It’s no secret that national, state and local bar associations are struggling for membership. The Law Journal’s series on the future of bar associations and their relevance to millennials is a timely reminder that such organizations must take creative and meaningful steps to support the next generation. At the New York City Bar Association, we are doing just that. I serve as chair of the City Bar’s New Lawyer Institute (“NLI”), a program aimed at comprehensively supporting brand new law school graduates. In this piece, I wish to explain how the program works, and encourage bar leaders in other major cities to emulate our model.

NLI was born from the fallout of the Great Recession. In 2012, the City Bar convened a task force to study the shifting nature of the profession. Among the recommendations, memorialized in a 147-page report entitled, “Developing Legal Careers and Delivering Justice in the 21st Century,” was the creation of “post-graduate law school development programs.” The idea was to have dedicated programming to support the needs of new graduates unable to find work, providing specific skills to enhance their marketability during the recession.