YLD to Elect 7 to Executive Committee Dec. 9

Ten candidates are running for seven seats on the Young Lawyers Division Executive Committee in the Tuesday, Dec. 9 election.

The candidates are Alison A. Besser, Ryan Briskin, Mario D'Adamo III, Caitlin M. Donnelly, Melanie J. Foreman, Dana Gittleman, Lindsay H. Schoonmaker, Ashley K. Shea, Franklin R. Strokoff, Thomas J. Szymanski and Anna B. Will. Executive Committee members serve three-year terms.

Balloting for members of the Young Lawyers Division Executive Committee will take place on Tuesday, Dec. 9, from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. on the Ballroom Level of the Hyatt at The Bellevue, Broad and Walnut streets. Ballots will be mailed on Thursday, Nov. 20 and must be returned to the Philadelphia Bar Association, 1101 Market St., 11th Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19107-2955 by Thursday, Dec. 4 at 10 a.m.

Note: Only members in good standing of the Association's Young Lawyers Division may cast votes in this election. Attorneys are members of the Division if (1) they have not yet reached the age of 37, or (2) they have not yet reached the third anniversary of their first admission to the bar of any state.

YLD Needs Volunteers for Harvest for Homeless Nov. 1

The Young Lawyers Division is seeking volunteers for the annual "Harvest for the Homeless" donation drive on Saturday, Nov. 1 from approximately 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at Ballard Spahr LLP.

Over the next month, the YLD will collect and sort donations of men's, women's and children's clothing. Once the items are sorted, they will be delivered them to local homeless shelters.

The YLD is also looking for volunteers to assist with managing and collecting donations at their firm or employer. Volunteers are needed on the day of the event to help with sorting and distributing the donated items. To volunteer, please contact Bob Zimmerman at rzimmerman@smbb.com.

Donations can be dropped off at the following law firms - Fox Rothschild LLP, 2000 Market St.; Martin LLC, 1818 Market St.; White and Williams LLP, 1650 Market St., Suite 1800; McCarter & English, LLP, 1735 Market St., Suite 700; Saltz, Mongeluzzi, Barrett & Bendesky, One Liberty Place, 1650 Market St., 52nd Floor; Weber Gallagher Simpson Stapleton Fires & Newby LLP, 2000 Market St., Suite 1300; Griesing Law, LLC, 1717 Arch St., Suite 3630; Reed Smith LLP, 1717 Arch St., Suite 3100; Blank Rome LLP, One Logan Square, 130 N. 18th St.; and Margolis Edelstein, The Curtis Center, 170 S. Independence Mall W., Suite 400E.

YLD Bootcamp: Tactics, Tips and Tricks for Law Students, New Lawyers Nov. 14

Hear from experienced attorneys and members of the judiciary at the fifth annual "YLD Bootcamp: Tactics, Tips and Tricks for Law Students and New Lawyers," presented by the Young Lawyers Division of the Philadelphia Bar Association on Friday, Nov. 14.

The topics and presenters for the 2014 YLD Bootcamp are:

Interview Skills with panelists Linsey B. Bozzelli, Attorney Recruiting Committee Chair, Blank Rome LLP; Jason B. Conn, Assistant Deputy General Counsel, Comcast Corporation; Austin R. Freundlich, Founder, Freundlich & Littman, LLC; and Jason Y. Mandel, Director of Legal Recruiting, Alevistar Group.

Advice from the Bench with Judge Kevin M. Dougherty, Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, Family Division; Judge Anne E. Lazarus, Superior Court of Pennsylvania and Judge Timothy R. Rice, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Considerations Before Starting Your Own Solo Practice or Small Firm with Vern Anastasio, The Anastasio Law Firm; Brad V. Shuttleworth, Alva & Shuttleworth, LLC; and Matthew Toll, Law Offices of Robert J. Garnick.

You Passed the Bar, Now What?: How to Succeed in Your First Year As an Attorney, and How to Gain Experience with Grant G. Berger, Fidelity National Law Group; D. Max Friedman, Hovatter, Friedman & Stofman, P.C.; Jamie M. Gershkow, Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young, LLP; Dana B. Ostrovsky, Fidelity National Law Group; and Brandon R. Sher, Landman Corsi Ballaine & Ford, P.C.

The cost is just $10 and includes lunch, each of the panel presentations and networking opportunities throughout the day. The program will be held in the 11th Floor Conference Center at the Philadelphia Bart Association, 1101 Market St. Click here to register. A YLD Networking Happy Hour follows the boot camp at the Field House, 1150 Filbert St.

Working Together in Multigenerational Office Oct. 29

The Business Law Section of the Philadelphia Bar Association, in conjunction with the Young Lawyers Division of the Philadelphia Bar Association, invite seasoned and junior attorneys to come together on Wednesday, Oct. 29 and engage in conversation about how we can better work together in today's multigenerational workplace.

How it works: Senior and junior lawyer attendees will be divided into small groups which will circulate to discuss focused topics at small round tables. Each discussion will be facilitated by a senior and junior attorney pair. Topics will include: Expectations From the Top Down and the Ground Up, Teaching and Learning Styles, and Bridging the Communication Gap.

As part of the BLS/YLD Speed Mentoring Series, the goal of this 180 Program is to spark mutually beneficial dialogue between senior and junior lawyers and encourage networking between the generations. This program embraces the concept of "Reciprocal Mentoring:" senior attorneys will learn from junior lawyers how they can better lead; junior lawyers will learn from senior attorneys how they can better serve, and all attendees will leave having formed new relationships and gained fresh perspectives.

The event will be held from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at Ballard Spahr LLP, 1735 Market St., 51st Floor. Registration for this event is required and will include hors d'oeuvres and drinks. The event will be limited to the first 60 people to register. Click here to register. Thank you to the Business Law Section Annual Sponsor, Thomson Reuters.

19th Annual Bankruptcy Institute Oct. 30

The 19th Annual Bankruptcy Institute on Thursday, Oct. 30 features bankruptcy and other judges, representatives of the U.S. Trustee's Office, Chapter 13 and Chapter 7 Trustees, and other consumer, commercial and creditor attorneys. Get updated on the top consumer or top commercial bankruptcy cases of the year and then experience a diverse range of topics on the hottest issues arising in bankruptcy.

Each year this program receives rave reviews for its wide array of topics for both consumer and commercial practitioners. There is a full basic track for newcomers to consumer bankruptcy plus lots of topics of interest to sophisticated debtor and creditor consumer counsel, as well as a track of Chapter 11 commercial sessions.

The CLE program will be held from 9 a.m. to 4:40 p.m. at The CLE Conference Conference on the 10th Floor of the Wanamaker Building, Market and Juniper streets. Click here to register.

Securities Litigation & Regulatory Update Nov. 5

The Pennsylvania Bar Institute's "2014 Securities Litigation & Regulatory Update" will feature discussions of significant developments in the securities laws, as well as changes in the business and legal environment on Wednesday, Nov. 5.

The program is cosponsored by the Philadelphia Bar Association and New Jersey State Bar Association Securities Regulations Committees. Attendees will hear from regulators and practitioners regarding hot topics and trends and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act will be explored.

The program will be held from 9 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. at The CLE Conference Conference on the 10th Floor of the Wanamaker Building, Market and Juniper streets. Click here to register.

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 in 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 Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law as well as faculty and administrators from career services offices at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Temple University 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 has been a constant 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 interested 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.

As of September 2014, more than 61 judges have volunteered to host judicial fellows and the court has hosted 175 judicial fellows from 36 different law schools. The vast majority of judicial fellows who have 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

Chancellor's Forum on Climate Change Nov. 6

We hear about climate change and its effects every day in the news, but how many of us really understand the science behind the news?

Join us as we welcome Richard B. Alley, Ph. D., of Pennsylvania State University, who will discuss the science of climate change, how it occurs, what causes it, and what can be done to stop it at a Thursday, Nov. 6 Chancellor's Forum.

Dr. Alley is the Evan Pugh Professor of Geosciences at Pennsylvania State University, and has ranged from Antarctica to Greenland to help learn the history of Earth's climate and whether the great ice sheets will fall in the ocean, flooding our coasts. With more than 240 scientific publications, Dr. Alley has served on many advisory panels. He participated in the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. He has been asked to provide advice to the highest levels of government, and been elected to the US National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society. He hosted the recent PBS miniseries Earth: The Operators' Manual, and has been compared to a cross between Woody Allen and Carl Sagan for his enthusiastic efforts to communicate the excitement and importance of the science to everyone.

After Dr. Alley's presentation, Robert B. McKinstry Jr. will provide some brief comments on what is being done from a technical and legal perspective to combat climate change.

McKinstry is a partner in the Philadelphia office of Ballard Spahr LLP, where he heads the firm's Climate Change and Sustainability Initiative. He was counsel of record for the group of amici climate scientists supporting the petitioners in Massachusetts v. EPA, the 2007 Supreme Court decision that held that the EPA has the authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

This program is free and open to the public and 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 nonmembers. Click here to register.

Chancellor's Forum Nov. 10: Inside Drexel's Largest Gift

The Monday, Nov. 10 Chancellor's Forum will focus on discussing the future course for the Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law and the Thomas R. Kline Institute of Trial Advocacy. Both Kline and Dean Dennis will discuss the challenges in law school education and the unique path that the Kline School of Law is charting, with an emphasis on the place of Drexel University's Kline School of Law in the Philadelphia legal community and its relationship with the Philadelphia Bar Association.

Kline is a founding partner of the Philadelphia law firm of Kline & Specter, P.C., practicing in the area of catastrophic personal injury and mass tort litigation. Kline is a past president of the Inner Circle of Advocates, described by The Washington Post as "a select group of 100 of the nation's most celebrated trial lawyers." Kline, who has a litany of professional accolades, has been selected as Pennsylvania's No. 1 lawyer for 11 consecutive years (2004-2014) by the independent, peer-review rating service Super Lawyers. Kline became a national spokesperson for the victims of Jerry Sandusky, and was interviewed on local and national television. He serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of Drexel University. The law school at Drexel University is now named the Thomas R. Kline School of Law, which has as a component, the Thomas R. Kline Institute of Trial Advocacy.

Roger Dennis is the Founding Dean of the Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law in Philadelphia. He was formerly the Provost at Rutgers University-Camden as well as the Dean at the Rutgers-Camden School of Law. He clerked for Judge Richard McLaren of the U.S. District Court in Chicago before working in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and practicing at Skadden, Arps in Washington, D.C. He earned his B.S. in Speech from Northwestern University and is a magna cum laude graduate of Northwestern University School of Law where he was selected for the Order of the Coif. Dean Dennis has held an elected seat in the American Law Institute since 1991 and has served in leadership positions on numerous committees of the Association of American Law Schools and the American Bar Association.

There is no cost to attend this program, which 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 nonmembers. Click here to register.

Securities Litigation & Regulatory Update Nov. 5

The Pennsylvania Bar Institute's "2014 Securities Litigation & Regulatory Update" will feature discussions of significant developments in the securities laws, as well as changes in the business and legal environment on Wednesday, Nov. 5.

The program is cosponsored by the Philadelphia Bar Association and New Jersey State Bar Association Securities Regulations Committees. Attendees will hear from regulators and practitioners regarding hot topics and trends and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act will be explored.

The program will be held from 9 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. at The CLE Conference Conference on the 10th Floor of the Wanamaker Building, Market and Juniper streets. Click here to register.