Reflecting Boston Bar Association President Lisa Arrowood’s dedication to preparing new lawyers for the career ahead of them, the BBA is pleased to announce Friday Fundamentals. The six-month series is designed to teach the basics to those new to practicing law.
Every section of the BBA has contributed at least one session to the Friday Fundamentals calendar, which begins on January 6 and ends on June 21. Fundamentals will teach basic practical skills, such as how to handle real estate closings, divorces, and will contests.
“I have always had a great deal of sympathy for people who put themselves through the three years of rigorous study that law school requires – not to mention the money – who then get out and don’t get jobs. It breaks my heart,” Arrowood said.
The sessions, which are scheduled mostly during lunchtime on Fridays, are free for members and $50 for non-members. Topics range from filing certain types of paperwork, to reviewing various rules of practice, to ethics and primers on various types of law.
The goal is not only to prepare new lawyers for practice, but to connect those practice-ready attorneys with clients that have basic legal needs and may not be able to afford an attorney.
“The BBA is incredibly well-suited to give new lawyers the tools to help those people, because when you look at our Sections, we cover every single area of the law. I don’t think there’s anything a lawyer could want to do in Massachusetts that there isn’t a section that teaches something about it,” Arrowood said.
Most programs take place at the Boston Bar Association building at 16 Beacon Street, but the series also includes tours of Boston’s courthouses with experienced practitioners. The tours are accompanied by an overview of the procedures followed by attorneys in that particular court.
To learn more about Friday Fundamentals, please view our brochure http://www.bostonbar.org/docs/default-document-library/friday_fundamentals_11132015.pdf. To register for a program, please visit http://www.bostonbar.org/friday_fundamentals.