Fellowship

Calling for Applications for BBS Fellowship Class of 2025

What It Is

A $2500 stipend and semester-long fellowship in Spring 2025 for first-generation professionals currently attending law school. We encourage students from communities that are underrepresented in the legal profession to apply.

In addition to the stipend, the BBS Fellowship will include an in-person weekend summit, as well as remote mentorship and training sessions that will provide fellows with foundational knowledge about the business side of the legal world. Our training sessions are designed to empower fellows in making informed career decisions not just in law school, but throughout their legal careers.

Along with mentorship and business-side training, the BBS Fellowship aims to connect you with successful innovators from different sectors of the legal world—and with other BBS Fellows—who will help you make decisions throughout your career—whether that be starting your own firm, founding a nonprofit, being a BigLaw partner, forging a path as a government attorney, going in-house, or leaving the law completely.

This is entirely a training and mentorship opportunity for our fellows. BBS fellows will not be asked to perform any work for BBS or its clients.

Who We Are

We founded Bradley Bernstein Sands LLP (“BBS”) in July 2020 after each practicing law for nearly 15 years at some of the biggest law firms and most forward-looking city governments in the country. We are a majority woman-owned firm that represents private and public clients in complex litigation on the West Coast. For over a decade before founding BBS, Heidi Bradley has been a leading litigator in Los Angeles and Seattle and is now recognized as one of the top antitrust and commercial litigators in Seattle. Erin Bernstein has been a national leader in the government affirmative litigation space. And Darin Sands is a first generation professional who has become a go-to commercial litigator in Portland.

The three of us are longtime friends and are also parents who understand the push and pull of family and professional life. As we have built our own law firm, we spent a lot of time distilling the important lessons we’ve learned in our prior positions—not just about the dollars and cents of how law firms run, but also about the value of leadership training, building professional networks, project management skills, and integrating a true balance between family life and career ambition into a larger office culture.

Why We’re Funding This

Each of our founders is a highly experienced and successful litigator in our own field. But when we set out to start a law firm, we realized that our legal education and career training had not adequately prepared us to understand the business of big law, government, and nonprofits, or alternative career paths available to lawyers in and outside of the law. We hope to help fill that gap for current law students and help demystify the opaque world of law firm economics—focusing especially on students who don’t have other professionals in their family networks.

As we built BBS, we wondered—given the grim statistics of female litigators in BigLaw’s partnership ranks—why there weren’t more women-owned firms like ours, and why there are so few law firms founded by people of color. Systemic inequality and racism certainly play a role in this disparity. So too does the lack of guidance for diverse lawyers on how to successfully navigate those realities and find a career path that provides autonomy and control over your future. We want to see more firms like ours out there, and we want to help train, mentor, and fund the next generation of leaders in the legal profession.

Who Should Apply

We are seeking applicants who are the first in their families to graduate from college, as well as those from lower-income, working-class, or non-white-collar backgrounds. We encourage students from communities that are underrepresented in the legal profession to apply.
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Applicants need not be planning to start their own law practice. We hope that exposure to the way legal organizations of all sizes operate will empower new lawyers and demystify the business end of our field. We also encourage public-interest oriented students, and those interested in managing or launching their own initiatives to apply.

What You’ll Get

BBS fellows will receive:

  • Training by legal professionals from a wide variety of legal backgrounds and organizations in subjects including:

    • law firm economics at both the associate and partner level;

    • strategic & logistical considerations in starting your own firm;

    • in-house legal structures and career paths;

    • launching and managing nonprofit organizations; and

      alternative careers.

  • Career coaching.

  • Career mentorship, mock interviews, and resume review on an ongoing basis.

  • An expenses-paid weekend in-person summit.

  • A $2500 stipend.


The BBS Fellowship class of 2024 will join our prior classes as part of our BBS Fellowship network, with members acting as a peer network for career development, mentorship of first-generation professionals between various law schools, additional training opportunities, and advocacy for diversity within the broader legal market.

Application Process

To apply, please complete the BBS 2025 Fellowship Application by December 13, 2024:

  • Interviews of finalists will be conducted by Zoom.