Professional Development

Sections & Committees

Section membership gives you access to those who practice in the same area, and the MBA's many sponsors offer information and services that can make your practice more efficient and effective. Develop your leadership skills by getting involved in the YLD, being a section officer or chairing a committee. Click here to learn more about sections. Click here to learn more about committees.

Pro Bono/Volunteer Opportunities

Helping a pro bono client through a difficult situation is one of the most rewarding aspects of being an attorney. Each month, MBA members provide free legal help to under-resourced neighbors in our community. The Memphis Bar Association is dedicated to ensuring that all members of our community have access to justice. The MBA has many ways for lawyers to fulfill their pro bono responsibility. In addition, doing pro bono can help you develop your skills and grow your practice. Learn more about pro bono and volunteer opportunities. 

Rule 6.1 of the Rules of Professional Conduct state in part that a "lawyer should aspire to render at least 50 hours of pro bono publico legal services per year." The first comment to that rule notes that "{e}very lawyer, regardless of professional prominence or professional work load, has a responsibility to provide legal services to those unable to pay, and personal involvement in the problems of the disadvantaged can be one of the most rewarding experiences in the life of a lawyer." 

CLE/Events

From the latest developments in your area of practice to how to successfully practice law, the MBA and its sections can help you stay up-to-date. 
See our Event Calendar.

Guidelines For Professional Courtesy

The words that you are about to read and the concepts conveyed by these words are an expression by the lawyers of Memphis and Shelby County, Tennessee, of the level of professional conduct to which they aspire in their everyday practice of a demanding and challenging calling, a career that far transcends the business of making a living.

In these days, however, when the consumer has come to set the pace, when financial demands are ever present, when competition for clients appears pervasive and the legal profession sees itself being dragged along in the grip of change, it does the member of this magnificent profession well to momentarily pause to remember that the successes of a lawyer cannot be measured alone by the number of verdicts won, nor by the amount of fees earned, but must take into account the means by which the verdicts are won and the fees are earned.

These guidelines do not attempt to set forth new standards of minimally acceptable conduct, nor to suggest that transgression should subject a lawyer to sanctions beyond the mental or emotional rejection of such transgressions by peers. What these guidelines do attempt is to remind us as lawyers, both young and old, experienced and inexperienced, trial and commercial, that the true value of our profession can be seen in a lawyer’s recognition that he or she truly owes broad duties to this legal system itself, duties which render us committed to the continued improvement and success of this nation’s effort to afford justice in our civilization—based not on a man’s dictates but on laws that apply not just to some, but to all.
Download the Guidelines for Professional Courtesy and Conduct