Congratulations to CiCi Cheng, a Commercial Litigation attorney in the Denver office, on her recent appointment to the Executive Committee of the Colorado Pledge to Diversity. CiCi will serve as a Co-Chair of the 1L Summer Clerk Program with Ana Gutierrez (Hogan Lovells) and will serve as a member of the Executive Committee under Co-Presidents Jennifer Jaskolka (Xcel Energy) and Liz Titus (Hogan Lovells). Tina Van Bockern, an Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources attorney in the Denver office, was also selected to serve as Holland & Hart’s representative on the Steering Committee for the Pledge.
The Colorado Pledge to Racial and Ethnic Diversity was originally signed by a group of 23 leading Colorado law firms in 1993, including Holland & Hart, which was at the forefront of developing the Pledge. The Pledge set forth a commitment from these law firms—and other law firms who have since joined, with now over 40 signatories—to enhance diversity and inclusiveness in the Colorado legal community.
The 1L Summer Clerk Program, which CiCi will Co-Chair this year, was created in 2000 and is the heart of the Pledge’s goal to diversify the Colorado legal community through building the pipeline of traditionally underrepresented attorneys. Since its inception, the Pledge has each year interviewed and placed dozens of diverse first-year students from the University of Colorado and University of Denver law schools in member law firms and, recently, also into in-house legal departments. The 1L Program received an award of distinction from NALP in 2007, and in 2016 it matched 31 students in summer positions with 29 employers—including a remarkable match of 3 students at Holland & Hart’s Denver office.
The firm thanks both CiCi and Tina for their tremendous efforts towards serving the Pledge to Diversity’s mission to foster diversity and cultivate inclusiveness in our legal community.