BBS Announces 2022 Class of Business Behind the Scenes Fellows
BBS is delighted to introduce its 2022 class for the Business Behind the Scenes Fellowship, a program designed for first-generation professionals currently enrolled in law school. The pool of applicants was once again remarkable, and we are truly honored to be working with such an incredibly talented group of Fellows.
BBS Fellows receive training by legal professionals from a wide variety of legal backgrounds and organizations, via remote sessions during the Spring 2022 semester. This is entirely a training and mentorship opportunity for our fellows. BBS fellows are not asked to perform any work for BBS or its clients. Fellows receive training in subjects including:
● tools for succeeding in legal practice, in law firms and beyond;
● law firm economics at both the associate and partner level;
● strategic & logistical considerations in starting your own firm or non-profit legal organization;
● nonprofit economics & startup costs; and
● alternative career paths.
This year’s Fellows will also benefit from training, mentorship, and advice from our BBS Fellowship alumni. Over time, BBS aims to build a robust network of current and former fellows to act as a peer network for career development, mentorship of first-generation professionals, additional training opportunities, and advocacy for diversity within the broader legal market.
Azeezat Adeleke is a third-year law student at Stanford Law School, with an undergraduate degree from Yale College.
Before law school, she worked as an analyst at Goldman Sachs. She now serves as an Editor
on the Stanford Law Review. She has earned prizes as a top student in Administrative Law,
Criminal Procedure: Investigation, and Legal Ethics, and worked in the Supreme Court
Litigation Clinic. After graduation, Azeezat will serve in two clerkships, and then plans to
pursue a career in media and First Amendment law. “From attending Yale College to
matriculating at Stanford Law School and securing two federal clerkships, I understand what it
means to end up in unlikely places as a first-generation professional, a first-generation
American, and a Black woman. I also understand what it takes to succeed in these spaces:
knowledge—both the kind that we get in school and the kind that many of my classmates receive at the dinner table. I am
excited to [participate in] the BBS Fellowship because it will empower me to act boldly on my ambitions as a litigator.”
Tolu Alegbeleye is a first-year law student at Harvard Law School, with an undergraduate degree in economics from Georgetown University. Before law school, Tolu worked as a consultant in a product liability consulting firm. She now serves on the Harvard African Law Association board, the
Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Journal, and the Harvard Law and Policy Journal.
“As a first-generation college and now law student, I have repeatedly encountered and tried to overcome the impacts that my lack of connections and awareness regarding unspoken rules of engagement could have on my academic and professional career. In some matters I have succeeded, while in others I have failed and learned from my mistakes. Throughout the ups and downs of my journey to law school, I am forever grateful for the friends and mentors I connected with that poured into me over the years. Yet, I am still painfully aware of the lack of transparency others coming after me still encounter and aim to demystify these processes … I am moved by BBS’s mission statement, and I hope to serve as an example of what can be achieved through commitment and diligence, regardless of where you started.”
Jacob Gonzalez is a first-year student at Yale Law School. He earned his undergraduate degree from Stanford University and a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary. Before law school, Jacob returned to teach at the remedial high school he had attended, and then after seminary he worked throughout the COVID-19 pandemic as a chaplain to the sick and dying at Bellevue, New York City’s “public hospital of last resort” for the undocumented, psychiatrically ill, and men incarcerated at Rikers Island. In law school, Jacob serves as an editor on the Yale Law & Policy Review and Yale Journal on Regulation. He also is deeply involved in Yale Law School’s Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic, where he works on teams representing immigrants and low-wage workers engaged in federal litigation and state-level legislative advocacy.
“My years in the classroom and at the bedside have filled me with a fierce urgency to challenge the laws responsible for my students’ illiteracy and incarceration—and my patients’ preventable illness and death. I know that I’m called to a vocation in anti-poverty litigation. . . I’m profoundly committed to using my YLS education in the most socially useful and racially just way I can, but I don't yet know how. That’s why I’m [interested in the Fellowship’s] mentorship and business-side training.”
Rhemé Sloan is a second-year student at the University of Chicago. Growing up in New Orleans, Rhemé and their family lost a
home in the Ninth Ward in Hurricane Katrina, but thanks to their family’s value for education,
Rhemé went on to earn a degree in music from the University of Michigan. After college,
Rhemé had a career in fundraising for the Seattle and Houston Symphonies and for
Rice University. Rhemé now hopes to spend their career helping corporate clients while also
championing the rights and professional ambitions of people of color and members of the
LGBTQ+ community. “Based on what I’ve learned about resilience, discipline, and teamwork
from [my life] experiences, I am ready to expand the outlook of my legal career. As a first
generation professional, I deeply value others’ investment in my career development. I am
eager to be a part of [this] cohort of BBS fellows and I look forward to paying this investment forward.”
About BBS and the Business Behind the Scenes Fellowship
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 was a leading litigator in Seattle and Los Angeles, and was co-chair of her prior firm’s litigation team. Erin Bernstein has been a national leader in the government affirmative litigation space. And Darin Sands is a first-generation professional who has gone on to become a go-to commercial litigator in Portland. The three of us are longtime friends and are also the parents of young children. As we have built our own law firm, we’ve spent 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.
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 included any information about the economics 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 first generation law students and help demystify the opaque world of law firm economics and non-traditional legal career paths—focusing especially on students who don’t have attorneys or 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. But 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 empower and help train, mentor, and fund the next generation of founders.
In addition to training on many substantive topics, BBS Fellows will receive focused career coaching from the outstanding coaches at Glassman Coaching + Consulting. Dina Glassman and Jill Long are both former big-law lawyers-turned professional development and diversity professionals at law firms. They now serve as certified coaches who are passionate about supporting professionals in reaching their career goals while deriving greater meaning and satisfaction from their work and life. “We are thrilled to be part of the BBS Fellowship. It’s inspiring to watch our friends at BBS [lead] this meaningful and innovative fellowship and it’s an honor to work with the incredibly talented group of law students in this year’s class.” – Jill Long. BBS is incredibly grateful for the extraordinary contributions of Glassman Coaching + Consulting to our Fellows.
For press inquiries please contact Erin Bernstein (ebernstein@bradleybernsteinllp.com).