McDermott Sponsors Top Law Students in First Ever Cambridge/Harvard Law Link
LONDON (August 11, 2004) — McDermott Will & Emery today announced its support of the first ever link-up between Cambridge Faculty of Law and Harvard Law School. Two Cambridge law students will spend one year at Harvard studying for the LL.M. - one of these students will be known as the McDermott Will & Emery Scholar.
The continuing globalization of law and its clients has led to increased demand for lawyers with international experience and understanding. In recognition of this, McDermott has joined with two of the best law schools in the world to support an innovative scheme which will help develop internationally-minded law students.
The new scholarship reflects McDermott's commitment to promoting links between the UK and the U.S. and encouraging seamless interaction between lawyers from all jurisdictions. The scheme complements the ethos of the Firm’s London office’s graduate recruitment program which, because the office takes on just two trainees per year, enables the firm to fast-track the career development of exceptionally talented young lawyers.
The scholarship covers tuition fees plus travel and maintenance. As well as the scholarship, the student will be offered opportunities whilst in the U.S. to meet McDermott lawyers. Harvard University are concurrently supporting four Harvard students studying at Cambridge University.
McDermott Chairman Harvey Freishtat explained, "This is an exciting program and highlights our profession’s increasing need and value of young attorneys with an international outlook and understanding. We encourage our associates to take part in our internal secondment program in order to gain this valuable multi-jurisdictional understanding and are delighted to be encouraging the same perspective among students during their law school years."
Cambridge University Faculty of Law Chair Professor James Crawford stated, "We are extremely pleased that a law firms as prominent as McDermott is supporting this new initiative. This is a very exciting program as it is the first such academic exchange undertaken by Harvard and we hope it will encourage similar traffic between other institutions. It also offers a major incentive to our own students to perform as well as they possibly can and to consider further study in law before embarking on their legal careers."
