One of Fish & Richardson signature EMPOWER Women's Initiative programs is our group mentoring program, EMPOWERment, which is designed to foster meaningful connections across practice groups and offices. Mentoring pods, compiled of principals, associates, and technology specialists, meet monthly to discuss topics like relationship building, career planning, and stress management and to participate in pod-chosen social activities.

All groups were given guiding principles and topic suggestions to help frame their time together. Participants have reported increased feelings of connectedness and found great value in getting to know women across the firm that they might not have had a chance to spend time with otherwise.

Finnegan IP University is a free virtual series that introduces students to exciting career opportunities available as Technical Specialists at a leading IP law firm based in Washington, DC. Technical Specialists are hired with specific STEM majors, are not pursuing a career in law, and are graduating with computer science, engineering, and chemistry degrees, as well as graduate students in life sciences.

GWC Clubs are free extracurricular programs for 3rd-12th grade girls that teach participants about Computer Science (CS) in a fun and safe environment! GWC Clubs take place throughout the year and serve as a place (in-person and virtual!) for girls to spend time together while learning about CS and building their confidence.

A collection of resources for teaching people at all levels about patents and IP.
Many templates have been used by ADAPT members to introduce IP to high school or college students.

The Diversity Pledge, currently signed by 50 of the world’s largest companies and innovators, provides data to visualize and eradicate bias in the innovation and inventorship processes. Companies are currently spending no more than 2-3 hours a month in the working groups to grow the program.

The Leadership Council on Legal Diversity's Fellows Program is designed for diverse, high-potential, mid-career attorneys at LCLD Member organizations. The goal of this program is to provide fellows with:

Professional and Personal Development Opportunities
Leadership Training
Relationship-Building Opportunities
Access to LCLD Members (Managing Partners and General Counsel)

Each year, Fish selects one distinguished leader to participate in LCLD's Fellows Program.

LEAP supports students who are historically underrepresented in the field: people of color, people who identify as LGBTQ+, first-generation college students, and people who are socioeconomically-disadvantaged.

Street Law’s Legal Diversity Pipeline Programs partner law firms and corporate legal departments with nearby, diverse high school classes. Through classroom visits and a field trip to the law firm or legal department, volunteers teach lessons and lead activities designed to increase students' knowledge and interest in the law and legal careers.

The Legal Summer Institute (LSI) is a unique in-house and law firm experience where underrepresented 2L law school students are invited to spend the first week of the program at Google Headquarters in Silicon Valley immersed in legal knowledge sessions followed by a full summer internship with one of our partner law firms around the country. LSI aims to improve access to in-house careers at tech companies by expanding opportunities and removing barriers for underrepresented talent in the legal industry.

Meta's Summer Associate Program is available to diverse students with summer associate positions at participating law firms. Students spend two weeks of their summer position with Meta’s legal department. The Meta program includes in-house legal experience, social and networking events, seminars, and mentorship.

The Microsoft #MakeWhatsNext Patent Program offers female inventors patent support and mentorship so they can protect their ideas and further their innovation.

The Minority Firm Incubator provides training and tools for female and minority-owned patent law firms, existing or yet to be launched and includes free training & strategy classes with a panel of in-house IP attorneys.

Patent Career Guidance is an internal facing program sponsored by the Google Global Patent Team. The program is for Googlers to explore careers in patent law. This is a self-paced program that provides Googlers internal Patent 101 training, links to external resources related to various roles in patent law, patent bar information, law school preparation, law school financing. Googlers can have 1:1 conversations with members of the Google patent team. If interested, a Googler can work on a patent related project to get some hands-on exposure to patent law.

Team ADAPT is building a list of US Law Firms with Diversity fellowship or summer programs.

Patent Pathways™ is a Diversity & Inclusion Program dedicated to increasing numbers of registered African-American/Black women patent attorneys and agents through free, virtual education, practical exercises, and financial support.

Dority & Manning's RISE program is a multi-faceted program aimed at bolstering diversity, equity, and inclusion inside and outside of our Firm. The RISE acronym refers to the pillars of our programs, Recruiting, Retention, Internal Education, Sustainability & Accountability, and External Engagement.

D&M partners with LaunchGVL to provide an internship program for public high schools to offer semester‐long internships for underrepresented students to explore intellectual property law and consider STEAM education paths.

FADIPL is a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing the awareness of the IP profession among underrepresented groups and supporting their participation in the IP profession, including providing mentorship, networking opportunities, and financial support.

Microsoft Philanthropies TEALS (Technology Education and Learning Support) Program builds sustainable computer science (CS) programs in high schools, with a focus on serving students excluded from learning technical skills because of race, gender, or geography.

The PPP offers women and minority candidates training, development, mentoring and career opportunities over a six-month period. Upon successful completion of the program, the candidates will be offered a full-time position with our partner firms and/or companies as a Technical Specialist or Patent Agent.