Pa. Bar Groups Advance First-of-Its-Kind Project to Build Up Young Lawyers’ Trial Skills

A statewide coalition of bar groups has a new approach to fostering the rising generation of trial lawyers.

Representatives from seven Pennsylvania lawyer organizations collaborated to create Project Litigate, an initiative encouraging law firms to create opportunities for young attorneys to develop their courtroom skills.

“Something’s got to be done,” said John Gismondi of Gismondi & Associates, who helmed the project. “We’re just in a situation where we are behind the curve vis-a-vis earlier generations of trial attorneys and at what point in their career they begin to develop litigation skills.”

Gismondi said, to his knowledge, that Pennsylvania is the first state in which such a broad, diverse group has made a unified push to address the problem.

Representatives from organizations like the Pennsylvania Bar Association, the Pennsylvania Defense Institute and the Pennsylvania Association of Justice worked together to develop the central product of the initiative—a pledge for law firms to take establishing their commitment to the cause.

“It is an outstanding initiative to heighten the awareness in educating and training our younger lawyers in the art of trial advocacy,” said Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky partner Andrew Duffy, who served as a Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association representative in the project.

Duffy said Project Litigate—which stands for Lawyers Initiative To Improve next Gen Attorneys’ Trial Experience—provides law firms with guidance on how to effectively acclimate young lawyers to trial practice.

The single-page pledge outlines actionable steps firms can take, such as providing training sessions, inviting associates to observe proceedings, and gradually scaling up associates’ responsibilities.

“The key is to just keep the younger attorneys immersed in the entire process,” Duffy said. “It is essential for younger lawyers to be involved in both the litigation and trial process in an experience-appropriate manner so that extraordinary younger lawyers can display and further their skill set.”

According to Gismondi, the project began a little over a year ago from a spontaneous conversation among judges and lawyers at an American College of Trial Lawyers cocktail hour.

“All of a sudden, we got on this roll about how times had changed and how difficult it was to groom the next generation of trial attorneys,” he said.

From there, Gismondi said, he developed the idea for Project Litigate. He reached out to bar group presidents, who all expressed support for the effort and appointed representatives to hone the pledge’s contents.

The next step for the initiative is to get those groups to adopt resolutions encouraging law firms across the state to participate.

Gismondi said the steps outlined in the pledge were widely supported, but the program still requires senior lawyers to invest time in training younger attorneys and buy-in from clients.

And certain firms may have a more challenging time handing work to associates than others.

Gismondi said law firms representing larger institutions are more likely to see pushback from their clients than firms who advocate for individuals. But, he said, those institutional clients would benefit long-term from ensuring the upcoming generation of lawyers is equipped to handle their litigation.

“We understood from the outset that we can’t force firms to do anything,” Gismondi said. “We’re trying to encourage them to take note of the problem and see what they can do to address it.”

Should Project Litigate prove successful, Gismondi said, he would not be surprised if other states soon followed suit.

“Even if we just move the needle a little bit, it’s better than where we are now,” he said.