WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., October 3, 2006 – Ida Abbott, one of the foremost national experts on mentoring, has recognized Pace Law School’s Minority Law Student Mentoring Program in her “Mentoring Across Differences” column for the Minority Corporate Counsel Association.

Pace Law School and MasterCard International cosponsor the Minority Law Student Mentoring Program, which pairs minority students with lawyers serving as in-house counsel for MasterCard. Abbott writes, “This unique corporate program, which reflects the company’s longstanding commitment to diversity, provides academic and career guidance to minority law students.” The program was introduced during the 2005-2006 academic year, and matched five attorneys from the MasterCard Law Department with Pace Law School students.

In her column, the fifth offering in a six-part series on mentoring issues and building successful mentoring relationships, Abbott highlights nationwide examples of successful minority mentoring programs. In addition to Pace Law School’s program, other profiled programs include the John W. Kozyak Minority Mentor Program, the Practicing Attorneys for Law Students (PALS) Program, and the American Bar Association Commission on Mental and Physical Disabilities Mentor Program.

Ida Abbott, Esq., the principal of Ida Abbott Consulting, specializes in mentoring and lawyers’ professional development. The Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA) was founded in 1997 to advocate for the expanded hiring, retention, and promotion of minority attorneys in corporate law departments and the law firms that serve them.

Founded in 1976, Pace University School of Law has nearly 5,000 alumni/ae throughout the country. It offers full- and part-time day and evening JD programs on its White Plains, N.Y., campus. The School also offers the Master of Laws in Environmental Law and in Comparative Legal Studies. The School, which has one of the nation's top-rated environmental law programs, also offers the SJD program in that field. The School of Law is part of a comprehensive, independent and diversified University with campuses in New York City and Westchester County. www.law.pace.edu 

Celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2006, Pace University educates achievers who are engaged with critical issues both locally and globally. Known for an outcome-oriented environment that prepares students to succeed in a wide-range of professions, Pace has three campuses, including New York City (downtown and Midtown), Westchester (Pleasantville, Briarcliff, and the White Plains Graduate Center), and Pace Law School in White Plains. A private metropolitan university, Pace enrolls approximately 14,000 students in undergraduate, masters, and doctoral programs in the Dyson College of Arts and Sciences, Ivan G. Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems, Law School, Lienhard School of Nursing, Lubin School of Business, and School of Education. www.pace.edu