September 2003
Annual Report 2003: Washington State Bar Association
by Dick Manning, WSBA President
The scorecard for the association's year October 2002 to September 2003 has some great moments and a few disappointments. We celebrate the former and do not take lightly the latter.
The many achievements are the result of a diligent Board of Governors; excellent bar staff under the guidance of Executive Director Jan Michels; WSBA committees and sections; and last, but never least, the contributions of bar leaders and members of many different associations across the state. Not to be overlooked are the justices of our Supreme Court and other judicial leaders. This collaboration has made possible much of what is set out below.
Legislative Victories
We faced down so-called tort reform in the state Legislature and U.S. Congress, thereby preserving victims' rights and access to justice.
We won the U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding IOLTA, once again preserving access to justice through indigent civil legal services.
We maintained funding for basic court services in spite of severe state revenue shortfalls.
New or Enhanced Bar Programs and Services
We set a new course for the professional development of new lawyers, emphasizing a program of skills training as pre-admission and post-admission requirements.
Disciplinary investigations and public proceedings are now current for the first time in many years. The efforts initiated by the association beginning three years ago ensure that this currency will be maintained in the future.
Long-term-care insurance coverage has been added to the available member insurance benefits we sponsor.
We have invested more than a million dollars in new-technology tools and software to bring state of the art to every aspect of our communications with members and the public. This has also made our website more user friendly, and expanded information to members on access to justice, Law Week, public legal education, and many other programs.
The CLE Department is broadening its outreach to serve lawyers in less-populous communities.
We continue to strive for inclusion and diversity, particularly among our committees and leadership, to reflect the many different cultures of our members through a variety of initiatives, events, and receptions.
A blue-ribbon task force of broadly based representatives of the criminal-justice system is now engaged in surveying a number of issues, particularly representation of juveniles and other defendants in all courts, starting at the municipal court level.
Another task force is examining our Rules of Professional Conduct to make them more current, and with a view to standardizing them with states with which we have reciprocity.
We have consistently supported efforts through the state Legislature in collaboration with the Washington State Medical Association, the Washington State Pharmaceutical Association, and the King County Bar Association to emphasize treatment for drug users and education of the young about the dangers of drugs. This is being accomplished through legislative mandate to the Department of Corrections to reduce incarceration time for offenders and divert the savings to treatment and education. We do this without any suggestion of decriminalizing drug use.
The Board of Governors has approved a recommendation of the Student Loan Task Force to create an LRAP (loan repayment assistance program) to help alleviate the heavy burden of student loans, particularly for those lawyers willing to engage in public-interest lawe.g., indigent civil legal services, prosecutors and public defenders, and so forth.
Fiscal Victories
We have met our goal of restoring a full eight percent reserve for contingencies and emergencies, keeping spending within budget while at the same time maintaining a member license-fee structure that has increased less than the inflationary increases in the cost of living.
We have begun a modest savings program for facilities as the lease of our present staff office expires in 2006.
Bar Relations and Image
We continue to be involved in mutually supportive efforts with our colleagues on the judicial side of the bench in resolving issues and problems through the Board of Judicial Administration and in meetings with representatives of all court levels.
We have successfully met the challenge of providing quick response to the media when charges of judicial bias have been made by a public official. Through our Member and Community Relations Department, we continue to build respectful relationships with the media.
We have approved an increase of staffing for our Ethics Line to lawyers with ethical dilemmas.
Pride in our profession is a theme we continue to promote through various media, including our website at www.wsba.org (click on "Proud to Be a Lawyer").
The Future and Long-Range Strategic Planning
The goals and action plans of the association are under continual review to ensure relevance to our members and the public, now and in the future.
The Board of Governors will be considering vastly improved online case-reporting and legal-research services to be provided to all members at little or no cost.
Bar leadership is currently studying the benefits of including on the Board of Governors one or more nonlawyer members, following the lead of 11 other states that have already done so with great results.
Planning will begin soon for a joint meeting of members of our association in Vancouver, B.C., in August 2005, contemporaneous with the annual meeting of the Canadian Bar Association.
Planning by bench and bar to better our relationships with legislative leaders is under way. Without accomplishing this, we cannot enact a filing-fee increase to restore funding for indigent civil legal services to the 1999 level.
The use of the emerging concept of collaborative law to salve some of the sting of litigation, especially in the family and employment law arenas, will be developed at a symposium in March 2004.
The association has become a critical partner with the courts in working toward stable and adequate court funding.
Conclusion
We are more diverse and more in touch with our members; and we have expanded our interests and sphere of influence into the areas of professional development, criminal defense, support of the judiciary, responsibility to the public (including legal education), and multistate cooperation.
This has been a year that our Board of Governors and members can be proud of.
Thanks to All of You
My term as president of the Washington State Bar Association ends this month. During the last year, many lawyers have approached me to offer sympathy for the amount of time the job demands (somewhere between 100 and 125 hours a month). I cannot tell you how many times I've responded to my colleagues by revealing how satisfying and rewarding it has been to have the privilege of this office. Long ago, I learned that the glass can be half full or half empty; that problems can instead be challenges; and that problem-solving is its own reward. Not all problems lend themselves to solutions that make everybody happy, but facing each one now, the best way we know how, makes for decision-making that puts the problem behind us. So to all of youthis job is the most fun I've ever had professionally. I'm grateful to you and our profession. I am especially thankful to my colleagues on the Board of Governors, and to our staff and our wonderful executive director, Jan Michels.
Sic transit gloria mundi!
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