Young Lawyer and Entrepreneurs
Young Lawyer and Entrepreneurs (YLE) is a four-part program which provides youth with skills and opportunities which lead to steady employment, help build generational empowerment, and create lasting change in the economic status of marginalized youth.
Our Program
Part One:
Young Lawyers
Our Young Lawyers program is unique in that we use a CSI and mock trial format to provide program participants with actual advocacy experience, before placing them in internships with professional legal organizations. Through our CSI program, we teach youth how to investigate a crime scene and requires them to investigate a mock crime scene. Through mock trial, we teach the writing and oral presentation skills which are needed to succeed in both college and in careers, as well as courtroom decorum, civics, and how the American justice system works. We also teach youth critical practical skills, including their legal rights and responsibilities, to reduce negative contact with law enforcement. We teach them how to engage with law enforcement during traffic stops and street encounters.
Part Two:
Young Entrepreneurs
Through Young Entrepreneurs, we teach sustainable habits that every employee and employer should practice, so that our youth enter the work force armed with tools to succeed, long-term. Young Entrepreneurs teaches youth how to start and run a business, from how to draft a simple contract to best-practices hiring and employment practices. We teach them the nuts and bolts of securing a job, behaving on a job, keeping a job, and thriving on a job through hands-on role playing and skits.
Part Three:
Job Readiness
After completing Young Lawyers or Young Entrepreneurs, youth attend job-readiness training. They are taught how to write cover letters and resumes, create video pitches, prepare, dress and behave for job interviews, financial literacy, and job etiquette. Job etiquette includes arriving on time, attendance, professionalism, and cellphone and internet use. Our Job skills training teaches information which can have a long-term impact on the finances of youth. We teach youth the definition and importance of credit, conduct which raises and lowers credit scores, how to cash a paycheck to avoid paying check cashing fees, and other financial literacy concepts.
Part Four: Internships
Once they complete job readiness training, youth will be placed in internships in legal and business organizations. YLE internships expose youth to the day-to-day challenges of operating a business, and help them make a positive impression that may lead to employment and college scholarship recommendations. Our internships provide youth with an opportunity to put all that they have learned into practice.
Long-Term Impact of YLE
Employment opportunities for youth starts with job readiness. Young Lawyers and Entrepreneurs (“YLE”) prepares youth for job opportunities, by requiring them to experience jobs in legal and business fields in a mock setting, and complete job readiness training, before they are eligible for internships at professional legal and business organizations. Young Lawyers is a combination crime scene investigation ("CSI") and Mock Trial Program which provides program participants with investigation and advocacy experience, to prepare them for placement as interns in professional legal organizations.
Why YLE?
Approximately 40% of the prison population in Connecticut is African-American, while only 5% of the attorneys in the United States are African-American. We endeavor to increase the number of African-American advocates and decrease the number of African-American inmates, by exposing African-American youth to careers in the law, and creating opportunities for them to secure scholarships and recommendations, and work in professional legal organizations
ORGANIZATION’S TEAM
Our team includes business professionals who will teach our financial literacy
curriculum and arrange internships in business organizations, public school teachers, an attorney who will help arrange internships in legal organizations, mock trial coaches who prepared the curriculum for the mock trial program and will teach oral presentation and persuasive writing skills, public educators who donate their time to implement our academic curriculum, and other members of the community, including business owners, who will help teach job-readiness skills, including resume writing, interviewing, video job pitching, and on-the-job etiquette. We also use guest instructors who teach our crime scene investigation curriculum.
USE OF FUNDS
We have witnessed the transformation in attitude, carriage, and confidence when our young participants don professional suits to participate in our mock trial and job training mock interviews. For this reason, we provide each participant with a dark suit, tie, belt, socks, dress shoes, and a white shirt. We will use a portion of the donated funds to purchase suits for program participants. We will use funds for transportation and refreshments. We will use donated funds for program supplies. We will use funds for a program coordinator. to purchase a truck to use to transport supplies