The California Young Lawyers Association: Forward with the Future of the California Lawyers Association

Emilio E. Varanini

Emilio E. Varanini is a senior Deputy Attorney General in the Antitrust Section of the California Attorney General’s Office. He has a law degree from the University of California at Los Angeles. He has studied at the Institut d’ Etudes Politiques at the University of Bordeaux in France and was selected in 2000 as a Salzburg Seminar Fellow, Transnational Perspectives of Intellectual Property and Communications, Salzburg, Austria. Emilio is currently Vice-President of the California Lawyers’ Association.

The California Young Lawyers Association ("CYLA") was originally set up by the State Bar of California as a special committee for young attorneys. Attorneys who were thirty-six years or younger, or had five years of experience or less, were automatically signed up to CYLA. This gave CYLA an enormous base of young and new attorneys, amounting approximately 50,000 members.

Senate Bill 36 split off CYLA with the Sections into a new 501(c)(6) that became the California Lawyers Association ("CLA"). After the split occurred, CLA and CYLA discussed how to use the opportunity granted by separation to revitalize and enhance the work of CYLA, consulting with such other organizations as the American Bar Association ("ABA").