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May 2004Plainant simpleby Lindsay Thompson, Bar News Editor The world is so disgracefully managed. One hardly knows to whom to complain. You do not notice the changes in what is always before you. Last month I recounted the comments of some of you who told our reader survey Bar News sucks. Some said, variously, BN should cover eastern county bars more and westside bars less. We should have book reviews, too (except when we shouldn't). Others said BN is too liberal and conservatives only get published when they write letters complaining about it being too liberal. Still others complained of a perceived leadership bias toward WSTLA. And a variety said we don't run articles they find interesting. These are all things you can fix if you don't like them. For example, any county or specialty bar can have a column in "Around the State" whenever you want. All you have to do is send the stuff in. Westside bias? I think an unintentional one crept into the magazine in recent years, after "Around the State" was abolished. The result was that member news increasingly took the form of press releases and announcements from firms. As many as came in and there was room for got printed. A lot were about Seattle people, although keep in mind, half our members are in the Seattle metro area. But we also got a lot from big firms that can afford PR firms to crank the stuff out for them. When I returned 18 months ago I brought back "Around the State" because it decentralizes how your news of moves and advancements gets reported — from you and your communities, where it should originate, and not from the Bar office. So I give half a mark for that plaint and note I am working on it. Let me know how I'm doing. Want more book reviews? Write some. Or not. Opinion seems to be divided. I'm still thinking about this one. Magazine's too liberal? Often it's hard to tell what that means. My experience has been it's members beefing about WSBA positions and programs they think are goo-goo sociology experiments, like supporting legal services for the poor. Overall, conservatives do seem to appear mostly in the letters section because mostly all we get from them is letters complaining about stuff. So write something else. Keep in mind, last year I challenged conservative critics of legal services to write in and describe a politically correct alternative. All I got was a letter to the editor, complaining about the article being too liberal. Re the WSTLA thing, I have no idea how many BOG members are WSLTA members, or have been. It would be boring and take a long time to find out, and wouldn't prove anything anyway. Suffice it to say, this year, as usual, several seats on the BOG went unopposed. If you think governance is too liberal, run for it. (Note: BN can't actually do anything about governance. I offer these comments as a public service, and to try and address all the criticisms we got.) Some readers say Bar News is "just advertising for Super Lawyers and their firms." Well, duh. We sell ads to pay for the magazine. Some of the Super Lawyers1 and their firms buy ads. Get the BOG to give me a million bucks to run the magazine next year and I can eliminate ads. A variation on this complaint is that the magazine is written by and large for "the large mega firms and has little or nothing to do with the sole practitioner." I went through the substantive articles we ran in 2003 and found seven by big-firm lawyers; 10 by small-firm lawyers; and two by sole practitioners.2 We had one by a tribal lawyer; one from a corporate counsel; three by nonprofit lawyers; one by a nonprofit executive; six by government lawyers; seven by other professionals or academics; one by a Canadian lawyer; one by three tribal judges; one by a court commissioner; one by a superior court judge; and one by Chief Justice Alexander. I call that a pretty good cross-section. Keep the cards and letters coming. ____________________________
1 In the spirit of the times, I reveal the following. I was a contributing editor at Washington Law & Politics for several years after I left Bar News in 1995. The founder and editors are friends. They asked me to write one article, and last year I noticed they dropped me from the masthead. I'm also a Super Lawyer by whatever means such boons are conferred. This year I was asked to be on the "blue ribbon panel" evaluating people nominated. They sent me a long list that looked like a Martindale-Hubbell rating form. I was busy getting ready for a trial and didn't get it sent in on time, so I expect I'll be asked to return my ribbon. Oh, by the way, I was a contributing editor at Trial News for a while, too. I wrote a series of news stories for them and then decided I didn't want to write anything for a while. So I quit. 2 The biggest firm I ever worked for was the Cowlitz County Prosecutor's Office. Since 1993 I've been in a firm which has ranged in size from one to four lawyers. |
