I had the opportunity recently to sit down with my friend and former colleague, Nolan Tully, with whom I worked on sophisticated life insurance fraud and long term care insurance issues at Drinker Biddle. In addition to his law practice, Nolan and two friends are the ThoroBros (hyperlink), a triumvirate of young horse racing aficionados who write widely on issues related to the sport. Nolan’s lifelong interest in politics led him to join the South of South Neighborhood Association, the local organization for Philadelphia’s Graduate Hospital neighborhood in which he and his wife have started their family. He and I met to talk about his recent appointment to the board of PhillySetGo, a local political action committee founded to educate and engage area millennials around quality of life issues and to support local and regional millennial political candidates who seek to make a real difference.
Nolan explained to me that, as many of us have witnessed, the recent election cycle created a surge in interest in politics by Philadelphia’s young professionals. However, with the votes counted, many young Philadelphians are still looking for opportunities to stay involved in local and regional politics. Specifically, PhillySetGo believes that these young professionals want ethical, transparent, and effective local and state governance that seriously addresses affect quality of life issues, including education, job growth, poverty, and urban development. PhillySetGo believes that elected officials too often fail to provide competent and ethical leadership and too often trivialize millennial engagement in favor ofestablished interests.
With hundreds of lawyers across Philadelphia frustrated by the current political climate, PhillySetGo is hosting a Young Lawyers Night event at the Ritz Carlton Residences at 1414 Penn Square on Thursday, February 23 to engage these talented young professionals and to show them how PhillySetGo is working for them. The event’s golas are to provide a networking event for young lawyers interested in local politics, to create civic engagement opportunities for them, and to expose them to local political and business leaders.
Moving ahead, PhillySetGo seeks to identify candidates in 2018 Comonwealth-level races that represent the views of their young professional constituents and to host open events in the candiates’ Philadelphia neighborhoods. They also intend to financially support a subset of their endorsed Republican and Democratic candidates.
If you’re interested in learning more, reach out to Nolan at Nolan.Tully@drinkerbiddle.com.