Goodwin partner Neel Chatterjee was honored with the Minority Bar Coalition’s Unity Award for his groundbreaking work founding the Bay Area Diversity Career Fair. The annual Unity Awards honor member bar association lawyers who have been exemplary in promoting the cause of diversity in the legal profession and their community. Chatterjee was put forward for recognition by the Justice & Diversity Center of the Bar Association of San Francisco, and received his award at a ceremony on November 9.
A leader in advancing diversity, equity and inclusion across the profession, Chatterjee conceived of the Bay Area Diversity Career Fair as a way to have great candidates interact with great law firms in order to increase the number of diverse lawyers amongst Bay Area firms. Now going into its 17th year, the Diversity Career Fair has become one of the most successful career fairs in the United States, bringing together prominent law firms, in-house legal departments, non-profit organizations and government legal departments in the San Francisco Bay Area with diverse second-year law students.
In addition to the Diversity Career Fair, Chatterjee has led headline making pro bono litigation involving civil rights, veterans’ rights, ICE detentions, police brutality, homelessness and prisoners’ rights. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley and the Asian Pacific Fund.
During his career, Chatterjee has been named a Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA) Rainmaker, and he was granted a lifetime achievement award from Narika, a Bay Area nonprofit dedicated to protecting South Asian women against domestic violence. He has also been repeatedly recognized as a top IP litigator and trailblazer by Intellectual Asset Management, Managing IP, Chambers Global, Benchmark Litigation, The Best Lawyers in America, The National Law Journal, Legal 500 US, Daily Journal, and Chambers USA, and was honored with the IP Vanguard Award from the California Bar Association.
The Minority Bar Coalition (MBC) of the San Francisco Bay Area is a network of 50 diverse bar associations dedicated to working in a unified manner to advance the cause of diversity in the legal profession.