Press Release
Womble Carlyle Hosts Kickoff Pro Bono Event With CLEO
May 3, 2006
WASHINGTON, D.C.-- On April 20, 2006, the D.C. office of Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice hosted a reception for more than 100 guests as the official kickoff of its new pro bono partnership with CLEO, the Council on Legal Education Opportunity.
CLEO, a D.C.-based nonprofit group founded in 1968, has helped more than 7,000 minority students attend and succeed in law schools around the nation. Its signature programs are summer seminars that prepare low-income, disadvantaged and minority students to apply to law school and to find success there.
Speakers at the reception were Cassandra Sneed Ogden, executive director of CLEO; William A. Blakey, chairman of CLEO’s board; and Pamela Rothenberg, managing member of Womble Carlyle’s D.C. office. Among those attending were many alumni and present fellows of the CLEO programs.
"I am delighted that we are partnering with Womble Carlyle," says Ogden. "The law firm’s assistance will enable us to broaden and strengthen our programs, to find new sources of support, and to get the word out about what we have been doing for nearly four decades."
The D.C. office of Womble Carlyle hopes to help CLEO form a chapter in North Carolina and to seek additional sources and types of funding for CLEO.
Rothenberg says, "Given this office and this firm’s commitment to diversity, it’s a natural for us to work with CLEO, which does so much good work and is practically around the corner from our office. We are looking forward to a long and fruitful partnership."
About Womble Carlyle
A full-service business law firm, Womble Carlyle ranks among the leading firms in the country and is a top law firm for companies doing business in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic states. The firm is the 2003 recipient of the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund Corporate Leadership Award, making Womble Carlyle the first law firm ever to receive the highest honor given to a company in recognition of its support of the Fund and its 45 member institutions.
Founded in 1876, Womble Carlyle operates in four states and the District of Columbia with nearly 550 attorneys in nine offices located in Atlanta, GA; Greenville, SC; Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh, Research Triangle Park, and Winston-Salem, NC; Washington, DC; and Tysons Corner, VA.