Marketing the Nonprofit as a Volunteer March 31

As volunteers and members of boards, your duties include helping nonprofits to spread the word about their cause and meet their financial objectives. Marketing the nonprofit comes in many forms, from obtaining sponsorships and donations to recruiting volunteers and event attendees.

During the Monday, March 31 YLD Live, Lunch and Learn program "Marketing the Nonprofit as a Volunteer", attendees will learn how to help their favorite nonprofits to succeed through various forms of marketing, public relations and social media engagement. The featured speaker is Gina F. Rubel, CEO of Furia Rubel Communications.

The program begins at 12 p.m. in the 11th floor Conference Center at the Philadelphia Bar Association, 1101 Market St. Lunch is available for $8 for members of the Philadelphia Bar Association and $12 for non-members. Cancellations require 24 hours notice. Click here to register for lunch.

Artblog Art Safari with Bar Academy April 4

Join the Philadelphia Bar Association Academy Friday, April 4 when Libby Rosof and Roberta Fallon will take you on an artblog Art Safari, a guided walking tour of the city's most exciting contemporary art galleries. You will see excellent and affordable cutting edge art and speak with the young artists who are making it and the curators who are showing it.

Not your average walking tour, the artblog Art Safari - led by contemporary art experts Libby and Roberta of theartblog.org - is a walk on the wild side, where contemporary art by young artists pushes the boundaries to create new definitions of beauty, with often surprising materials. If Albert Barnes were alive today, he would be looking at this art, and he would be collecting it.

This First Friday tour will help educate you about how to interpret the contemporary art you see, and it will take you to the vibrant new art district in Philadelphia's Chinatown North. The 3 1/2-hour guided tour of Philadelphia's best alternative galleries will include a stop along the way for drinks and a light bite at the Trestle Inn. Wear comfortable shoes and be ready for some stair climbing.

The tour begins at 6 p.m. at 319A N. 11th St. and will run until 9:30 p.m. Tickets are $30 each. Attendance is limited; register early to avoid disappointment. Click here to purchase tickets.

April 3 Chancellor's Forum: Access to Justice Initiative

Chancellor William P. Fedullo invites you to a Thursday, April 3 Chancellor’s Forum featuring Deborah Leff, Acting Senior Counselor of the U. S. Department of Justice Access to Justice Initiative, about the access to justice crisis in the criminal and civil justice system.

Additional panelists include Chancellor William P. Fedullo, Catherine C. Carr, Executive Director of Community Legal Services and Kevin V. Mincey of Mincey & Fitzpatrick, LLC. The moderator for the program is Su Ming Yeh, chair of the Public Interest Section.

The Access to Justice Initiative works within the Department of Justice, across federal agencies, and with state, local, and tribal justice system stakeholders to increase access to counsel and legal assistance and to improve the justice delivery systems that serve people who are unable to afford lawyers. Created only four years ago, the Initiative can already report significant accomplishments in supporting indigent defense, strengthening juvenile justice systems, expanding access to counsel in high-stakes civil proceedings, increasing resources for civil legal aid, and more.

The Chancellor’s Forum begins at 4 p.m. in the 11th floor Conference Center at the Philadelphia Bar Association, 1101 Market St. A wine and cheese reception follows the program at 5 p.m. The reception is sponsored by U.S. Legal Support.

There is no charge to attend this program for law students or Philadelphia Bar Association members. Admission for non-members is $8. Click here to register.

Discounted Tickets for Please Touch Museum, 76ers

Philadelphia Bar Association members can take advantage of specially discounted tickets at two Philadelphia institutions – the Please Touch Museum and the Philadelphia 76ers - for a day out with the family or a night out with friends and colleagues.

To get in on the fun and excitement, just visit the Bar Association's Member Benefits page to purchase tickets.

Please Touch Museum was named one of the top 10 children's museums in the country by Parents magazine and is the perfect attraction for families with young children. Adults will enjoy our Centennial Tours of Memorial Hall, complete with historical background of the national landmark and 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia.

Purchases are available from one to nine tickets for the 76ers. For groups of 10 tickets or more, contact Danielle Balliet at 215-952-7351 or danielleballiet@sixers.com. There are no service fees for mailing tickets, will call, or print at home. Most games are available.

YLD Sponsors Essay Contest for High School Juniors, Seniors

Entries are now being accepted for the 2014 Edward F. Chacker Essay Contest. A $1,000 college scholarship will be awarded to a Philadelphia high school junior or senior (public, private, parochial or charter school) who writes the winning essay on the question: Did the Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education, accomplish the goal of equal protection under the law for all citizens regarding public education?

Entries must be received by Thursday, April 17 at 12 p.m. Essays will be judged on merit, with adherence to the above theme being a significant criterion for judging. Essays should be at least 1,000 words and typed or printed legibly. Please include your name, address, telephone number and school on a cover sheet accompanying your essay. Essay titles will not count toward the word requirement.

Mail or email essays to: Jeff Lyons, Philadelphia Bar Association, 1101 Market St., 10th Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19107 or chackeressay@philabar.org.

The winner will be invited to read their winning essay at the Naturalization Ceremony at the Federal Courthouse in Philadelphia on Thursday, May 1. The Edward F. Chacker Essay Contest is sponsored by the Philadelphia Bar Association Young Lawyers Division.

YLD Law Week Poster Contest Open to 4th, 5th, 6th Graders

Fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade students from Philadelphia public, private, parochial and charter elementary schools are invited to create a poster depicting the 2014 Law Week poster theme
"What can you do to help make sure there is equal protection under the law of everyone's rights?"

First prize is a $125 gift card; second prize receives a $50 gift card and third prize is a $25 gift card. All entries must be received by Thursday, April 17, 2014 at 12 p.m.

Posters should be produced on standard 22''X 28'' poster board. Include your name, address, telephone number and school on the back of the poster. Submit posters during business hours to: Jeff Lyons, Philadelphia Bar Association, 1101 Market St., 10th Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19107

The Law Week Poster Contest is sponsored by the Philadelphia Bar Association Young Lawyers Division. All posters become property of the Philadelphia Bar Association once received.

Applicants Sought for FJD Judicial Fellowship Program

Philadelphia judges are seeking to host law school graduates as judicial fellows to provide the graduates with substantive legal experience while benefitting the court system with additional legal talent, as part of the First Judicial District's Judicial Fellowship Program. Now entering its fourth year, the Judicial Fellowship Program was created in 2011 to address the difficult hiring climate for lawyers that many recent law graduates were facing.

The Judicial Fellowship Program aims to provide high-caliber law graduates with substantive experience in the law, and to support the Court in carrying out key functions. Fellows volunteer their time, have the same responsibilities as regular paid judicial law clerks, and gain the benefit of training by judges in the Philadelphia courts. Judicial fellows' service helps our high-volume court system maintain its superior quality of service to the Philadelphia community. Judges help judicial fellows by mentoring and providing legal experience that will enhance their competitiveness for paid employment as new lawyers.

Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Lisa M. Rau developed the program with help from Professor Chapin Cimino of the Drexel University School of Law as well as faculty and administrators from career services offices at the University of Pennsylvania's Law School and Temple's Beasley School of Law. The Judicial Fellowship Program quickly expanded and now welcomes graduates from law schools from across the country. The Philadelphia Bar Association is a supporter of the Judicial Fellowship Program.

The application process is streamlined and selective. Prospective judicial fellows apply directly via email to judges with whom they are interest in working. Judges select judicial fellows from those applicants who apply to them directly. The list of judges with available positions for judicial fellows is provided on the Judicial Fellowship Program's website. Each judge and fellow team designs a flexible schedule (minimum of 20 hours per week) that ensures reliable service to the judge but permits the fellow to seek a paid position elsewhere. Judicial fellows do not commit to any length of service enabling them to leave the fellowship with two weeks' notice to their judge upon obtaining paid employment.

During the first three years of the program, more than 50 judges volunteered to host judicial fellows and the Court hosted 149 judicial fellows from 30 different law schools. As of February 2014, the vast majority of judicial fellows (approximately 84 percent) who left their fellowship departed for paid jobs using their legal skills.

For additional information and fellowship application forms, please visit www.courts.phila.gov/jfp

Civil Gideon Essay Contest Honors Ken Shear

In honor of the retirement of Kenneth Shear, who served as executive director of the Philadelphia Bar Association for 37 years, the "Kenneth Shear Civil Gideon Legal Justice Essay Competition and Scholarship Fund" has been established by the Association and the Philadelphia Bar Foundation to honor Shear's contributions to the Philadelphia legal community.

To raise an endowment to support the Essay Competition and Scholarship Fund, Immediate-Past Chancellor Kathleen D. Wilkinson and Bar Foundation President Deborah Gross are donating seed money to begin the funding of the Essay Competition and the Scholarship Fund in order to award at least one scholarship in 2014. The announcement of the scholarship was made by Wilkinson and Gross at the December Board of Governors meeting.

The purpose of the Essay Competition is to award a scholarship of $1,500 annually to a second- or third-year law student from the Philadelphia area law schools who writes the best short essay on the subject of Civil Gideon. The student must be willing to serve as an intern for 40 hours, pro bono, to assist the Philadelphia Bar Association and Philadelphia Bar Foundation with its endeavors through the Philadelphia Bar Association Civil Gideon Task Force, the statewide Access to Civil Justice Coalition and/or future statewide Access to Civil Justice Commission and/or will serve on another pro bono project of the Philadelphia Bar Association and Philadelphia Bar Foundation, which project is dedicated toward equal justice for all and fulfills the purposes of advancing civil Gideon, public education in the Philadelphia School District, and/or service to the poor.

The essay must be no longer than 10 pages or 2,500 words, whichever is shorter. The 2,500-word limitation refers to the text of the submission; footnotes may be a maximum of 1,000 words (in addition to the 2,500 word maximum for text). Endnotes are not permitted.

The essay must be in seminar paper or law journal article format only; submissions in the form of a memorandum, brief, judicial opinion or other type of legal document are not acceptable. The essay may not be previously published or currently accepted for publication in any publication other than in connection with this competition. The complete rules are available at philadelphiabar.org.

All contributions to the Fund should be in the name of the Philadelphia Bar Foundation with an indication in the memo field that the donation is for the purposes of the "Kenneth Shear Civil Gideon Legal Justice Essay Competition and Scholarship Fund." Please mail your check to Jessica Hilburn-Holmes, Philadelphia Bar Foundation, 1101 Market St., 11th Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19107.