September 2004

The Board's Work

BY LINDSAY THOMPSON

Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, July 30-31, 2004

So I flew to Spokane Thursday afternoon and booked a car. Exit airport, stage east, I-90.

Rolled into C d'A about 7 p.m. Walked around the business district, which seems to be a popular activity on summer evenings.

The governors were out doing something gubernatorial, but I don't know what. They had a retreat all day Thursday.

Friday morning the BOG did the executive session drill. I had some breakfast and read the local paper. Page one had the cops nabbing the local church-burglary suspect. A boat and a bluegrass field caught fire. In Post Falls residents raised money for the local man on the U.S. Olympic Team. Senator Kerry was on page 11. You don't see many really local papers anymore.

When the BOG ended their executive session I took a seat on the perimeter of the big BOG table and set up shop. Three of the newly elected governors attended, in addition to most of the incumbents.

I felt badly for them. Since before time learned to count, the July agenda has always been a case of trying to stuff 50 pounds of mud in a 10-pound sack. People come and give long reports. All the stuff that went into the BOG's "Too Hard" file earlier gets pulled out for disposition. Budgets and committee appointments have to be approved.

The ground was thick with presidents, too: President Dave Savage, chairing his next-to-last meeting; President-elect Ron Ward, getting ready to move up; Brooke Taylor, who will be the next president-elect; former presidents Dale Carlisle, Wayne Blair, and Dick Manning.

Manning was first at bat, with the report of the Professional Development Implementation Committee. Created to rationalize some initial training for new WSBA members, the committee made recommendations that included the following requirements for new lawyers:

•  complete a four-credit orientation and skills-training course before admission, to include a variety of practical stuff; then
•  complete 15 hours of approved CLE course in further skills training during the first year after admission; then
•  complete 15 more in the second year.

The committee also recommended a task force to increase opportunities for mentored client representation. The BOG accepted the report and will move to implement the recommendations in the coming year.

Charles Wiggins and Gov. Katie O'Sullivan (she by phone from maternity leave, congratulations, btw) presented a report from the Electronic Legal Research Evaluation Team. After extended and melodramatic negotiations with various providers of legal-research services, Team ELRET recommended a $48,000-a-year deal with Casemaker, a consortium of state bars. Net result — WSBA members would be able to use it for no additional charge.

A few members thought WSBA should aim higher, and get a service with more bells and whistles, like Lexis. Legal research services are a binary lot, however. You either get a modest range of add-ons for a reasonable price, or you get the Cadillac service package and a price to match. The BOG went with Casemaker, and we'll have more details on that as the contract gets negotiated.

An aside: 15 or so years ago WSBA member Ed Hiskes came to the BOG with an idea that case and statute law ought to be freely available to members on discs. Pretty much everyone said, "Huh?" Hiskes was way ahead of the curve on that one, and deserves a round of applause for setting the initial wheels in motion that have led to this deal for WSBA members.

Long-suffering Ellen Dial and Doug Ende, dragged to meeting after meeting as the BOG digested the proposed amendments to the Rules of Professional Conduct in chunks, were with the BOG again to shepherd the last bits over the finish line. The very large package of the complete revision will go the Supreme Court for publication and comment, and can be read on the WSBA website at www.wsba.org/lawyers/groups/ethics2003.

Next up was Governor/Treasurer Bryce Dille, who brought the BOG the 2004-05 budget comfortably in surplus, with an eight percent reserve in hand and another eight percent laid in to cover planning for WSBA's big office move in 2007. New money is included for a diversity advocate position on staff as well as staffing the WSBA Leadership Institute, which is all about training members to move into leadership sooner, and more efficiently, than natural selection seems to allow for now.

The next big report was from Dwight Williams, who chaired a task force on the student-loan crisis. It was created to look at how the enormous law-school loan debt of new members prevents them going into public-service-type work. Williams unveiled a proposal to create a loan-repayment assistance fund for lawyers who do take on public-service jobs. It will have to start small, because when you're talking about helping pay off big debts it takes big money to do it. There'll be a new committee set up to implement the plan, and it looks like Williams will chair that one, too.

After that came Wayne Blair with the Board of Judicial Administration's gloss on the Court Funding Task Force's work. They have various ideas for realizing appropriate court and legal-services funding in Washington, which presently ranks about 50th among the states. More on that to come as well.

Nominations: Clementine Hollingsworth, Seattle; and Joni Montez, Pullman, as nonlawyer members of the WSBA Disciplinary Board. Debi Robson, Seattle, as a nonlawyer member of the WSBA Character and Fitness Committee. Catherine O'Connell, Spokane, as a nonlawyer member of the Washington State Board of Continuing Legal Education. Brian Dano, Nancy Ivarinen, Jane Smith, Scott Smith, Steve Crossland (chair), and Judge Paul Bastine (vice chair) to the Practice of Law Board.

Appointments: Kathleen Hopkins, David Tang, and Ron Ward, Seattle, as ABA delegates.

Approvals: The BOG determined that a resolution proposed for the WSBA annual meeting calling for Indian Law to be added to the bar exam is within the scope of GR 12. The Resolutions Committee will hold a hearing on the matter before the annual meeting in September. The BOG also approved recommendations to amend APR 8(f) to change how foreign attorneys may become in-house counsel. The BOG also approved correcting and operating changes in WSBA Bylaws Article III, Section M, and various sections of the bylaws of the WSBA Animal Law Section.

Things droned on till around 2 p.m. on Saturday, when I had to bail to get a flight home. Took the grip upstairs at a little after 5 p.m. Saturday. Time away: 51 hours. Next meeting, Seattle, September. I'm outta here.

The Board's Work is an unofficial report on meetings and actions of the WSBA's elected governing body. Official minutes, containing matters not covered here, are kept by the WSBA executive director. WSBA members are welcome to attend and speak at all Board meetings.

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