It has been another great year for the Massachusetts Bar Association and the Young Lawyers Division. The YLD remains committed to providing quality education, networking and community service opportunities to both our current and future lawyers — namely, law students.
To that end, we have already sent representatives from the MBA YLD to our many surrounding law schools during new student orientation in August and September 2017. We introduced the students to the MBA and everything it has to offer, with the added bonus of free membership for law students. Student enrollment in the MBA has soared as a result of these efforts, and we are not stopping with introductions.
In October, the YLD hosted a networking event for law students and young lawyers at Escape the Room Boston. It was a great team-building event, and we look forward to doing another in the future. It was also our first social event of the year and the first to sell out. We will continue this trend! Our next social/networking event with law students will be a joint networking event at 21st Amendment on February 7, 2018.
The YLD also remains committed to the goals of giving back to the community. In September, we hosted the Volunteer Lawyer Project for a training in their Family Law Lawyer-for-a-Day clinic. The Lawyer-for-a-Day Program is a free clinic available inside the probate and family courts for people who have no other access to legal help and is staffed by volunteer attorneys. In November, the YLD also collected canned goods for a holiday food drive to provide meals to families in need. We will also be organizing volunteer opportunities this holiday season at the Greater Boston Food Bank after the New Year.
The YLD will also be hosting and co-hosting many educational programs this year. We have already partnered with the Dispute Resolution Section to present a three-part series on succeeding at mediations and arbitrations. This will be the second series we have hosted with the DR Section. The first, presented in the 2016-2017 year, was a great success, and we look forward to presenting another terrific series this year with experienced neutrals and practitioners.
The YLD has also made a priority of making our most successful events annual programs that everyone at the MBA can look forward to. This includes our annual networking night at a Celtics game with early access to the stadium, a court-side photograph and great seats for the game. The game this year will be against the New York Knicks on Jan. 31, 2018. We will also be hosting another sunset cruise on the Spirit of Boston in August 2018.
All of our programs will be announced well in advance and include sign-up information. Make sure to sign up as soon as possible, as our events have been filling up fast!
Lastly, I wanted to give a big thank you to everyone in the Young Lawyers Division, without whom none of these events and achievements would be possible. It’s your dedication, year in and year out, that has made the YLD the successful Division that it has become. Thank you!