Deferred Associate Law
Deferred Associate Law Extern Support Program
The New York City Bar and City Bar Justice Center are pleased to announce the Launch of the Deferred Associate Law Extern Support Project. The Project was devised in response to the growing pool of law school graduates who have been deferred for up to a year from private law firms and have chosen to work in public interest law in New York City.
The main goal of the project is to provide a series of training sessions that will help the law firm externs get up to speed on the hard and soft skills needed to succeed at their externships and when they return to their law firms. A secondary goal of the Project is to bring the externs together with their peers to discuss their experiences in a supportive environment and to meet judges and established lawyers who support pro bono efforts.
On September 14, 2009, the Project will kick off with a Welcome to the NYC Public Interest Community Breakfast featuring a Keynote Address by Nina Bernstein, Metro Reporter, New York Times who will provide a “Journalist’s Eyeview of the Work of Poverty Lawyers” followed by two roundtable discussions addressing poverty and access to justice issues in New York City and the role of the legal profession in alleviating these inequities.
We hope that the Project will enable externs who may not have expected to practice in a public interest setting to transition successfully in their respective externships. The Project is open to all deferred law firm associates and CLE will be provided for nearly all of the programming. For more information on the Project, please contact Zakiyyah Salim-Williams, Project Director, Deferred Associate Law Extern Support Project, at zswilliams@nycbar.org and/or (212) 382-6689.
Pro Bono Net will also provide virtual networking opportunities for deferred associates, both in New York and nationwide through webinars, podcasts, and a private social networking group. For more information, visit www.probono.net/fellows
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the New York Community Trust for this Project as well as Pro Bono Net’s virtual project.
