Young Lawyers Division
| Publication year | 2015 |
| Pages | 64 |
| Citation | Vol. 28 No. 6 Pg. 64 |
November, 2015
Emerging Lawyer Leaders
Naziol S. Nazarinia Scott, J.
Most Utah attorneys are familiar with and Justice for all (AJFA), the umbrella organization for Utah’s nonprofit civil legal aid agencies – the Disability Law Center, Legal Aid Society of Salt Lake, and Utah Legal Services. AJFA was formed in 1998 by Utah’s primary legal service providers to collaborate on their common goal of ensuring access to justice for all Utahns. The legal community has heartily embraced AJFA and has generously supported its efforts.
This year, AJFA created a new board, the Emerging Legal Leaders (ELL), to engage young attorneys in supporting AJFA. The idea was for a board of new and young attorneys to engage their peers in developing a culture of giving at the beginning of their legal careers. The ELL Executive Committee conducted its first meeting in the fall of 2014. A launch party, held on March 17, 2015, (sponsored by Dorsey & Whitney) was well attended and met with excitement.
Many senior attorneys recognize that engagement in the community is an integral part of a new attorney’s professional development. Additionally, supporting access to justice is expected of the legal profession under Rule 6.1 of the Utah Rules of Professional Conduct, which states, in part:
Every lawyer has a professional responsibility to provide legal services to those unable to pay. A lawyer should aspire to render at least 50 hours of pro bono public legal services per year…[as well as] provide any additional services through[]… participation in activities for improving the law, the legal system or the legal profession.… In addition…, a lawyer should voluntarily contribute financial support to organizations that provide legal services to persons of limited means.
Utah R. Prof’l Conduct 6.1.
ELL seeks to do much more than encourage young attorneys to give back to their community; it also seeks to benefit these young attorneys. The board’s mission is twofold: (1) to provide opportunities for new attorneys to fulfill their professional responsibility by contributing personally and financially to access-to-justice initiatives for the most vulnerable members of our community and (2) to provide opportunities for new attorneys to develop their professional and legal skills and enhance their legal reputations while working with like-minded peers to achieve...
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