Baker & Daniels Attorneys Teaching Students on Law & Public Policy

When high school students don't know attorneys or judges, it's less likely they'll know how to become attorneys or judges, Rebecca Berfanger reported in the Indiana Lawyer story, "Pipeline Programs to Improve Diversity."

This is particularly true in urban neighborhoods, the story said. To counter that, diversity pipeline programs are being created to encourage more ethnic and racial diversity in the legal profession.

Two schools in Indiana have dedicated programs to law and public policy, the Indiana Lawyer story reported. One is the Shortridge Magnet High School for Law and Public Policy in Indianapolis where teams of attorneys from Baker & Daniels and Eli Lilly and Company teach sophomore students different legal concepts as part of the national Street Law Corporate Legal Diversity Pipeline Program. The state's other school is the Randall T. Shepard Academy for Law and Social Justice in Evansville.

In one class session, Baker & Daniels lawyers Chris Scanlon and Matthew Bahl were among five legal professionals discussing "what is legal in advertising." Bahl explained a case where a woman filed suit because Crunch Berries didn't contain real fruit, according to the story.

Bahl showed the class a box of Cap'n Crunch's Crunch Berry cereal, Indiana Lawyer reported. He then explained that in a law suit involving the company that makes the cereal, a woman claimed that it was false advertising because the cereal did not contain real fruit.

The judge dismissed the claim, Bahl said, because the company showed the product on the box, which clearly did not contain real berries. The box, the Indiana Lawyer story reported, also did not claim that the cereal contained real berries. Bahl added that the judge also likely dismissed the claim because "a reasonable consumer" would understand that the sugary cereal bits were not real berries.