association to the Northwest Indian Bar Association.

We dedicate our time to making other industries diverse. We hold positions on diversity committees for the Pacific Northwest College of Art, participate in the CREW Network and support the success of women in the commercial real estate industry.

Diversity in law school opportunities

We start early to ensure that our attorneys reflect the communities in which we live through our recruitment of summer associates.

The firm recruits heavily at law student job fairs, both locally and nationally (for example, the Pacific ‎Northwest ‎Minority Job Fair and bar-sponsored diversity programs). Schwabe’s recruitment at these job fairs is in addition to the on-campus interviews conducted annually by the firm at various law school campuses across the nation.

In addition, Schwabe created its 1L Diversity Fellowship Program for students who have completed their first year of law school. The 1L Diversity Fellowship Program consists of one paid summer associate position in either our Seattle, Washington, or Portland, Oregon offices. Recipients receive a scholarship to assist with law school expenses during the student’s second year of law school. Since 2014, we've had an impressive legacy of our 1L Diversity Fellowship recipients progressing to becoming full-time associates with the firm.