Wake Forest University School of Law student Caitlin T. Augerson and University of North Carolina School of Law student Christine Xiao have been named Womble Bond Dickinson’s 2019 Womble Scholars.

The Womble Scholars program is designed to increase the participation of underrepresented groups in the bar and at Womble Bond Dickinson.Each year, Womble Bond Dickinson selects two diverse, second-year law school students for the scholarship program. Womble Scholars receive $30,000 for their law school education. Womble Scholars also spend at least eight weeks at the firm as summer associates between their second and third years of law school. This experience provides Womble Scholars with the chance to work alongside Womble Bond Dickinson attorneys and receive hands-on mentoring and training in an AmLaw100 firm.

Womble Scholars also receive an offer of full-time employment as a firm associate upon graduation from law school.

“We received applications from many outstanding applicants, and we were so impressed by Caitlin and Christine,” said Eric Glidewell, Chair of the Entry-Level Recruiting Committee. “Not only are they both outstanding students, but they have a wealth of professional and community service experiences that will help make them well-rounded attorneys.”

- Caitlin T. Augerson’s law school achievements at Wake Forest include extensive mock trial participation, including winning the Kilpatrick Townsend 1L Mock Trial Competition. Augerson spent the past summer as a summer associate in Womble Bond Dickinson’s Winston-Salem office and as a legal intern at QIAGEN Sciences in Maryland. She is a 2018 graduate of Kenyon College, where she captained the school’s Women’s Varsity Lacrosse Team, and she now passes along that knowledge as a youth lacrosse coach in Winston-Salem.

- Christine Xiao is active in a number of student groups at the UNC School of Law, including serving as Treasurer of the Carolina Intellectual Property Law Association and as staff member on the North Carolina Journal of Law and Technology. She worked for three years as a Duke University Medical Center researcher in cancer biology and immunology, co-authoring papers in Immunity and Cancer Immunology Research. She also spent the past summer as a legal intern at Red Hat. Xiao is a 2015 Duke University graduate.

“Creating a diverse and inclusive workplace doesn’t happen by accident—it takes deliberate attention and hard work, said Kevin Lyn, Chair of Womble Bond Dickinson’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee. “The Womble Scholars program has been a successful pipeline for recruiting talented, diverse attorneys on the ground floor of their legal careers.”

Since its establishment in 2004, the Womble Scholars Program has awarded more than $600,000 to scholarship recipients.

About Womble Bond Dickinson

Womble Bond Dickinson is a transatlantic law firm with more than 1,000 lawyers based in 27 UK and US office locations serving clients across every business sector. The firm provides core legal services including: Commercial, Corporate, Employment, Pensions, Dispute Resolution, Litigation, Finance, Banking, Restructuring, Insolvency, IP, Technology and Data, Private Wealth, Projects, Construction and Infrastructure, Real Estate and Regulatory Law.