Burns & Levinson is proudly sponsoring the Diversity in Patent Law Scholarship program created by the Patent Quality Education & Training Foundation (PTF) to address the significant shortage of diverse talent in patent law. PTF has partnered with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund to provide annual scholarships to outstanding law students attending one of the six publicly supported Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) law schools. Burns & Levinson provided both the seed funding for PTF’s inaugural Diversity in Patent Law Gala in addition to funding the scholarship program.

“It is an honor to participate in and to support this important scholarship program,” said Joseph Maraia, partner and co-chair of Burns & Levinson’s Intellectual Property Group. “Law firms and innovator companies must work together to address the lack of diversity in patent law and do everything we can to bring more Black and diverse attorneys into this interesting and growing area of the law.”

According to the American Bar Association’s 2019 report on demographics, only 15% of attorneys are nonwhite, and only 5% are Black. None of these statistics have changed over the past decade even though the minority populations in the U.S. have increased over the same timeframe.

About Burns & Levinson LLP

At Burns & Levinson, we provide high-level, client-centric and results-oriented legal services to our regional, national and international clients. We are a full-service law firm with over 125 lawyers in Boston, Denver, Providence, and London. Our areas of expertise include: business/finance, business litigation, divorce/family law, venture capital/emerging companies, employment, estate planning, government investigations, intellectual property, M&A/private equity, probate/trust litigation, and real estate. We partner with our clients to solve their business and personal legal issues in a collaborative, creative and cost-effective way. For more information, visit Burns & Levinson at www.burnslev.com.