Shearman & Sterling was one of nine teams competing in the second ever Diversity in Law Hackathon at Harvard Law School recently, working to come up with the winning proposal to increase diversity in the legal industry. Each team included law firm partners, legal department heads, a Harvard Law student, and an expert advisor, who had spent the last four months coming up with “hacks” to increase law firm diversity.

Partner Azam Aziz was part of a team that included five other top legal talent from the legal and business world, including a Harvard Law student, whose program – NextGen10 – was voted a crowd favorite. NextGen10 aims to reduce the leadership gap for women and minorities, allowing them to reach high-level law firm and in-house leadership positions. The program will develop joint partnerships where law firms and their clients will select diverse client-relationship lawyers and provide them with additional tools and opportunities today to become the leaders of tomorrow.

The hackathon is organized by Diversity Lab and sponsored by Bloomberg Law.

The Team