Gift to Law School will support diversity programs, scholarships

The law firm Bingham McCutchen LLP has donated $50,000 to the School of Law to create the Bingham McCutchen Diversity Programming Fund and the Bingham McCutchen Scholarship Fund.

Bingham McCutchen, which has 950 attorneys and 11 offices worldwide, including one in Hartford, will contribute $25,000 for its diversity programming fund and $25,000 to its scholarship fund through 2010, with the funds donated to the University of Connecticut Law School Foundation Inc.

"Bingham McCutchen is proud to support the University of Connecticut School of Law in promoting diversity and expanding opportunities to the next generation of lawyers," says Evan Flaschen, a Bingham McCutchen partner and 1982 graduate of the Law School.

Flaschen is also an adjunct professor at the Law School, past-president of the University of Connecticut Law School Foundation Inc., and co-head of Bingham's financial restructuring/insolvency practice.

The Diversity Programming Fund, an endowed fund, will support programs sponsored by, or hosted at, the Law School that seeks to further racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, sexual-orientation, or gender-identity diversity on campus or within the legal profession.

The Bingham McCutchen Scholarship Fund will award two scholarships each year for the next five years, at the discretion of the Law School's admissions office, to an academically strong first- or second-year law student who has overcome significant economic, linguistic, cultural, or educational obstacles, or who belongs to a group historically underrepresented in law schools and the legal profession.

Candidates will also be considered if they present a record of leadership in diversity issues, or particular promise of substantial and distinctive multicultural contributions to the Law School and the legal profession, and express a preference to live and work in Connecticut.