Archer & Greiner P.C.
By Associate, Adetola Ajayi
On October 20, Archer partnered with Girls, Inc. to host a 90-minute virtual Career Exploration Workshop. Hosted by Archer’s Women’s Network, 25 middle-school students from Girls Inc., a national organization that focuses on empowering girls of all ages through mentorship, corporate partnerships, and evidenced-based programming, participated in activities meant to empower and encourage the girls to pursue professional careers and to expose the participants to the women and departments at Archer law.
Through the Archer Law 2020 Career Exploration program, the most important thing the girls learned is that “a girl should be two things: who and what she wants.” – Coco Chanel. The Career Exploration activities included: “Family Feud (Legal Edition)”, “Guess Who?” (Trivia style), and “Pressure or Persuasion: Negotiation Basics.” For each activity, the girls were split into pre-assigned teams and worked together with Archer volunteers to score points. The “Family Feud” game questions required the girls to think about the legal profession at large and included questions like “Name the top 5 things lawyers do?” and “Name 5 things every lawyer has in their office?” During “Guess Who?”, the girls were provided prompts and were tasked with determining which Archer Law office titles, positions, or departments corresponded with the proper descriptions. The negotiation exercise included a short lesson on negotiation style, ethics, and real world application and was followed by an interactive negotiation game. The negotiation activity required the girls to divide two dollars between themselves and their opponent, although each negotiator had instructions that conflicted with their opponent’s instructions. This exercise allowed the girls to foster critical thinking and communication skills, in a fun, yet challenging way.
The participants were very engaged and eager to chime in with guesses and answers for each activity. Also, each girl was given an activity box prior to the Exploration. The box contained Archer sunglasses, notepads, pens, game instructions and materials, and a “Guided Journal for Discovering Your Voice” by Michelle Obama. Archer Law hopes to continue collaborating with Girls Inc., and other organizations, in the future to promote knowledge about our firm and the legal profession at large within our community.