August 1999

I Came, I Saw, I Read and Read and Read:

What We've Learned in the Long-Range Planning Process

This year the WSBA has been asking members what's on their minds. What about the practice of law keeps you awake at night? What do you like and dislike about law practice in Washington? How could the WSBA be more- or less-useful to you as a lawyer?

"Well, duh," you say, slapping yourself on the forehead. Pretty basic stuff. My bar dues at work, eh?

Sometimes, however, it's useful to get back to basic questions. They help clear the head of presuppositions, of notions long cherished but no longer rooted in the realities of a new time. As a practical matter, basic questions like these underlie how we as lawyers look at our lives and law practices every day. A truism of medical education is that if you shut up and listen to the patient, the patient will tell you what's ailing. Then, armed with that information, you can begin to figure out what to do.

So we've been blizzarding our membership with questionnaires and invitations to Town Meetings. We've had a dozen community gatherings of lawyers, in towns and cities all over the state. Hundreds of lawyers have attended them, with lots to say. We took down what they said and brought it home. We also included a questionnaire in Bar News, in section newsletters, in other WSBA mailings, and on the WSBA website.

We've taken all these responses, plus interviews with WSBA staff, and compiled them. Here's the short version of what we've learned. You want the WSBA to do more, or less, for you, in the process expending more, less or the same amount of resources. You do, and don't, want to pay for the same services, new services, or fewer services with your license fees. For every opinion there seems to be a countervailing view.

But as we've pored over the thousands of responses to our queries and Town Meetings — whole days we've spent sifting and compiling — a number of areas of member interest have emerged. As this issue of Bar News comes out, we are finishing the process of figuring out how to address these issues over the next three to five years.

You've told us you want the WSBA to be open and accessible. You want it to be progressive, responsive to your needs as a lawyer, and heavily service-oriented. You want it to be relevant to you and your practice, whether you are in government, corporate or private practice. You've made it clear you want the WSBA to be financially stable, to give good value for money, to be a statewide voice for lawyers on issues of concern, and to be a well-run, well-managed organization. You've told us you want the WSBA to be a leader, a champion of justice, and advocate for the interests of lawyers, and a diverse, inclusive organization in which all members feel fairly and equally treated. You've expressed concern over how we discipline bad and errant lawyers, and how long it takes.

Across the state, members have expressed concern over the growth of the unauthorized practice of law and why nothing seems to be done about it. Many members feel we should look at finding new revenue sources for Bar operations, ranging from product endorsements and website advertising, to making more WSBA programs pay as they go on a fee-for-service basis.

Members are concerned about conditions of practice, ranging from court reform and improvement, to access to justice for the poor, to improving the readiness of newly admitted lawyers for real-life law practice. Many members report feeling besieged by competition, an increasing disrespect among lawyers for each other, increased challenges in making a living, and bafflement at sorting through the tidal wave of technological change battering our profession. They wonder if we can develop new forms of collegiality and mentoring for an increasingly lonely and fragmented profession.

We've also been reminded that the WSBA is an incredibly diverse organization. Its members range from Seattle lawyers practicing at the forward edge of high-tech buzzwords, to rural lawyers who still use typewriters and know all the lawyers in their counties. There are lawyers who embrace change and think the WSBA should become a constantly self-reinventing organization partnering with its members to help them be good and profitable attorneys. Others consider admission to practice a license to discriminate as they please, inside the profession and out, and regulation be damned.

So it's a fair bet that whatever we come up with, the poet Edward Dahlberg's dictum — "Every decision you make is wrong" — will still hold true for some. As a devoted Dilbert reader, I tend to be skeptical of institutional planning efforts of all sorts. Still, I think the effort will be worthwhile. I've been impressed by the sheer number of lawyers who've participated in the Town Meetings, sent in questionnaires, called, written and e-mailed us with their ideas and concerns. I've been impressed by the way WSBA staff have shown us new ways to do things and provide better service to members. And I've been impressed by how technology, led by e-mail and the World Wide Web, is forcing all organizations to become more nimble, transparent and responsive to the communities they serve. This confluence of the times and circumstances will, I'm confident, ensure that the new century's Washington State Bar Association will be a different, and better, organization, its change driven by what we've learned from you over the course of this year.

A sole practitioner in corporate/commercial law and civil litigation, Seattle lawyer Lindsay Thompson is a Seventh Congressional District member of the WSBA Board of Governors. He was editor of Bar News from 1988 to 1995.

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