May 2007

An Environment for Involvement

New WSBA Executive Director Paula Littlewood on Advancing the Needs of the Profession

Paula Littlewood, WSBA Executive Director

With great pleasure, I write this column as the eighth executive director to serve the Bar Association in Washington state. When the Bar Association first formed some 120 years ago, it was a voluntary organization with just 35 members — a far cry from the more than 30,000 attorneys we have today in a complex and dynamic mandatory bar!

My own involvement with the WSBA (aside from being a member) commenced when I was an assistant dean at the University of Washington School of Law. I felt strongly that members of the law school community should be involved in the work of the Bar, so I applied to serve on the Editorial Advisory Board for Bar News and on the Legislative Committee. I sat on both committees for three years and found the work both engaging and invaluable to my position at the law school. I also became engaged in the work of the King County Bar Association and the access to justice community through the Access to Justice Board and its various committees.

Yet as involved as I was in the work of WSBA and other entities in the legal community, I was quite surprised when I received a copy of the WSBA’s organizational chart as an applicant for the deputy director position four years ago. My first reaction in reviewing it was, “Who are all these people?!” I think for most of us, our interaction with the Bar centers around the yearly licensing process, the reporting of CLE credits every three years, and perhaps joining one of the sections or serving as a volunteer on a standing committee or special task force. I know I had never thought much beyond these facets of my Bar Association — and I was “involved.”

Having worked in the Bar now for the last several years, I have a much better idea of who “all these people” are — indeed, now they are my valued colleagues — and I have much more of an appreciation for all the many things a mandatory bar must handle in order to serve simultaneously as the regulator of the profession and the voice of the profession. As a self-regulated profession — importantly, the only profession in the state allowed to regulate itself — we must advance the needs of the profession while ensuring it is not done at the expense of the very constituency we represent as our clients and protect as our community. Maintaining this balance and proving every day that we are not simply “the fox guarding the henhouse” takes a dedicated board, a committed staff, and an involved membership. WSBA has all three.

Given the competing demands and wide array of activities in such a complex and diverse organization, many asked me throughout the search process why I wanted to become the Bar’s next executive director. There are two clear reasons for me: one, the opportunity to collaborate with and lead the 140 highly motivated and intellectually engaged members of the WSBA staff; and two, my belief that the WSBA should be forefront in the community by shaping dialogue on the importance of diversity, access to justice, and a fair and impartial judiciary.

These issues, embodied in the WSBA’s strategic goals set by the Board of Governors, constitute the underpinnings of our justice system. However, we have much work to do in these arenas: Despite efforts to diversify our profession, our membership still does not reflect the composition of the community we seek to serve; the Washington State Supreme Court’s 2003 Civil Legal Needs Study concluded that low-income people face more than 85 percent of their legal problems without help from an attorney; and the attack on the judiciary has reached unprecedented levels.

As the chief organization for the 30,000 lawyers in this state, we need to be leading on these issues and creating forums where our membership and the community can convene to elicit and engage the various viewpoints. As a mandatory bar association, the types of issues upon which the WSBA may take advocacy positions is limited. But given the breadth and depth of the knowledge of those in our ranks, we certainly can, and must, raise the issues that our membership and society need to be addressing to maintain the health of our democracy.

Importantly, in order to make an impact in these areas, I believe the WSBA must be clear in its focus and must communicate that focus consistently to the varied stakeholders. Organizations as complex and large as the WSBA can easily fall prey to the folly of trying to be all things to all people, a scenario that quickly dissipates resources and leads to ineffectiveness. Working as partners, the staff and Board can ensure the organization carries out these goals in a strategic and relevant manner. Relevancy alone, however, cannot be the goal. Relevancy is born of a focused organization working to accomplish meaningful results for both its membership and the broader community.

Guiding and informing the goals of our organization takes more than a dedicated Board and a committed staff. WSBA’s governance must be infused by the engagement of the membership. While hundreds of volunteers currently dedicate countless hours to the WSBA, to many, the WSBA remains a faceless bureaucracy. Thus, it is imperative that access points for getting involved are clear. For example, if diversity is a member’s passion, the work of the Committee for Diversity should be visible to all, thereby creating an environment where involvement is open to any. Likewise, with access to justice, the multitude of programs and committees under the WSBA umbrella and Access to Justice Board should be highlighted, so involvement by those who are interested is easy. The preceding examples are just a few of the avenues available for participation; the sections, along with a multitude of other boards, committees, and task forces offer many more opportunities.

I am proud to be a member of the Washington State Bar Association and even more honored to serve as its executive director. I look forward to working together to lead our Association into the next chapter of its story, and I hope you will find avenues for exploring your own passions and becoming more engaged with your Association along the way. 

Paula Littlewood is the WSBA executive director and can be reached at paulal@wsba.org.