Law community
Several years ago in an article for the ABA Journal, then- Associate Dean Ilene Seidman posed a pair of riddles: What steps could the Law School take to better prepare its students to start or join successful small firms? And how could it help put legal services within reach of more average-income clients?
Both riddles, as it turns out, have the same answer: the Law School’s Accelerator-to-Practice Program.
Now entering its eighth year, the Accelerator-to-Practice Program is a first-of-its-kind, comprehensive, three-year course of study and practice that emphasizes both legal and business training. Students not only learn how to represent clients in individual matters, but also how to develop business models for providing affordable legal representation to average-income clients. They graduate with the broad range of skills needed for modern-day, small-firm practice.
The brainchild of Seidman, then-Vice Provost Jeffrey Pokorak, and Associate Dean for Professional & Career Development Gerald Slater, the Accelerator-to-Practice Program won early recognition from the American Bar Association, which awarded it the Louis M. Brown Award for Legal Access in 2016 for creating a model for how law schools can help close the justice gap.
Now, the program is celebrating a $1 million commitment from donors Judy and Warren Levenbaum JD’72.
The Levenbaums’ gift establishes an endowment fund to provide operating support for the in-house Accelerator Practice, which gives third-year students the opportunity to handle exactly the kind of legal challenges that many average-income clients encounter, including eviction, housing discrimination, and consumer protection cases. Under the supervision of clinical faculty, students routinely serve as primary counsel for their clients, interviewing and advising them; preparing pleadings, discovery, and memoranda; drafting and arguing motions; and conducting negotiations, administrative hearings, and trials.
By Beth Brosnan
Above: Judy and Warren Levenbaum JD'72 have committed $1 million to the Law School’s Accelerator-to-Practice Program.
Professor James Matthews, director of the Accelerator-to-Practice Program, notes that historically, students didn’t get this kind of experience until after they graduated from law school, whether as law firm associates or through an incubator program.
“Our goal was to flip the model and provide this instruction and training while they’re still students,” Matthews says. “We’re giving Suffolk Law grads the marketable skills they need to have a competitive edge in the legal job market.”
Warren Levenbaum agrees. In 1977, he opened a solo practice in Phoenix; today, the firm employs 60 people. Levenbaum is also the founder of the American Association of Motorcycle Injury Lawyers, better known as Law Tigers, which has franchises in 35 states.
“The Accelerator-to-Practice Program mirrors what I did informally years ago, and teaches students what they would otherwise have to learn by trial and error when they go out on their own,” says Levenbaum. “It enables them not just to survive, but to thrive.”
To run a sustainable law practice, Matthews says, students must learn how to manage costs efficiently and to effectively market and brand their practices to attract potential clients. The Accelerator-to-Practice offers courses on the business of practice and legal technology, competencies that students need for a successful 21st century career. They learn how to handle intake, billing, contracts, and other processes quickly, as well as how to market their firms to average-income clients.
Students also learn how to handle fee-shifting cases, like landlord-tenant disputes and employment and consumer protection cases, in which the losing side pays the winner’s attorneys’ fees. Such cases are a business model that small firms can use to help address the public’s unmet legal needs.
That learning starts during their first-year summer with internships at small firms vetted by Dean Slater and the Law School’s Office of Professional and Career Development.
“These are internships students normally would not get as a 1L without the Accelerator,” Matthews says. “Students get a window into the business of the practice and the technology it uses, and the professional networks they develop will serve them well.”
Adds Slater: “It is the collaboration between faculty, career services professionals, legal technologists, and practice experts that ensures students develop the full range of competencies needed for modern practice and to be successful in the entry-level job market.”
Samuel Raheb JD’19 can attest to that. “The Accelerator Program helped me build a great foundation for the start of my legal career,” says Raheb, who is now an associate at a small firm in Rhode Island. “Now, the Levenbaums’ gift will create more opportunities for hard-working students to better prepare for a self-starting legal career
Images from top: Michael Paulson, Michael J. Clarke (2)
Training young attorneys to thrive
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Suffolk Law Professor James Matthews, director of the Accelerator-to-Practice Program
Law community
By Beth Brosnan
Several years ago in an article for the ABA Journal, then- Associate Dean Ilene Seidman posed a pair of riddles: What steps could the Law School take to better prepare its students to start or join successful small firms? And how could it help put legal services within reach of more average-income clients?
Both riddles, as it turns out, have the same answer: the Law School’s Accelerator-to-Practice Program.
Now entering its eighth year, the Accelerator-to-Practice Program is a first-of-its-kind, comprehensive, three-year course of study and practice that emphasizes both legal and business training. Students not only learn how to represent clients in individual matters, but also how to develop business models for providing affordable legal representation to average-income clients. They graduate with the broad range of skills needed for modern-day, small-firm practice.
The brainchild of Seidman, then-Vice Provost Jeffrey Pokorak, and Associate Dean for Professional & Career Development Gerald Slater, the Accelerator-to-Practice Program won early recognition from the American Bar Association, which awarded it the Louis M. Brown Award for Legal Access in 2016 for creating a model for how law schools can help close the justice gap.
Now, the program is celebrating a $1 million commitment from donors Judy and Warren Levenbaum JD’72.
The Levenbaums’ gift establishes an endowment fund to provide operating support for the in-house Accelerator Practice, which gives third-year students the opportunity to handle exactly the kind of legal challenges that many average-income clients encounter, including eviction, housing discrimination, and consumer protection cases. Under the supervision of clinical faculty, students routinely serve as primary counsel for their clients, interviewing and advising them; preparing pleadings, discovery, and memoranda; drafting and arguing motions; and conducting negotiations, administrative hearings, and trials.
Professor James Matthews, director of the Accelerator-to-Practice Program, notes that historically, students didn’t get this kind of experience until after they graduated from law school, whether as law firm associates or through an incubator program.
“Our goal was to flip the model and provide this instruction and training while they’re still students,” Matthews says. “We’re giving Suffolk Law grads the marketable skills they need to have a competitive edge in the legal job market.”
Warren Levenbaum agrees. In 1977, he opened a solo practice in Phoenix; today, the firm employs 60 people. Levenbaum is also the founder of the American Association of Motorcycle Injury Lawyers, better known as Law Tigers, which has franchises in 35 states.
“The Accelerator-to-Practice Program mirrors what I did informally years ago, and teaches students what they would otherwise have to learn by trial and error when they go out on their own,” says Levenbaum. “It enables them not just to survive, but to thrive.”
To run a sustainable law practice, Matthews says, students must learn how to manage costs efficiently and to effectively market and brand their practices to attract potential clients. The Accelerator-to-Practice offers courses on the business of practice and legal technology, competencies that students need for a successful 21st century career. They learn how to handle intake, billing, contracts, and other processes quickly, as well as how to market their firms to average-income clients.
Students also learn how to handle fee-shifting cases, like landlord-tenant disputes and employment and consumer protection cases, in which the losing side pays the winner’s attorneys’ fees. Such cases are a business model that small firms can use to help address the public’s unmet legal needs.
That learning starts during their first-year summer with internships at small firms vetted by Dean Slater and the Law School’s Office of Professional and Career Development.
“These are internships students normally would not get as a 1L without the Accelerator,” Matthews says. “Students get a window into the business of the practice and the technology it uses, and the professional networks they develop will serve them well.”
Adds Slater: “It is the collaboration between faculty, career services professionals, legal technologists, and practice experts that ensures students develop the full range of competencies needed for modern practice and to be successful in the entry-level job market.”
Samuel Raheb JD’19 can attest to that. “The Accelerator Program helped me build a great foundation for the start of my legal career,” says Raheb, who is now an associate at a small firm in Rhode Island. “Now, the Levenbaums’ gift will create more opportunities for hard-working students to better prepare for a self-starting legal career.
Images from top: Michael Paulson, Michael J. Clarke (2)
Training young attorneys to thrive
Return to Table of Contents