Greetings from Jekyll Island, GA, where the State Bar of Georgia is conducting its Fall Board of Governors meeting ahead of its Georgia/Florida Football Game Tailgate Party in Jacksonville, FL and here at the hotel for those who don’t have tickets.
I managed to leave my Board Book, that contains the agenda and supporting information, at home. However, the agenda with links to most of the materials is available on line, albeit in a somewhat clumsy pdf format.
http://www.gabar.org/news/fall_2011_board_of_governors_meeting_oct_28-30/
(Unfortunately, the link to the proposed disciplinary rule change leads only to hieroglyphics, at least on my computer. So, I will let the Fulton County Daily Report provide you with info on this item. http://www.dailyreportonline.com/Editorial/News/singleEdit.asp?l=101389727001)
If you take a look at the agenda, you will note that the “action” items are not separated out for ready reference. But a handy email sent out to board members Monday states what the action items are. Beyond routine consent agenda items such as approval of the minutes and appointments to the Commission on Continuing Lawyer Competency, the action items include votes to endorse various legislative proposals and items in the state budget, as well as a proposed change to the disciplinary rules relating to imputed conflicts of interests relating to public defenders.
Legislation
The legislative portion of the agenda is notable in part for what is missing. At the previous Board of Governors meeting there was an hour-long presentation on the overhaul of the Juvenile Code, ostensibly to inform board members for a vote this fall. (It’s a shame they didn’t get continuing legal education accreditation for the presentation.) However, this item has been pushed back to January at the request of Representative Wendall Willard because various stake holders are trying to resolve differences over some aspects of the bill.
What is on our agenda is HR 977 and HB 648, which are a constitutional amendment and enabling legislation to require that certain fines, fees and interest in IOLTA accounts that already are designated by the General Assembly to be used for indigent defense actually be dedicated to that purpose. Historically, more money is collected from these funding sources than is appropriated to indigent defense and the additional funds have gone to the state’s general treasury.
Another proposal is to amend Title 9, Chapter 9 of the Georgia Code to add the International Commercial Arbitration Code. These changes would make Georgia law more compatible with international arbitration rules, while retaining much of the language of the current state law, that is familiar to Georgia lawyers.
Three other legislative items have to do with funding requests for ICJE, the Resource Center and for victims of domestic violence.
ICJE is seeking $461,789, which covers only operating expenses and staff salaries and NOT registration for judges at the conferences and travel expenses.
The Georgia Appellate Practice and Educational Resource Center, Inc., which provides post-conviction representation in death penalty cases, is seeking a return to its baseline funding of $800,000, which it received from FY 2002 to FY 2009. Since that time, the legislature has slashed funding for the Resource Center to the low of $565,500 for FY 2012.
The Committee to Promote Inclusion in the Profession (PIP) seeks $2.5 million for civil legal services for low-income victims of domestic violence.
Here’s the full agenda:
STATE BAR OF GEORGIA
239th BOARD OF GOVERNORS MEETING
Saturday, October 29, 2011
8:30 a.m.-12 p.m.
Jekyll Island Club
Jekyll Island, Georgia
1) ADMINISTRATION
a) Welcome and Call to Order: Ken Shigley, President
b) Pledge of Allegiance: Eric Ballinger
c) Invocation: Donna Stanaland Hix
d) Recognition of Former Presidents and Special Guests, Judges: Ken Shigley
e) Roll Call (by signature): Patrise Perkins-Hooker, Secretary
2) CONSENT AGENDA
(Unanimous consent items. Any item may be moved from Consent Agenda to Action Items agenda upon request of any member of the Board of Governors)
a) Minutes of the 238th Meeting of the Board of Governors: Patrise Perkins-Hooker
b) Executive Committee Minutes (information): Patrise Perkins-Hooker
(1) August 11, 2011
(2) September 8, 2011
c) Future Meetings Schedule (information): Ken Shigley
d) Commission on Continuing Lawyer Competency Appointments: Ken Shigley
(1) Reappointment of Rita A. Sheffey, 2012-2014
(2) Appointment of Gerald Edenfield to replace James B. Franklin, 2012-2014
3) SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS
a) Thomas R. Burnside Excellence in Bar Leadership Award to Bob Reinhardt (1929-2011): Ken Shigley
4) LEGISLATION
a) ACL Mtg, 9/21/11 - New Legislative Proposals: Chuck Clay, Chair; Nick Moraitakis, Vice Chair 8
(1) Indigent Defense Committee: Bryan Cavan
Dedicated Funding for GPDSC & PDs
(2) Judicial Procedure & Administration Committee: Susan Edlein
ICJE Funding
(3) Resource Center: Brian Kammer
Resource Center Funding
(4) Committee to Promote Inclusion in the Profession: Javoyne Hicks White
Victims of Domestic Violence Funding
(5) Dispute Resolution Section: Ray Chadwick
Georgia International Commercial Arbitration Code
b) HB 100, Pilot Tax Court (legislation tabled): Chuck Clay, ACL Chair
c) 2011 Legislative Carry-Over Positions (info): Tom Boller
(1) HB 129 - Transfer Fee Covenants
(2) HB 46 - Uniform Depositions Act
(3) HB 64 - Attorney's Fees in Limited Circumstances
(4) HB 31 - Extending Attorney Client Privilege
5) DISCIPLINARY RULES
a) Rule 1.10 (d) Public Defender Imputed Conflicts: John Haubenreich, Paula Frederick
6) INFORMATIONAL REPORTS
a) President's Report: Ken Shigley
(1) Proposed Juvenile Code (future legislative item)
(2) SOLACE Judge William Rumer
(3) New Photo ID Cards
(4) Website Redesign
(5) Garnishment Answers, UPL Advisory Opinion 2010-1
b) Treasurer's Report: Buck Ruffin, Treasurer
c) Young Lawyers Division: Stephanie Kirijan, YLD President
d) ABA Report: Allan Tanenbaum, Linda Klein
e) Chief Justice's Commission on Professionalism, Nominations for 2012 Justice Robert Benham Awards for Community Service: Ken Shigley
7) WRITTEN REPORTS
a) Military Legal Assistance
b) Law Practice Management
c) Consumer Assistance Program
d) BASICS
e) Legal Services Corporation
f) Communications Department
(1) with members
(2) with the public
g) Office of the General Counsel
h) Transition into Law Practice Program
i) Administrative Office of the Courts, Atlanta Judicial Circuit, Superior Court Workload Assessment
8) CLOSING
a) Old Business: Ken Shigley
b) New Business: Ken Shigley
c) Questions/Answers; Comments/Suggestions: Officers, Executive Committee, Executive Director, General Counsel; Board of Governors
d) Adjournment: Ken Shigley
Friday, October 28, 2011
Friday, September 2, 2011
Judge Workman's Remarks to the 2008 Bench and Bar Dinner
Senior Judge Anne Workman was one of the DeKalb Bar's female pioneers and was an inspiration and mentor to many young lawyers and judges over the years. In March 2008, she was the DeKalb Bar Association's keynote speaker at the Bench and Bar dinner. Here is the text of her remarks:
A Curmudgeon’s View from the Last Century Forward
By Chief Judge Anne Workman, Dekalb Superior Court
(Keynote Speaker for the DeKalb Bar Association Bench and Bar Dinner March 2008)
When I was approached by Noah and Mike to speak tonight, I was told in no uncertain terms that this speaking opportunity was only being offered under the strict condition that the speech not last more than twenty minutes. I tell you this to allay any fears or flashbacks that you may harbor about being kept here into the night. I was somewhat surprised to be asked to speak as a reason to select me did not immediately come to mind and the topic was to be how the bar in DeKalb has evolved in the thirty five years that I have been a member.
Upon reflection, I realized that Imust be the oldest living woman member of the DeKalb Bar. When I joined this organization in 1973, there were two women lawyers who were members - Sara Frances McDonald and Margaret Farleigh - both of whom have since passed away. There are those here tonight who have been members of this bar longer than I, but they are all men. The most striking evolution of this bar to which I have been witness is the sea change relative to the presence of and participation by women attorneys in the courtrooms and on the benches in our courthouse. It is this transformation that is the most personal and directly known to me, because along with other women from those times, I have lived it. And because I have lived it, I can speak to that journey.
The presence and acceptance of women in our profession today tends to make one overlook the lack of presence and the lack of acceptance of women in our profession thirty five years ago not only here but throughout the country. When I graduated from Emory Law School less than ten percent of the class of 1972 - one hundred in number - were women as were less than four per cent of all lawyers in the nation. The downtown law firms would come to the Emory campus for employment interviews with the male students, but they would not interview the women students at all. And Emory allowed that to occur, finally changing this practice a few years after my class graduated. The criminal law students at Emory had always been allowed to do a ‘ride-along’ with the DeKalb police as part of the course until my first year at Emory when we women students were told that we would not be allowed on the ‘ride-along’ ostensibly because the wives of the police officers did not want us in the patrol cars with their husbands for the eight hour shift. It was never made clear to us exactly what they thought we would or could be doing in a patrol car driving around on shift. It was just not suitable. I suppose that we put up with all these policies and others which were worse because we felt we had no other recourse. We were desperate to be there and to become attorneys; we were a only a handful in number; and so we just hunkered down and fought to graduate as high in the class as we could to demonstrate our worth and our commitment to the profession as well as our revenge served cold.
Once in practice, women lawyers found themselves considered by many in the profession as oddities. Our male colleagues were not certain what to do with us or even what to call us. If they were trying to be polite and courteous, they called us “little lady”; if they were not, they called us “lawyerette.” When the bar newsletter announcing this speech tonight crossed my desk, I must admit that in looking at the announcement my mind regressed to the early days. I thought, “not bad for a lawyerette.”
I have always loved criminal law and I wanted to be a prosecutor when I graduated from Emory. I approached the district attorney at the time about employment in his office. He told me in a very matter of fact manner that there were some places a woman did not belong and that a courtroom was one of them. But that was alright because I could have a baby and he couldn’t. It was not the reasoning I had hoped to hear; but in one way it was helpful as it provided a considerable amount of focus and direction to me to prove him wrong. You take motivation where you find it. It took twelve years, but in 1985 when I was sworn in as a state court judge, I saw him and reminded him of our long-ago conversation. I remarked that I must belong in a courtroom now because it had my name on it. By that time and place we had both evolved a fair distance as he was a justice on the Supreme Court, and he laughed about his earlier comments.
By great and good fortune I was hired to be the solicitor at the DeKalb Juvenile Court in 1973 by Chief Judge Dennis F. Jones. At that time the juvenile court’s solicitor’s office was not attached to the district attorney’s office; the prosecutors were hired by the court. Judge Jones became very much a mentor to me and patiently and doggedly taught me how to be a trial lawyer. He was to me what judge peeler was to many of you as a teacher of our craft. Much of all that I will ever know about being a trial lawyer I learned from Judge Jones. Much of what I know about being a trial judge I learned from his example. His was a major influence on my career. Years after my time at the juvenile court I asked Judge Jones why he hired me as solicitor, thinking he would tell me he was impressed by my potential or my resume or something quasi-complimentary. He told me that his first solicitor who was Tom Witcher had stayed at the court for eighteen months. He reasoned that a woman might stay longer than a man would, so he decided to hire a woman. I was highly insulted and told him that I could not believe that was his reason for hiring me. He then asked me how long I had stayed as solicitor to which I had to reply, “six years.” “I rest my case,” he said. He was right as he almost always was. I prefer to think the explanation may be that women employees tend to be more loyal.
The DeKalb police were not as thrilled with my employment as I was and were distressed to have to depend on a woman prosecutor for the first time. It was an uphill battle for a long time. In one memorable conversation with a twenty year police detective, when I was explaining how severe the evidentiary problems were for admission he loudly inquired as to whether I had a law degree. I responded by inquiring whether he had any police training, and the conversation went rapidly downhill from there. The command staff of the police department wanted me replaced by “someone they could relate to” (also known as a man). They asked Judge Jones to fire me.
Judge Jones refused and told them to get over it, which I am sure is not the response for which they had hoped. It took many months during which the police and I had to work together in bringing their cases to court before we quit circling each other in the ring. But eventually I think we all realized that I wanted to win their cases as much as they wanted to win them and that we were by necessity interdependent on each other to get that accomplished.
In time all of us grew up and learned something about the concept of teamwork. I suppose that in the process I may have changed some minds at the police department about my legal ability. When as a magistrate I was running for the State Court bench in 1984, I went to then Chief Bobby Burgess to ask for his support in the race. Although he politely told me that ‘they’ did not think it was time for an elected woman judge in DeKalb, if ‘they’ had to have one, ‘they’ wanted it to be me. I decided to take his remark in the spirit in which I think it was offered, and in thanking him told him that I hoped ‘they’ would have to have one. And ‘they’ did. In fact, ‘they’ had to have two of them because Carol Hunstein was elected to the Superior Court that same year.
Sometimes terrific career opportunities just come your way by sheer, blind luck. And sometimes being a woman attorney in the right place at the right time will get you the job. That is how I got my first judgeship. In 1982 there was an opening for a part time judge in the magistrate division of the DeKalb Recorder’s Court. This was back in the day when the part time slots were for the weekend and the shifts were twelve hours long, either twelve noon to twelve midnight or twelve midnight to twelve noon. The judge worked out of the tiny line-up room in the basement of the old police department building. There was no clerical staff, there was no staff at all, just the part time magistrate alone with a table, a chair and the warrant book. I was in private practice at the time and had not even heard about the opening. Another woman attorney in town called the chief judge of the recorder’s court and inquired about applying for the opening. The chief judge very courteously told her that women could not apply for the position due to the safety issues involved with being there alone for extended hours during the shift. He told her that it was the policy of DeKalb County not to hire women for this position. She asked if he would put that in writing which he agreed to do.
He sent her a letter on his official stationery confirming that it was the policy of DeKalb county not to hire women for this position. When she subsequently made inquiry to then County Commission Chairman Manuel Maloof as to the correctness of this statement of DeKalb county hiring policy, those of you who knew Manuel Maloof can guess his reaction. He called up the chief judge of the Recorder’s Court, whom he had appointed, and in no uncertain language he ordered the judge to write this applicant another official letter telling her that he had mis-spoken and that it was not the policy of the county to not hire women. The chief judge did as he was instructed and sent another letter in which he opined that he had mis-spoken. Furthermore, it was not the policy of DeKalb county to not hire women; however, it was the practice. Very soon thereafter the chief judge retired or was retired, no one knows for certain.
In retrospect I believe a command decision was made at the highest levels of county government that given the two official letters floating around out there about this position, a woman had to be appointed to this position whether they wanted to or had planned to or not. I did not even know about all this controversy or about the position and had not thought about applying. But Cal Leipold, my Emory classmate, called me up and asked if I would like to apply for this part time Recorder’s Court judgeship. He explained they were looking for women to apply. I jumped at the chance given that being a woman attorney had not in the past generally been an asset in obtaining employment. Cal Leipold, Mike Maloof, and other friends and classmates helped me through the political process and went to bat for me, and I was appointed to the Magistrate Division of the Recorder’s Court. It was my start on the bench and paved the way for my becoming a full-time magistrate, chief magistrate, and trial judge.
The landscape is so vastly different today in DeKalb. There are scores of women lawyers in the courtrooms and on the bench. We no longer stand out in lonely little clusters of women attorneys. Instead, we blend into the mosaic of all the attorneys in the profession. We belong in these law offices; we belong in these courtrooms. We belong in the practice of law. We have proved that to ourselves and to the profession. I have lived my life in the courtroom either as a trial lawyer or a trial judge. I do not have first hand experience as to the status of parity for women lawyers in law firms or in academia or in the overall practice of law. I leave that to people who have that experience from which to form a judgment. But I firmly believe that in the courtroom women lawyers have an equal footing with all other lawyers in the room. I see it every day. It is a wonderful thing to see and is an affirmation of years of collective hard work and mighty effort by all women in the profession to learn our craft throughout these past decades.
The other evolution in our profession that I have observed is not as positive. In days of old we knew each other better, we either worked with or opposed each other all the time in cases, and we shared a camaraderie that seems missing today. Of course, it was a kinder, gentler time. If your office was in DeKalb, you generally worked mostly in DeKalb with occasional forays to Fulton County or to federal court. We saw each other in court all the time at calendar calls, there were fewer judges in number and we knew them and they knew us in more depth than we seem to now. Today we practice all over the extended metropolitan area, roaming through multiple counties and circuits, and we are together in the same places less often than we once were.
Our word was our bond. If we told opposing counsel we would do something or would agree to something, we did it; there was no reason not to rely on that representation. Letters to counsel confirming conversations and agreements are a fairly recent development, but now are apparently necessary. Real discovery disputes were rare before. Now they are often epic battles that exhaust everyone who deals with them. We worked hard but there was also time for fun in the practice. There were real characters back then - lawyers who were always intriguing to watch - never too over the top - but very colorful: Rooster Armstead, Vickie Little, Mobley Childs, Reuben Garland, Edward Wheeler before he assumed the bench (and arguably after he took the bench) to name a few. We don’t see their ilk today. There were also judges who were very colorful and some who probably were too over the top. Great minds may differ at to whether or not their type is missed today.
In the past we were a profession. We were proud of our craft, and our clients believed we served their interests. We as a profession were admired by the general public. We had time to think, to reason, to keep up with the changing law, and to enjoy interaction with our comrades in the practice. We respected the lawyers opposing us on cases and we had a good working relationship with them.
Today sadly we seem to have become a trade. Our craftsmanship is not what it once was. Our clients do not routinely believe we serve their interest. We are not admired by the public in general. Management of our workload overwhelms us. We are beset by ever-increasing overhead, by an overload of technological devices that tether us to the office around the clock, by unhappy and at times unmanageable clients, by a surfeit of mind numbing work just to keep afloat, and by a general malaise brought about by the combination of all these factors. Our work is not judged by its intrinsic legal value, but by the value of its hourly rate.
We need to change this direction. We need to recoup the best of our past values in the profession and adapt them to the current realities we face in the practice. We need to become a profession again. We need to become craftsmen again. We need to associate socially in our professional organizations more often as we are doing tonight. We need to return to the concept of an attorney that made each of us want to become an attorney. For many of those in my generation the lawyer we most wanted to be was Atticus Finch of To Kill a Mockingbird. I still want to be Atticus Finch over forty years later.
We need to be proud of ourselves again. And we need to figure out among ourselves the answers to how we can accomplish this. I have no magic answers or solutions for these problems. We all have our individual thoughts about what has gone wrong and perhaps why it has gone wrong. But it will take our collective wisdom as to how we can take back our profession before we can find the answers and the solutions we must have. We just have to want to change our future enough. We have to summon the collective will to return to our profession’s core values and beliefs before we are beyond returning there.
In closing, please allow me a personal comment. This November I will have worked for DeKalb County for thirty-five years in four courts, including twenty-six years on the bench. I thank you for all the years of your support, encouragement, camaraderie, kindness, forbearance, and friendship during my sojourn through the profession both as an attorney and as a judge. I thank you for your votes which placed me in office and kept me there. I appreciate these things more than I can possibly say. After my first election, I promised that I would try to be worthy of your trust. I hope - I very much hope - I have fulfilled that promise.
A Curmudgeon’s View from the Last Century Forward
By Chief Judge Anne Workman, Dekalb Superior Court
(Keynote Speaker for the DeKalb Bar Association Bench and Bar Dinner March 2008)
When I was approached by Noah and Mike to speak tonight, I was told in no uncertain terms that this speaking opportunity was only being offered under the strict condition that the speech not last more than twenty minutes. I tell you this to allay any fears or flashbacks that you may harbor about being kept here into the night. I was somewhat surprised to be asked to speak as a reason to select me did not immediately come to mind and the topic was to be how the bar in DeKalb has evolved in the thirty five years that I have been a member.
Upon reflection, I realized that Imust be the oldest living woman member of the DeKalb Bar. When I joined this organization in 1973, there were two women lawyers who were members - Sara Frances McDonald and Margaret Farleigh - both of whom have since passed away. There are those here tonight who have been members of this bar longer than I, but they are all men. The most striking evolution of this bar to which I have been witness is the sea change relative to the presence of and participation by women attorneys in the courtrooms and on the benches in our courthouse. It is this transformation that is the most personal and directly known to me, because along with other women from those times, I have lived it. And because I have lived it, I can speak to that journey.
The presence and acceptance of women in our profession today tends to make one overlook the lack of presence and the lack of acceptance of women in our profession thirty five years ago not only here but throughout the country. When I graduated from Emory Law School less than ten percent of the class of 1972 - one hundred in number - were women as were less than four per cent of all lawyers in the nation. The downtown law firms would come to the Emory campus for employment interviews with the male students, but they would not interview the women students at all. And Emory allowed that to occur, finally changing this practice a few years after my class graduated. The criminal law students at Emory had always been allowed to do a ‘ride-along’ with the DeKalb police as part of the course until my first year at Emory when we women students were told that we would not be allowed on the ‘ride-along’ ostensibly because the wives of the police officers did not want us in the patrol cars with their husbands for the eight hour shift. It was never made clear to us exactly what they thought we would or could be doing in a patrol car driving around on shift. It was just not suitable. I suppose that we put up with all these policies and others which were worse because we felt we had no other recourse. We were desperate to be there and to become attorneys; we were a only a handful in number; and so we just hunkered down and fought to graduate as high in the class as we could to demonstrate our worth and our commitment to the profession as well as our revenge served cold.
Once in practice, women lawyers found themselves considered by many in the profession as oddities. Our male colleagues were not certain what to do with us or even what to call us. If they were trying to be polite and courteous, they called us “little lady”; if they were not, they called us “lawyerette.” When the bar newsletter announcing this speech tonight crossed my desk, I must admit that in looking at the announcement my mind regressed to the early days. I thought, “not bad for a lawyerette.”
I have always loved criminal law and I wanted to be a prosecutor when I graduated from Emory. I approached the district attorney at the time about employment in his office. He told me in a very matter of fact manner that there were some places a woman did not belong and that a courtroom was one of them. But that was alright because I could have a baby and he couldn’t. It was not the reasoning I had hoped to hear; but in one way it was helpful as it provided a considerable amount of focus and direction to me to prove him wrong. You take motivation where you find it. It took twelve years, but in 1985 when I was sworn in as a state court judge, I saw him and reminded him of our long-ago conversation. I remarked that I must belong in a courtroom now because it had my name on it. By that time and place we had both evolved a fair distance as he was a justice on the Supreme Court, and he laughed about his earlier comments.
By great and good fortune I was hired to be the solicitor at the DeKalb Juvenile Court in 1973 by Chief Judge Dennis F. Jones. At that time the juvenile court’s solicitor’s office was not attached to the district attorney’s office; the prosecutors were hired by the court. Judge Jones became very much a mentor to me and patiently and doggedly taught me how to be a trial lawyer. He was to me what judge peeler was to many of you as a teacher of our craft. Much of all that I will ever know about being a trial lawyer I learned from Judge Jones. Much of what I know about being a trial judge I learned from his example. His was a major influence on my career. Years after my time at the juvenile court I asked Judge Jones why he hired me as solicitor, thinking he would tell me he was impressed by my potential or my resume or something quasi-complimentary. He told me that his first solicitor who was Tom Witcher had stayed at the court for eighteen months. He reasoned that a woman might stay longer than a man would, so he decided to hire a woman. I was highly insulted and told him that I could not believe that was his reason for hiring me. He then asked me how long I had stayed as solicitor to which I had to reply, “six years.” “I rest my case,” he said. He was right as he almost always was. I prefer to think the explanation may be that women employees tend to be more loyal.
The DeKalb police were not as thrilled with my employment as I was and were distressed to have to depend on a woman prosecutor for the first time. It was an uphill battle for a long time. In one memorable conversation with a twenty year police detective, when I was explaining how severe the evidentiary problems were for admission he loudly inquired as to whether I had a law degree. I responded by inquiring whether he had any police training, and the conversation went rapidly downhill from there. The command staff of the police department wanted me replaced by “someone they could relate to” (also known as a man). They asked Judge Jones to fire me.
Judge Jones refused and told them to get over it, which I am sure is not the response for which they had hoped. It took many months during which the police and I had to work together in bringing their cases to court before we quit circling each other in the ring. But eventually I think we all realized that I wanted to win their cases as much as they wanted to win them and that we were by necessity interdependent on each other to get that accomplished.
In time all of us grew up and learned something about the concept of teamwork. I suppose that in the process I may have changed some minds at the police department about my legal ability. When as a magistrate I was running for the State Court bench in 1984, I went to then Chief Bobby Burgess to ask for his support in the race. Although he politely told me that ‘they’ did not think it was time for an elected woman judge in DeKalb, if ‘they’ had to have one, ‘they’ wanted it to be me. I decided to take his remark in the spirit in which I think it was offered, and in thanking him told him that I hoped ‘they’ would have to have one. And ‘they’ did. In fact, ‘they’ had to have two of them because Carol Hunstein was elected to the Superior Court that same year.
Sometimes terrific career opportunities just come your way by sheer, blind luck. And sometimes being a woman attorney in the right place at the right time will get you the job. That is how I got my first judgeship. In 1982 there was an opening for a part time judge in the magistrate division of the DeKalb Recorder’s Court. This was back in the day when the part time slots were for the weekend and the shifts were twelve hours long, either twelve noon to twelve midnight or twelve midnight to twelve noon. The judge worked out of the tiny line-up room in the basement of the old police department building. There was no clerical staff, there was no staff at all, just the part time magistrate alone with a table, a chair and the warrant book. I was in private practice at the time and had not even heard about the opening. Another woman attorney in town called the chief judge of the recorder’s court and inquired about applying for the opening. The chief judge very courteously told her that women could not apply for the position due to the safety issues involved with being there alone for extended hours during the shift. He told her that it was the policy of DeKalb County not to hire women for this position. She asked if he would put that in writing which he agreed to do.
He sent her a letter on his official stationery confirming that it was the policy of DeKalb county not to hire women for this position. When she subsequently made inquiry to then County Commission Chairman Manuel Maloof as to the correctness of this statement of DeKalb county hiring policy, those of you who knew Manuel Maloof can guess his reaction. He called up the chief judge of the Recorder’s Court, whom he had appointed, and in no uncertain language he ordered the judge to write this applicant another official letter telling her that he had mis-spoken and that it was not the policy of the county to not hire women. The chief judge did as he was instructed and sent another letter in which he opined that he had mis-spoken. Furthermore, it was not the policy of DeKalb county to not hire women; however, it was the practice. Very soon thereafter the chief judge retired or was retired, no one knows for certain.
In retrospect I believe a command decision was made at the highest levels of county government that given the two official letters floating around out there about this position, a woman had to be appointed to this position whether they wanted to or had planned to or not. I did not even know about all this controversy or about the position and had not thought about applying. But Cal Leipold, my Emory classmate, called me up and asked if I would like to apply for this part time Recorder’s Court judgeship. He explained they were looking for women to apply. I jumped at the chance given that being a woman attorney had not in the past generally been an asset in obtaining employment. Cal Leipold, Mike Maloof, and other friends and classmates helped me through the political process and went to bat for me, and I was appointed to the Magistrate Division of the Recorder’s Court. It was my start on the bench and paved the way for my becoming a full-time magistrate, chief magistrate, and trial judge.
The landscape is so vastly different today in DeKalb. There are scores of women lawyers in the courtrooms and on the bench. We no longer stand out in lonely little clusters of women attorneys. Instead, we blend into the mosaic of all the attorneys in the profession. We belong in these law offices; we belong in these courtrooms. We belong in the practice of law. We have proved that to ourselves and to the profession. I have lived my life in the courtroom either as a trial lawyer or a trial judge. I do not have first hand experience as to the status of parity for women lawyers in law firms or in academia or in the overall practice of law. I leave that to people who have that experience from which to form a judgment. But I firmly believe that in the courtroom women lawyers have an equal footing with all other lawyers in the room. I see it every day. It is a wonderful thing to see and is an affirmation of years of collective hard work and mighty effort by all women in the profession to learn our craft throughout these past decades.
The other evolution in our profession that I have observed is not as positive. In days of old we knew each other better, we either worked with or opposed each other all the time in cases, and we shared a camaraderie that seems missing today. Of course, it was a kinder, gentler time. If your office was in DeKalb, you generally worked mostly in DeKalb with occasional forays to Fulton County or to federal court. We saw each other in court all the time at calendar calls, there were fewer judges in number and we knew them and they knew us in more depth than we seem to now. Today we practice all over the extended metropolitan area, roaming through multiple counties and circuits, and we are together in the same places less often than we once were.
Our word was our bond. If we told opposing counsel we would do something or would agree to something, we did it; there was no reason not to rely on that representation. Letters to counsel confirming conversations and agreements are a fairly recent development, but now are apparently necessary. Real discovery disputes were rare before. Now they are often epic battles that exhaust everyone who deals with them. We worked hard but there was also time for fun in the practice. There were real characters back then - lawyers who were always intriguing to watch - never too over the top - but very colorful: Rooster Armstead, Vickie Little, Mobley Childs, Reuben Garland, Edward Wheeler before he assumed the bench (and arguably after he took the bench) to name a few. We don’t see their ilk today. There were also judges who were very colorful and some who probably were too over the top. Great minds may differ at to whether or not their type is missed today.
In the past we were a profession. We were proud of our craft, and our clients believed we served their interests. We as a profession were admired by the general public. We had time to think, to reason, to keep up with the changing law, and to enjoy interaction with our comrades in the practice. We respected the lawyers opposing us on cases and we had a good working relationship with them.
Today sadly we seem to have become a trade. Our craftsmanship is not what it once was. Our clients do not routinely believe we serve their interest. We are not admired by the public in general. Management of our workload overwhelms us. We are beset by ever-increasing overhead, by an overload of technological devices that tether us to the office around the clock, by unhappy and at times unmanageable clients, by a surfeit of mind numbing work just to keep afloat, and by a general malaise brought about by the combination of all these factors. Our work is not judged by its intrinsic legal value, but by the value of its hourly rate.
We need to change this direction. We need to recoup the best of our past values in the profession and adapt them to the current realities we face in the practice. We need to become a profession again. We need to become craftsmen again. We need to associate socially in our professional organizations more often as we are doing tonight. We need to return to the concept of an attorney that made each of us want to become an attorney. For many of those in my generation the lawyer we most wanted to be was Atticus Finch of To Kill a Mockingbird. I still want to be Atticus Finch over forty years later.
We need to be proud of ourselves again. And we need to figure out among ourselves the answers to how we can accomplish this. I have no magic answers or solutions for these problems. We all have our individual thoughts about what has gone wrong and perhaps why it has gone wrong. But it will take our collective wisdom as to how we can take back our profession before we can find the answers and the solutions we must have. We just have to want to change our future enough. We have to summon the collective will to return to our profession’s core values and beliefs before we are beyond returning there.
In closing, please allow me a personal comment. This November I will have worked for DeKalb County for thirty-five years in four courts, including twenty-six years on the bench. I thank you for all the years of your support, encouragement, camaraderie, kindness, forbearance, and friendship during my sojourn through the profession both as an attorney and as a judge. I thank you for your votes which placed me in office and kept me there. I appreciate these things more than I can possibly say. After my first election, I promised that I would try to be worthy of your trust. I hope - I very much hope - I have fulfilled that promise.
Judge Anne Workman
Judge Anne Workman, who served on the Board of Governors in Post 7 of the Stone Mountain Circuit, died Friday September 2. My boss, Chief Judge Wayne Purdom of DeKalb State Court, wrote the following in announcing her death to court personnel:
"Judge Anne Workman passed today. Most of you know she had a form of metastatic melanoma from her earlier announcement. Subsequent to her announcement, the cancer progressed much more rapidly than anticipated and all treatment proved to be ineffectual. She died peaceably.
"Anne served for decades in Juvenile, Magistrate, State (1985-98) and Superior Court (after 1998) and was an active senior judge until just a few months ago. She has been a mentor to countless attorneys and judges over those decades as well as playing a key leadership role in the bench and bar.
"On a personal note she was a close friend, an entertaining companion, and a mentor. She taught me a great deal about the art of judging. Her passing leaves a huge gap in our legal community, both here in DeKalb and statewide."
Judge Purdom says he believes there will be a memorial service at Glenn Memorial and that Judge Workman's body will be burried in her home state of North Carolina. However, plans are incomplete right now. I will post an update when I learn more information.
Meanwhile, here is what Judge Workman had to say when she informed DeKalb Bar members about her condition in July.
"TO MY FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES IN THE DEKALB BAR
"I have had some medical issues that I wish to share with you before word of my situation becomes more widely known and almost certainly distorted. I have loved working in the courthouse for decades, but we all know how easily facts get turned inside out in the courthouse rumor mill.
"In January, after having a mole removed from my back, I received a diagnosis of a skin lesion melanoma. Initially, after further testing, my doctors at Emory’s Winship Cancer Clinic thought that the disease was contained and that my chances at recurrence were low. However in May I felt some discomfort that led to the discovery of more generalized disease in my lungs which surprised both me and my doctors. My condition is one that is not curable, but it is treatable and manageable for a period of time. If after treatment the condition becomes a chronic one as occurs in some cases, then the period of time expands significantly. I am indeed quite fortunate that just this spring the FDA for the first time in twenty years has approved a new melanoma immune therapy and just this past month a gene-specific treatment for melanoma was released in clinical trials. I am told that these new treatments can have a very positive effect on life expectancy for melanoma patients.
"I want you to now that I am not fearful of this next stage in my life and I plan to meet this new challenge with strength and resolve. Because of my fatigue level and other side effects from the treatments I am not available by telephone. But I do have access through my county e-mail address and I welcome contact by e-mail. I shall provide updates on my progress periodically; but I do not expect to have any further news for at least two or three months.
"Thank you for the positive thoughts that I believe you will be sending my way. Please wish for me the strength and grace necessary for the battle I have ahead. Together we shall hope for the best outcome possible for me."
"Judge Anne Workman passed today. Most of you know she had a form of metastatic melanoma from her earlier announcement. Subsequent to her announcement, the cancer progressed much more rapidly than anticipated and all treatment proved to be ineffectual. She died peaceably.
"Anne served for decades in Juvenile, Magistrate, State (1985-98) and Superior Court (after 1998) and was an active senior judge until just a few months ago. She has been a mentor to countless attorneys and judges over those decades as well as playing a key leadership role in the bench and bar.
"On a personal note she was a close friend, an entertaining companion, and a mentor. She taught me a great deal about the art of judging. Her passing leaves a huge gap in our legal community, both here in DeKalb and statewide."
Judge Purdom says he believes there will be a memorial service at Glenn Memorial and that Judge Workman's body will be burried in her home state of North Carolina. However, plans are incomplete right now. I will post an update when I learn more information.
Meanwhile, here is what Judge Workman had to say when she informed DeKalb Bar members about her condition in July.
"TO MY FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES IN THE DEKALB BAR
"I have had some medical issues that I wish to share with you before word of my situation becomes more widely known and almost certainly distorted. I have loved working in the courthouse for decades, but we all know how easily facts get turned inside out in the courthouse rumor mill.
"In January, after having a mole removed from my back, I received a diagnosis of a skin lesion melanoma. Initially, after further testing, my doctors at Emory’s Winship Cancer Clinic thought that the disease was contained and that my chances at recurrence were low. However in May I felt some discomfort that led to the discovery of more generalized disease in my lungs which surprised both me and my doctors. My condition is one that is not curable, but it is treatable and manageable for a period of time. If after treatment the condition becomes a chronic one as occurs in some cases, then the period of time expands significantly. I am indeed quite fortunate that just this spring the FDA for the first time in twenty years has approved a new melanoma immune therapy and just this past month a gene-specific treatment for melanoma was released in clinical trials. I am told that these new treatments can have a very positive effect on life expectancy for melanoma patients.
"I want you to now that I am not fearful of this next stage in my life and I plan to meet this new challenge with strength and resolve. Because of my fatigue level and other side effects from the treatments I am not available by telephone. But I do have access through my county e-mail address and I welcome contact by e-mail. I shall provide updates on my progress periodically; but I do not expect to have any further news for at least two or three months.
"Thank you for the positive thoughts that I believe you will be sending my way. Please wish for me the strength and grace necessary for the battle I have ahead. Together we shall hope for the best outcome possible for me."
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Board to Meet in Atlanta Thursday Before Hitting the Big Apple
I was joking earlier this week that I would be taking off work for much of Thursday because the State Bar of Georgia's Board of Governors and Travel Club is meeting on that morning at the Bar Center in downtown Atlanta before heading off to New York City.
Of course, I pronounced New York City like the announcer in the Pace Picante Salsa ads of yore. See, e.g., http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=OCJgvmOlKg8
Before jetting to the Big Apple, the board is slated to recognize and commend various individuals, receive reports from officers and committees, and take action on a resolution regarding electronic court filing and an amendment to the fee arbitration rules. Meanwhile, a vote on the proposed overhaul of the juvenile code has been pushed back to the October meeting. (See the full agenda, with links to many items in the 285-page Board Book here: http://www.gabar.org/news/2011_summer_board_of_governors_meeting_-_aug_18-21/)
I'm certainly not going to New York City for a weekend at an individual package price of $1539. While that amount includes three nights in a "Deluxe King" room, an $84 breakfast, a $367 dinner boat cruise, two receptions at $100 a piece, and a $15 CLE, it does not include airfare. (The State Bar brochure helpfully notes that "Airfares are often less expensive when booking on Tuesdays and Wednesdays." Now how in the world can you do that if you have to attend a meeting in Atlanta on Thursday morning?) I think I'll hold on to that $1539 plus airfare, thank you very much.
Sometimes I wonder if it is just the penny pinching contrarian in me that balks at the high prices for these State Bar junkets. But then I read the comments on the cost-to-benefit ratio of the annual meeting in June in Myrtle Beach, S.C. and realized that I am not alone in thinking that these out-of-state meetings are too far away and too expensive. (Check out the full survey results on the annual meeting here: http://www.gabar.org/public/pdf/bog_agenda/28%20AnnualMeetingSurvey.pdf.)
I had tried to be tactful in my criticism, stating: "This was a very,very long drive to spend money outside of Georgia."
But other commentators were brutal. For example:
"Opening night festivities were ridiculous. $124+ for hotdogs and hamburgers was an embarassment."
"The events are SO EXPENSIVE!! The Supreme Court reception and Gala are prohibitively expensive. I was unable to attend due to the cost. . . . The pricing of the entire event sends a message that public interest/government attorneys are not expected to attend. People are encouraged to donate money to GLSP [Georgia Legal Services Program] but their lawyers (and those at other public interest firms) cannot actually attend the event."
". . .This was way too far away for a meeting. The investigative panel couldn't get a quorum due to the location, and despite the attempts to compare this location with Amelia and Savannah, that comparison only fit those who live in or near Atlanta. For people from South Georgia, flying wasn't a viable option. The drive was 8 to 9 hours which makes two meetings this year that was that length drive--midyear in Nashville, TN. I doubt I will attend another meeting if it is that far away regardless of the time of year!!!"
The good news is that the meetings for the near future are in Georgia. The Fall 2011 meeting October 27-30, 2011, will be at the Jekyll Island Club; the Midyear 2012 meeting January 5-7, 2012, will be at Loews Atlanta Hotel; the Spring 2012 meeting March 29-April 1, 2012, will be at the Ritz Carlton, Reynolds Plantation; and the Annual 2012 meeting May 31-June 3, 2012, will be at the Westin Harbor Resort & Spa in Savannah.
Given that in these lean budget times the State Bar has been stressing to state lawmakers the importance of funding for the judicial branch of government, it makes sense that we spend our dollars here at home to help generate the tax revenues that are so greatly needed to fund court operations. (And yes, conflict of interest disclosure, that would include my law clerk salary, if there was to be a meeting in DeKalb County at some point in the future.)
Here's the agenda for Thursday's meeting. I'll follow up with a report on what official action occurs.
Board of Governors Meeting Agenda
STATE BAR OF GEORGIA
238th BOARD OF GOVERNORS MEETING
Thursday, August 18, 2011
9 a.m.-12 p.m.
State Bar Building, 104 Marietta Street N.W.
Atlanta, Georgia
Dress: Business Casual
August 18-21, 2011 (non-business)
Omni Berkshire Place Hotel
New York City, NY
1) ADMINISTRATION
a) Welcome and Call to Order: Ken Shigley, President
b) Pledge of Allegiance: Derek White
c) Invocation: Sandra Nadeau Wisenbaker
d) Recognition of Former Presidents, Judges and Special Guests: Ken Shigley
e) Roll Call (by signature): Patrise Perkins-Hooker, Secretary
2) CONSENT AGENDA (Unanimous consent items. Any item may be moved from Consent Agenda to Action Items agenda upon request of any member of the Board of Governors)
a) Minutes of the 236th and 237th Meetings of the Board of Governors: Patrise Perkins-Hooker
b) Executive Committee Minutes (information): Patrise Perkins-Hooker
(1) May 12, 2011
(2) June 30, 2011
c) Future Meetings Schedule (information): Ken Shigley
d) Georgia Legal Services Board Appointments (two-year terms): Ken Shigley
(1) Jill Pryor, Atlanta
(2) Albert P. Reichert, Jr., Macon
e) Resolution in Memory of Lauren Giddings (to be presented at Mercer Law School): Ken Shigley
f) Resolution Commending Professor Paul Milich: Ken Shigley
g) Resolution Commending John Camp: Ken Shigley
h) Resolution Commending Josh McKoon: Ken Shigley
3) SPECIAL RECOGNITION
a) Senator Johnny Isakson and Jimmy Franklin Aasia Mustakeem
4) SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS
a) The Thomas O. Marshall Professionalism Award to Linda Klein: Ken Shigley
b) The Business Commitment Pro Bono Award to Valerie King: Ken Shigley
c) Resolution Commending Professor Paul Milich: Ken Shigley
d) Resolution Commending John Camp: Ken Shigley
e) Resolution Commending Josh McKoon: Ken Shigley
5) INFORMATIONAL REPORTS
a) President's Report: Ken Shigley
b) Treasurer's Report: Buck Ruffin, Treasurer
c) Young Lawyers Division: Stephanie Kirijan, YLD President
d) Legislative Report: Tom Boller, Rusty Sewell, Charlie Tanksley
e) ABA Report: Allan Tanenbaum, Linda Klein
(1) General Practice, Solo, & Small Firm Division's Resolution in Memory of Chuck Driebe
f) Indigent Defense Funding: Honorable Rich Golick, Bryan Cavan
g) SOLACE Committee: Bill Rumer, Chair
h) Continuity of Practice Committee: Craig Stafford, Chair
i) Technology Advisory Committee: Jeff Kuester, Chair
j) Criminal Justice Reform Committee: Pat Head, Chair
6) FUTURE ACTION
a) Proposed Juvenile Code (future legislative item): Sharon Hill, Kirsten Widner
Responses: Kermit McManus, Robert Rodatus, Amy Howell
7) ACTION
a) Resolution on Electronic Court Filing: Hon. Diane Bessen, Chair
b) Fee Arbitration Rules Amendment: David Lipscomb, Chair
8) WRITTEN REPORTS
a) Military Legal Assistance
b) Law Practice Management
c) Consumer Assistance Program
d) Electronic Board Book Survey
e) Annual Meeting Evaluation Survey
9) CLOSING
a) Old Business: Ken Shigley
b) New Business: Ken Shigley
c) Questions/Answers; Comments/Suggestions: Board of Governors, Officers, Executive Committee, Executive Director, General Counsel
d) Adjournment: Ken Shigley
Of course, I pronounced New York City like the announcer in the Pace Picante Salsa ads of yore. See, e.g., http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=OCJgvmOlKg8
Before jetting to the Big Apple, the board is slated to recognize and commend various individuals, receive reports from officers and committees, and take action on a resolution regarding electronic court filing and an amendment to the fee arbitration rules. Meanwhile, a vote on the proposed overhaul of the juvenile code has been pushed back to the October meeting. (See the full agenda, with links to many items in the 285-page Board Book here: http://www.gabar.org/news/2011_summer_board_of_governors_meeting_-_aug_18-21/)
I'm certainly not going to New York City for a weekend at an individual package price of $1539. While that amount includes three nights in a "Deluxe King" room, an $84 breakfast, a $367 dinner boat cruise, two receptions at $100 a piece, and a $15 CLE, it does not include airfare. (The State Bar brochure helpfully notes that "Airfares are often less expensive when booking on Tuesdays and Wednesdays." Now how in the world can you do that if you have to attend a meeting in Atlanta on Thursday morning?) I think I'll hold on to that $1539 plus airfare, thank you very much.
Sometimes I wonder if it is just the penny pinching contrarian in me that balks at the high prices for these State Bar junkets. But then I read the comments on the cost-to-benefit ratio of the annual meeting in June in Myrtle Beach, S.C. and realized that I am not alone in thinking that these out-of-state meetings are too far away and too expensive. (Check out the full survey results on the annual meeting here: http://www.gabar.org/public/pdf/bog_agenda/28%20AnnualMeetingSurvey.pdf.)
I had tried to be tactful in my criticism, stating: "This was a very,very long drive to spend money outside of Georgia."
But other commentators were brutal. For example:
"Opening night festivities were ridiculous. $124+ for hotdogs and hamburgers was an embarassment."
"The events are SO EXPENSIVE!! The Supreme Court reception and Gala are prohibitively expensive. I was unable to attend due to the cost. . . . The pricing of the entire event sends a message that public interest/government attorneys are not expected to attend. People are encouraged to donate money to GLSP [Georgia Legal Services Program] but their lawyers (and those at other public interest firms) cannot actually attend the event."
". . .This was way too far away for a meeting. The investigative panel couldn't get a quorum due to the location, and despite the attempts to compare this location with Amelia and Savannah, that comparison only fit those who live in or near Atlanta. For people from South Georgia, flying wasn't a viable option. The drive was 8 to 9 hours which makes two meetings this year that was that length drive--midyear in Nashville, TN. I doubt I will attend another meeting if it is that far away regardless of the time of year!!!"
The good news is that the meetings for the near future are in Georgia. The Fall 2011 meeting October 27-30, 2011, will be at the Jekyll Island Club; the Midyear 2012 meeting January 5-7, 2012, will be at Loews Atlanta Hotel; the Spring 2012 meeting March 29-April 1, 2012, will be at the Ritz Carlton, Reynolds Plantation; and the Annual 2012 meeting May 31-June 3, 2012, will be at the Westin Harbor Resort & Spa in Savannah.
Given that in these lean budget times the State Bar has been stressing to state lawmakers the importance of funding for the judicial branch of government, it makes sense that we spend our dollars here at home to help generate the tax revenues that are so greatly needed to fund court operations. (And yes, conflict of interest disclosure, that would include my law clerk salary, if there was to be a meeting in DeKalb County at some point in the future.)
Here's the agenda for Thursday's meeting. I'll follow up with a report on what official action occurs.
Board of Governors Meeting Agenda
STATE BAR OF GEORGIA
238th BOARD OF GOVERNORS MEETING
Thursday, August 18, 2011
9 a.m.-12 p.m.
State Bar Building, 104 Marietta Street N.W.
Atlanta, Georgia
Dress: Business Casual
August 18-21, 2011 (non-business)
Omni Berkshire Place Hotel
New York City, NY
1) ADMINISTRATION
a) Welcome and Call to Order: Ken Shigley, President
b) Pledge of Allegiance: Derek White
c) Invocation: Sandra Nadeau Wisenbaker
d) Recognition of Former Presidents, Judges and Special Guests: Ken Shigley
e) Roll Call (by signature): Patrise Perkins-Hooker, Secretary
2) CONSENT AGENDA (Unanimous consent items. Any item may be moved from Consent Agenda to Action Items agenda upon request of any member of the Board of Governors)
a) Minutes of the 236th and 237th Meetings of the Board of Governors: Patrise Perkins-Hooker
b) Executive Committee Minutes (information): Patrise Perkins-Hooker
(1) May 12, 2011
(2) June 30, 2011
c) Future Meetings Schedule (information): Ken Shigley
d) Georgia Legal Services Board Appointments (two-year terms): Ken Shigley
(1) Jill Pryor, Atlanta
(2) Albert P. Reichert, Jr., Macon
e) Resolution in Memory of Lauren Giddings (to be presented at Mercer Law School): Ken Shigley
f) Resolution Commending Professor Paul Milich: Ken Shigley
g) Resolution Commending John Camp: Ken Shigley
h) Resolution Commending Josh McKoon: Ken Shigley
3) SPECIAL RECOGNITION
a) Senator Johnny Isakson and Jimmy Franklin Aasia Mustakeem
4) SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS
a) The Thomas O. Marshall Professionalism Award to Linda Klein: Ken Shigley
b) The Business Commitment Pro Bono Award to Valerie King: Ken Shigley
c) Resolution Commending Professor Paul Milich: Ken Shigley
d) Resolution Commending John Camp: Ken Shigley
e) Resolution Commending Josh McKoon: Ken Shigley
5) INFORMATIONAL REPORTS
a) President's Report: Ken Shigley
b) Treasurer's Report: Buck Ruffin, Treasurer
c) Young Lawyers Division: Stephanie Kirijan, YLD President
d) Legislative Report: Tom Boller, Rusty Sewell, Charlie Tanksley
e) ABA Report: Allan Tanenbaum, Linda Klein
(1) General Practice, Solo, & Small Firm Division's Resolution in Memory of Chuck Driebe
f) Indigent Defense Funding: Honorable Rich Golick, Bryan Cavan
g) SOLACE Committee: Bill Rumer, Chair
h) Continuity of Practice Committee: Craig Stafford, Chair
i) Technology Advisory Committee: Jeff Kuester, Chair
j) Criminal Justice Reform Committee: Pat Head, Chair
6) FUTURE ACTION
a) Proposed Juvenile Code (future legislative item): Sharon Hill, Kirsten Widner
Responses: Kermit McManus, Robert Rodatus, Amy Howell
7) ACTION
a) Resolution on Electronic Court Filing: Hon. Diane Bessen, Chair
b) Fee Arbitration Rules Amendment: David Lipscomb, Chair
8) WRITTEN REPORTS
a) Military Legal Assistance
b) Law Practice Management
c) Consumer Assistance Program
d) Electronic Board Book Survey
e) Annual Meeting Evaluation Survey
9) CLOSING
a) Old Business: Ken Shigley
b) New Business: Ken Shigley
c) Questions/Answers; Comments/Suggestions: Board of Governors, Officers, Executive Committee, Executive Director, General Counsel
d) Adjournment: Ken Shigley
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Board of Governors Approves State Bar Budget, Adopts Disciplinary Rules Changes At Annual Meeting
So where to begin?
The challenge in writing a report for you on the June Board of Governors meetings is this:
How to give you information on what took place in a format that's hopefully more interesting than the meeting minutes and is not too "inside baseball?" I'm not sure that I'm going to succeed this time (if I ever have in previous reports). And all this when what I really want to relate to you is an epiphany that I'm afraid is so obvious that you may well be thinking: She's just now figuring that out?
I guess I'll start with the epiphany.
Collecting Pennies
The realization came during the Friday and Saturday meetings in which it became clear to me what a huge effect the loss of IOLTA funds, and the causes of that loss, have had on all kinds of programs. The effect of these missing dollars rattle through the State Bar's budget, as well as the diminished finances of various other organizations.
As you know, IOLTA stands for Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts, which for about the past 25 or so years has been siphoned off to pay for all sorts of charitable legal programs or for grants to improve the administration of justice. The concept was that a few cents of interest earned on funds lawyers held briefly in trust for clients wouldn't amount to a noticeable sum for them, but when aggregated these pennies were magically transformed into a sizable accumulation of dollars for charitable distribution.
Thus, IOLTA is based on two components--the level of interest rates and the amount of money in lawyer trust accounts--both of which are now in short supply. We know that the interest being paid by banks and other financial institutions is just about non-existent these days. But also with the downturn in the real estate market, there's a lot less money being put into lawyer trust accounts.
The first discussion of the effect of this double whammy came in Chief Justice Carol Hunstein's report Friday on the state of the judiciary. She noted that Georgia Legal Services and the Atlanta Legal Aid Society are facing $800,000 to $1 million shortfalls as a result. This is a subject she has recently written about in an op-ed piece in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in which she points out that "Georgia Bar Foundation funding for Georgia Legal Services has fallen from a high of $2.9 million in 2009 to $739,300 in 2011. Funding for 2012 could fall as low as $400,000." http://www.ajc.com/opinion/legal-aid-to-poor-958776.html
Then on Saturday, newly installed State Bar President Ken Shigley, noting that the Georgia Legal Services Program began in 1971 as a project of the State Bar's Younger Lawyers Division, urged in his remarks that we "give until it feels good" and prodded us toward the handy forms that were provided at each of our seats to enable signing up for monthly donations.
Moving on to the Saturday report of Treasurer Buck Ruffin, we learned that the State Bar has picked up $641,792 worth of contributions to programs that previously had been made by the Georgia Bar Foundation. These include Law Related Education, Bar Association Support to Improve Correctional Services (BASICS), the Georgia Resource Center, the Pro Bono Project and the High School Mock Trial program.
Meanwhile, the yield on the State Bar's investments, which due to foresight were shifted before the crash into money market funds and certificates of deposits from riskier alternatives, has been steadily dropping from a high of $564,000 in 2007 to $110,000 this past year.
Then another item on the Saturday agenda--an informational report about the Georgia Bar Foundation and the Lawyers Foundation of Georgia being combined, essentially to reduce overhead. (Established in 1978 as the Public Service Foundation, the Lawyers Foundation was a voluntary charitable organization, while the Bar Foundation was funded by IOLTA.)
Finding new pennies
So, how does this all play out for us as lawyers?
According to Chief Justice Hunstein, the Georgia legal community already has pitched in to expand volunteer work and financial giving. "Last year, Georgia attorneys provided more than $5.5 million worth of free legal assistance to people who could not afford a lawyer. They took 28 percent more cases last year than the year before. Lawyers, judges and law firms donated more than $500,000 to Georgia Legal Services," she wrote in her op-ed piece.
Meanwhile, the chief justice says vital programs aimed at giving our most vulnerable citizens equal access to justice remain in peril because of state and federal budget cuts and she urged us to stress to lawmakers the need to continue funding.
Given the competition for limited government funds, however, it seems that we also need to redouble our efforts to give of our time and open our checkbooks. And if we all pitch in just a little bit more it will begin to add up like the magic IOLTA pennies.
In Other Action
So, what else happened at the annual meeting?
On Friday, a change to the bylaws was approved that affects persons who pass the bar exam, but don't get around to getting sworn in to practice law. (I wondered how many people do that? I can't imagine there are too many.) The rule change limits the window of time for getting sworn in to five years. After that, these persons will have to appeal to the Executive Committee for a waiver. Otherwise, they will have to reapply to the Office of Bar Admissions.
Speaking of the Executive Committee, on Saturday the Board of Governors elected Rita Sheffey to fill the unexpired term of Patrise Perkins-Hooker, who has been elected Secretary of the State Bar. David Lipsomb and Bob Kaufman were re-elected to their posts on the Executive Committee and Brian D. "Buck" Rogers was elected to the post held by Nancy Whaley, who was not seeking re-election.
The Board of Governors also approved the creation of a new part-time contractor position of Coordinating Special Master to be selected by a hiring committee composed of the second, third and fourth past-presidents of the Bar. The hiring committee would also set the hourly compensation rate for the position. The CSM will maintain the list of possible special masters (currently maintained by the Court), appoint a special master for each new disciplinary case, and monitor the progress of each case to ensure that matters are handled expeditiously. The CSM could also act as a special master himself, most likely in emergency suspension cases. The position will be shared with the Office of Bar Admissions, so that the CSM will serve a similar role in selecting and monitoring hearing officers for Bar Fitness cases (there are fewer than 10 such cases per year). The budget for the 2011-2012 Bar year included $25,000 for this position.
The Board of Governors received informational reports on three items that are expected to be voted on at the meeting scheduled for August 18, 2011. These include a proposed revision of the juvenile code, a proposed uniform rule on electronic court filing, and proposed amendments to the fee arbitration rules. You can find links to these proposals on the State Bar's website, www.gabar.org.
Sorry to be so slow getting this written up. I played tourist at Brookgreen Gardens after the Saturday BOG meeting instead of hitting the keyboard. Also, it took most of Sunday to drive back from the meeting locale in Myrtle Beach, SC. Then it was back to the reality of the work week.
As always, let me know if you have any thoughts or comments or need more information on the Board of Governors.
The challenge in writing a report for you on the June Board of Governors meetings is this:
How to give you information on what took place in a format that's hopefully more interesting than the meeting minutes and is not too "inside baseball?" I'm not sure that I'm going to succeed this time (if I ever have in previous reports). And all this when what I really want to relate to you is an epiphany that I'm afraid is so obvious that you may well be thinking: She's just now figuring that out?
I guess I'll start with the epiphany.
Collecting Pennies
The realization came during the Friday and Saturday meetings in which it became clear to me what a huge effect the loss of IOLTA funds, and the causes of that loss, have had on all kinds of programs. The effect of these missing dollars rattle through the State Bar's budget, as well as the diminished finances of various other organizations.
As you know, IOLTA stands for Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts, which for about the past 25 or so years has been siphoned off to pay for all sorts of charitable legal programs or for grants to improve the administration of justice. The concept was that a few cents of interest earned on funds lawyers held briefly in trust for clients wouldn't amount to a noticeable sum for them, but when aggregated these pennies were magically transformed into a sizable accumulation of dollars for charitable distribution.
Thus, IOLTA is based on two components--the level of interest rates and the amount of money in lawyer trust accounts--both of which are now in short supply. We know that the interest being paid by banks and other financial institutions is just about non-existent these days. But also with the downturn in the real estate market, there's a lot less money being put into lawyer trust accounts.
The first discussion of the effect of this double whammy came in Chief Justice Carol Hunstein's report Friday on the state of the judiciary. She noted that Georgia Legal Services and the Atlanta Legal Aid Society are facing $800,000 to $1 million shortfalls as a result. This is a subject she has recently written about in an op-ed piece in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in which she points out that "Georgia Bar Foundation funding for Georgia Legal Services has fallen from a high of $2.9 million in 2009 to $739,300 in 2011. Funding for 2012 could fall as low as $400,000." http://www.ajc.com/opinion/legal-aid-to-poor-958776.html
Then on Saturday, newly installed State Bar President Ken Shigley, noting that the Georgia Legal Services Program began in 1971 as a project of the State Bar's Younger Lawyers Division, urged in his remarks that we "give until it feels good" and prodded us toward the handy forms that were provided at each of our seats to enable signing up for monthly donations.
Moving on to the Saturday report of Treasurer Buck Ruffin, we learned that the State Bar has picked up $641,792 worth of contributions to programs that previously had been made by the Georgia Bar Foundation. These include Law Related Education, Bar Association Support to Improve Correctional Services (BASICS), the Georgia Resource Center, the Pro Bono Project and the High School Mock Trial program.
Meanwhile, the yield on the State Bar's investments, which due to foresight were shifted before the crash into money market funds and certificates of deposits from riskier alternatives, has been steadily dropping from a high of $564,000 in 2007 to $110,000 this past year.
Then another item on the Saturday agenda--an informational report about the Georgia Bar Foundation and the Lawyers Foundation of Georgia being combined, essentially to reduce overhead. (Established in 1978 as the Public Service Foundation, the Lawyers Foundation was a voluntary charitable organization, while the Bar Foundation was funded by IOLTA.)
Finding new pennies
So, how does this all play out for us as lawyers?
According to Chief Justice Hunstein, the Georgia legal community already has pitched in to expand volunteer work and financial giving. "Last year, Georgia attorneys provided more than $5.5 million worth of free legal assistance to people who could not afford a lawyer. They took 28 percent more cases last year than the year before. Lawyers, judges and law firms donated more than $500,000 to Georgia Legal Services," she wrote in her op-ed piece.
Meanwhile, the chief justice says vital programs aimed at giving our most vulnerable citizens equal access to justice remain in peril because of state and federal budget cuts and she urged us to stress to lawmakers the need to continue funding.
Given the competition for limited government funds, however, it seems that we also need to redouble our efforts to give of our time and open our checkbooks. And if we all pitch in just a little bit more it will begin to add up like the magic IOLTA pennies.
In Other Action
So, what else happened at the annual meeting?
On Friday, a change to the bylaws was approved that affects persons who pass the bar exam, but don't get around to getting sworn in to practice law. (I wondered how many people do that? I can't imagine there are too many.) The rule change limits the window of time for getting sworn in to five years. After that, these persons will have to appeal to the Executive Committee for a waiver. Otherwise, they will have to reapply to the Office of Bar Admissions.
Speaking of the Executive Committee, on Saturday the Board of Governors elected Rita Sheffey to fill the unexpired term of Patrise Perkins-Hooker, who has been elected Secretary of the State Bar. David Lipsomb and Bob Kaufman were re-elected to their posts on the Executive Committee and Brian D. "Buck" Rogers was elected to the post held by Nancy Whaley, who was not seeking re-election.
The Board of Governors also approved the creation of a new part-time contractor position of Coordinating Special Master to be selected by a hiring committee composed of the second, third and fourth past-presidents of the Bar. The hiring committee would also set the hourly compensation rate for the position. The CSM will maintain the list of possible special masters (currently maintained by the Court), appoint a special master for each new disciplinary case, and monitor the progress of each case to ensure that matters are handled expeditiously. The CSM could also act as a special master himself, most likely in emergency suspension cases. The position will be shared with the Office of Bar Admissions, so that the CSM will serve a similar role in selecting and monitoring hearing officers for Bar Fitness cases (there are fewer than 10 such cases per year). The budget for the 2011-2012 Bar year included $25,000 for this position.
The Board of Governors received informational reports on three items that are expected to be voted on at the meeting scheduled for August 18, 2011. These include a proposed revision of the juvenile code, a proposed uniform rule on electronic court filing, and proposed amendments to the fee arbitration rules. You can find links to these proposals on the State Bar's website, www.gabar.org.
Sorry to be so slow getting this written up. I played tourist at Brookgreen Gardens after the Saturday BOG meeting instead of hitting the keyboard. Also, it took most of Sunday to drive back from the meeting locale in Myrtle Beach, SC. Then it was back to the reality of the work week.
As always, let me know if you have any thoughts or comments or need more information on the Board of Governors.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
State Bar Annual Meeting Includes Possible Improvement To Lawyer Discipline Process
A few years back I got quite a surprise from the Georgia Supreme Court--an order appointing me as a special master in a lawyer discipline case.
I had some idea what this would entail, but I really didn't know the specific ins and outs of such a task or where to get the information.
My first thought was to contact the Supreme Court, where I had previously worked as its public information officer. The clerks had no information for me and suggested that I contact the State Bar.
That seemed a peculiar proposition, given that the State Bar prosecutes lawyer discipline cases. It seemed inappropriate to make ex parte contact with the prosecutor.
Nonetheless, I did inquire and found that they had a somewhat helpful notebook of information that had been provided at a training session more than a year before--and that there were no upcoming training sessions.
The result was that I was headed off pretty much on my own on a case that led to the Supreme Court's disbarment of a lawyer, who later unsuccessfully sued me and the State Bar in federal court for allegedly violating his civil rights.
There is a proposal on Saturday's Board of Governors agenda that might be a step toward giving future special masters a little more guidance navigating their way through the disciplinary process.
General Counsel Paula Frederick sent an email to BOG members who have served as special masters to explain the recommendation for a Coordinating Special Master. She explained:
"Each of you likely remembers the moment you discovered that the Supreme Court had selected you for service as a special master. Other than reviewing the Bar Rules, there was little you could do to prepare for the job. Since this office serves as prosecutor in disciplinary cases, we are not in a position to provide special masters with advice or support. Most special masters do a good job, but I hope you agree that the process could be improved with more consistent training, monitoring and mentoring for our volunteers.
"The Coordinating Special Master would be a part-time contractor position; likely a practitioner who also maintains a law practice in addition to working as the Coordinating Special Master. The proposal calls for the CSM to be selected by a hiring committee composed of the second, third and fourth past-presidents of the Bar. The hiring committee would also set the hourly compensation rate for the position. The CSM will maintain the list of possible special masters (currently maintained by the Court), appoint a special master for each new disciplinary case, and monitor the progress of each case to ensure that matters are handled expeditiously. The CSM could also act as a special master himself, most likely in emergency suspension cases. The position will be shared with the Office of Bar Admissions, so that the CSM will serve a similar role in selecting and monitoring hearing officers for Bar Fitness cases (there are fewer than 10 such cases per year).
"The budget for the 2011-2012 Bar year includes a provisional $25,000 for this position, should it be approved."
According to Rudolph N. Patterson, chairperson of the General Counsel's Overview Committee, the "proposal is the result of a two-year review of the disciplinary process."
This looks to me like a tiny baby step in the right direction and I look forward to learning more at the meeting.
Below you will find the agendas for the Friday and Saturday meetings. Internet access permitting, I'll keep you posted on developments this weekend.
http://www.gabar.org/news/2011_state_bar_annual_meeting_myrtle_beach_sc_june_2-5/
236th BOARD OF GOVERNORS MEETING & 2011 ANNUAL MEMBERS' MEETING 9:00 a.m.-12:00 noon, Friday, June 3, 2011 Hilton Myrtle Beach Resort Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
AGENDA
1) ADMINISTRATION
a) Call to Order -- Lester Tate, President 2010-2011 b) Recognition of Past Presidents and Judges -- Lester Tate c) Recognition of Special Guests -- Lester Tate d) Recognition of Retiring Executive Committee Members and Board of Governors Members -- Lester Tate e) Recognition of Sponsors -- Lester Tate f) Roll Call (by signature) -- Robin Clark, Secretary, 2010-2011 g) Minutes of the 229th Meeting of the Board of Governors, April 16, 2011 (action) -- Robin Clark h) Future Meetings Schedule -- Lester Tate
2) AWARDS - The award recipients are listed in a separate brochure.
3) ANNUAL MEMBERS' MEETING - All active State Bar of Georgia members are invited to attend and vote in the Annual Members' Meeting.
(a) Action
(1) Bylaw Article I, Section 4. Members' Failure to Register -- Bob McCormack
(b) Informational Reports
(1) Memorials -- Lester Tate
(2) Investigative Panel -- Joe Dent
(3) Review Panel -- Tony Askew, Wendell Horne
(4) Formal Advisory Opinion Board -- Lester Tate
(c) Special Reports
(1) Supreme Court of Georgia -- The Honorable Carol Hunstein, Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Georgia
(2) Court of Appeals of Georgia -- The Honorable John Ellington, Chief Judge, Court of Appeals of Georgia
(3) Georgia Law Department -- Sam Olens, Attorney General
(4) Georgia Senate -- Senator Bill Hamrick, chair, Senate Judiciary Committee
(5) Georgia House of Representatives -- Representative Wendell Willard, chair, House Judiciary Committee; Representative Edward Lindsey, House Majority Whip
(6) President's Address -- Lester Tate (Introduction by Bryan Cavan)
4) ADJOURNMENT - Board Members will meet again at 9:00 a.m. Saturday, June 4, 2011
237th BOARD OF GOVERNORS MEETING 9:00 a.m.-12:00 noon, Saturday, June 4, 2011 Hilton Myrtle Beach Resort Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
AGENDA
1) ADMINISTRATION
a) Call to Order -- Lester Tate, President 2010-2011, Presiding -- Kenneth L. Shigley, President 2011-2012 b) Pledge of Allegiance -- Myles Eastwood c) Invocation -- Karlise Grier d) Recognition of Former Presidents, Judges and Special Guests -- Kenneth L. Shigley e) Welcome to New Officers and Board Members -- Kenneth L. Shigley f) Roll Call (by signature) -- Patrise Perkins-Hooker, Secretary, 2011-2012
2) CONSENT AGENDA (Unanimous consent items. Any item may be moved from Consent Agenda to Action Items agenda upon request of any member of the Board of Governors)
a) State Disciplinary Boards
(1) Announcement of Nonlawyer Appointments (information) -- Dr. Elizabeth King
(2) Approval of Lawyer Members (action)
(a) Investigative Panel -- Hubert J. Bell Jr., Delia Crouch
(b) Review Panel
J. Robert Persons, Northern District
Jeffrey Monroe, Middle District
Sharri Edenfield, Southern District
Walter Hood, MD (lay member, nominated by Supreme Court)
(c) Formal Advisory Opinion Board
b) Approval of 2011-12 Standing, Special and Program Committees (action)
c) Executive Director Election (2011-2012)
Cliff Brashier
d) Georgia Legal Services Appointments (action) (2-year terms: 6/11 - 6/13)
Reappointments (a) Damon Elmore, Atlanta (b) Elena Kaplan, Atlanta New Members (a) Replacement for Mark Dehler (b) Replacement for Leigh Wilco
e) 2011-2012 State Bar Election Schedule (action)
f) Future Meeting Schedule (information)
g) Authorization for President to Secure Blanket Position Bonds for Officers and Staff (action)
h) Designation of Depositories for General Operations of State Bar of Georgia (action)
i) Employment of Independent Auditing Firm to Audit Financial Records of State Bar for FY 2010 (action)
j) Executive Committee Minutes (information)
(1) March 11, 2011
(2) April 21, 2011
3) PRESIDENT'S REMARKS 2011-12 Program -- Kenneth L. Shigley
4) TREASURER'S REPORT -- Buck Ruffin, Treasurer
5) EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE ELECTION (Keep nominations to 5 minutes. Please keep seconds to 2 minutes.)
a) One-Year Term 2011-2012
1) unexpired term of Patrise Perkins-Hooker
b) Two-Year Term 2011-2013 (group election)
1) expired term of David Lipscomb
2) expired term of Bob Kaufman
3) expired term of Nancy Whaley
6) INFORMATIONAL REPORTS
a) Proposed Juvenile Code (to be legislative action item on 8/18/11) -- Sharon Hill
b) Proposed Uniform Rule of Electronic Filing (to be action item on 8/18/11) -- Hon. Diane Bessen
c) Proposed Amendments to Fee Arbitration Rules (to be action item on 8/18/11) -- David Lipscomb
d) YLD -- Stephanie Kirijan, YLD President 2011-12
e) Legislation -- Lester Tate, Tom Boller, Rusty Sewell, Charlie Tanksley
f) ABA -- Allan Tanenbaum, Linda Klein
g) Georgia Bar Foundation and Lawyers Foundation of Georgia -- Hon. Patsy Porter, Laurel Payne Landon
7) ACTION
a) 2011-2012 State Bar Budget -- Buck Ruffin, Chris Phelps
b) Disciplinary Rules -- Bob McCormack
(1) Rule 4-109 (Refusal or Failure to Appear for Reprimand; Suspension)
(2) Rule 4-402 (Formal Advisory Opinion Board)
(3) Rule 5.5 (UPL, Multijurisdictional Practice of Law) as revised
(4) Rule 4-209 (and related changes to other rules necessary to create a Coordinating Special Master) -- Rudolph Patterson
8) WRITTEN REPORTS
a) Consumer Assistance Program Report
b) Fee Arbitration Report
c) Law Practice Management Report
d) Law-Related Education Report (Bar Leader article)
e) Unauthorized Practice of Law Report
f) Transition Into Law Practice Management Report
g) Chief Justice's Commission on Professionalism Report
h) Election Results
i) Medical Insurance (BPC Financial)
j) Georgia Legal Services Program (Budget)
k) Georgia Bar Association and State Bar of Georgia Presidents
l) LexisNexis EZ Law
m) Military Legal Assistance Program Report
n) Section Annual Reports
Appellate Practice Law Section
Business Law Section
Corporate Counsel Section
Creditors' Rights Section
Employee Benefits Section
Family Law Section
Fiduciary Law Section
Franchise and Distribution Law Section
General Practice and Trial Section
Judicial Section
Labor & Employment Law Section
Nonprofit Law Section
Real Property Law Section
Technology Law Section
Tort and Insurance Practice Section
Workers' Compensation Section
9) CLOSING
a) Old Business -- Kenneth L. Shigley b) New Business -- Kenneth L. Shigley c) Remarks, Questions/Answers, Comments & Suggestions d) Adjournment e) Pictures (very important)
Immediately following the meeting, all new Board of Governors members are requested to meet with Sarah Coole in the front of the room for pictures. Current members who wish to have their pictures updated are also invited to stop by. Also, the 2011-2012 Officers and Executive Committee will have their annual group photograph.
I had some idea what this would entail, but I really didn't know the specific ins and outs of such a task or where to get the information.
My first thought was to contact the Supreme Court, where I had previously worked as its public information officer. The clerks had no information for me and suggested that I contact the State Bar.
That seemed a peculiar proposition, given that the State Bar prosecutes lawyer discipline cases. It seemed inappropriate to make ex parte contact with the prosecutor.
Nonetheless, I did inquire and found that they had a somewhat helpful notebook of information that had been provided at a training session more than a year before--and that there were no upcoming training sessions.
The result was that I was headed off pretty much on my own on a case that led to the Supreme Court's disbarment of a lawyer, who later unsuccessfully sued me and the State Bar in federal court for allegedly violating his civil rights.
There is a proposal on Saturday's Board of Governors agenda that might be a step toward giving future special masters a little more guidance navigating their way through the disciplinary process.
General Counsel Paula Frederick sent an email to BOG members who have served as special masters to explain the recommendation for a Coordinating Special Master. She explained:
"Each of you likely remembers the moment you discovered that the Supreme Court had selected you for service as a special master. Other than reviewing the Bar Rules, there was little you could do to prepare for the job. Since this office serves as prosecutor in disciplinary cases, we are not in a position to provide special masters with advice or support. Most special masters do a good job, but I hope you agree that the process could be improved with more consistent training, monitoring and mentoring for our volunteers.
"The Coordinating Special Master would be a part-time contractor position; likely a practitioner who also maintains a law practice in addition to working as the Coordinating Special Master. The proposal calls for the CSM to be selected by a hiring committee composed of the second, third and fourth past-presidents of the Bar. The hiring committee would also set the hourly compensation rate for the position. The CSM will maintain the list of possible special masters (currently maintained by the Court), appoint a special master for each new disciplinary case, and monitor the progress of each case to ensure that matters are handled expeditiously. The CSM could also act as a special master himself, most likely in emergency suspension cases. The position will be shared with the Office of Bar Admissions, so that the CSM will serve a similar role in selecting and monitoring hearing officers for Bar Fitness cases (there are fewer than 10 such cases per year).
"The budget for the 2011-2012 Bar year includes a provisional $25,000 for this position, should it be approved."
According to Rudolph N. Patterson, chairperson of the General Counsel's Overview Committee, the "proposal is the result of a two-year review of the disciplinary process."
This looks to me like a tiny baby step in the right direction and I look forward to learning more at the meeting.
Below you will find the agendas for the Friday and Saturday meetings. Internet access permitting, I'll keep you posted on developments this weekend.
http://www.gabar.org/news/2011_state_bar_annual_meeting_myrtle_beach_sc_june_2-5/
236th BOARD OF GOVERNORS MEETING & 2011 ANNUAL MEMBERS' MEETING 9:00 a.m.-12:00 noon, Friday, June 3, 2011 Hilton Myrtle Beach Resort Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
AGENDA
1) ADMINISTRATION
a) Call to Order -- Lester Tate, President 2010-2011 b) Recognition of Past Presidents and Judges -- Lester Tate c) Recognition of Special Guests -- Lester Tate d) Recognition of Retiring Executive Committee Members and Board of Governors Members -- Lester Tate e) Recognition of Sponsors -- Lester Tate f) Roll Call (by signature) -- Robin Clark, Secretary, 2010-2011 g) Minutes of the 229th Meeting of the Board of Governors, April 16, 2011 (action) -- Robin Clark h) Future Meetings Schedule -- Lester Tate
2) AWARDS - The award recipients are listed in a separate brochure.
3) ANNUAL MEMBERS' MEETING - All active State Bar of Georgia members are invited to attend and vote in the Annual Members' Meeting.
(a) Action
(1) Bylaw Article I, Section 4. Members' Failure to Register -- Bob McCormack
(b) Informational Reports
(1) Memorials -- Lester Tate
(2) Investigative Panel -- Joe Dent
(3) Review Panel -- Tony Askew, Wendell Horne
(4) Formal Advisory Opinion Board -- Lester Tate
(c) Special Reports
(1) Supreme Court of Georgia -- The Honorable Carol Hunstein, Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Georgia
(2) Court of Appeals of Georgia -- The Honorable John Ellington, Chief Judge, Court of Appeals of Georgia
(3) Georgia Law Department -- Sam Olens, Attorney General
(4) Georgia Senate -- Senator Bill Hamrick, chair, Senate Judiciary Committee
(5) Georgia House of Representatives -- Representative Wendell Willard, chair, House Judiciary Committee; Representative Edward Lindsey, House Majority Whip
(6) President's Address -- Lester Tate (Introduction by Bryan Cavan)
4) ADJOURNMENT - Board Members will meet again at 9:00 a.m. Saturday, June 4, 2011
237th BOARD OF GOVERNORS MEETING 9:00 a.m.-12:00 noon, Saturday, June 4, 2011 Hilton Myrtle Beach Resort Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
AGENDA
1) ADMINISTRATION
a) Call to Order -- Lester Tate, President 2010-2011, Presiding -- Kenneth L. Shigley, President 2011-2012 b) Pledge of Allegiance -- Myles Eastwood c) Invocation -- Karlise Grier d) Recognition of Former Presidents, Judges and Special Guests -- Kenneth L. Shigley e) Welcome to New Officers and Board Members -- Kenneth L. Shigley f) Roll Call (by signature) -- Patrise Perkins-Hooker, Secretary, 2011-2012
2) CONSENT AGENDA (Unanimous consent items. Any item may be moved from Consent Agenda to Action Items agenda upon request of any member of the Board of Governors)
a) State Disciplinary Boards
(1) Announcement of Nonlawyer Appointments (information) -- Dr. Elizabeth King
(2) Approval of Lawyer Members (action)
(a) Investigative Panel -- Hubert J. Bell Jr., Delia Crouch
(b) Review Panel
J. Robert Persons, Northern District
Jeffrey Monroe, Middle District
Sharri Edenfield, Southern District
Walter Hood, MD (lay member, nominated by Supreme Court)
(c) Formal Advisory Opinion Board
b) Approval of 2011-12 Standing, Special and Program Committees (action)
c) Executive Director Election (2011-2012)
Cliff Brashier
d) Georgia Legal Services Appointments (action) (2-year terms: 6/11 - 6/13)
Reappointments (a) Damon Elmore, Atlanta (b) Elena Kaplan, Atlanta New Members (a) Replacement for Mark Dehler (b) Replacement for Leigh Wilco
e) 2011-2012 State Bar Election Schedule (action)
f) Future Meeting Schedule (information)
g) Authorization for President to Secure Blanket Position Bonds for Officers and Staff (action)
h) Designation of Depositories for General Operations of State Bar of Georgia (action)
i) Employment of Independent Auditing Firm to Audit Financial Records of State Bar for FY 2010 (action)
j) Executive Committee Minutes (information)
(1) March 11, 2011
(2) April 21, 2011
3) PRESIDENT'S REMARKS 2011-12 Program -- Kenneth L. Shigley
4) TREASURER'S REPORT -- Buck Ruffin, Treasurer
5) EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE ELECTION (Keep nominations to 5 minutes. Please keep seconds to 2 minutes.)
a) One-Year Term 2011-2012
1) unexpired term of Patrise Perkins-Hooker
b) Two-Year Term 2011-2013 (group election)
1) expired term of David Lipscomb
2) expired term of Bob Kaufman
3) expired term of Nancy Whaley
6) INFORMATIONAL REPORTS
a) Proposed Juvenile Code (to be legislative action item on 8/18/11) -- Sharon Hill
b) Proposed Uniform Rule of Electronic Filing (to be action item on 8/18/11) -- Hon. Diane Bessen
c) Proposed Amendments to Fee Arbitration Rules (to be action item on 8/18/11) -- David Lipscomb
d) YLD -- Stephanie Kirijan, YLD President 2011-12
e) Legislation -- Lester Tate, Tom Boller, Rusty Sewell, Charlie Tanksley
f) ABA -- Allan Tanenbaum, Linda Klein
g) Georgia Bar Foundation and Lawyers Foundation of Georgia -- Hon. Patsy Porter, Laurel Payne Landon
7) ACTION
a) 2011-2012 State Bar Budget -- Buck Ruffin, Chris Phelps
b) Disciplinary Rules -- Bob McCormack
(1) Rule 4-109 (Refusal or Failure to Appear for Reprimand; Suspension)
(2) Rule 4-402 (Formal Advisory Opinion Board)
(3) Rule 5.5 (UPL, Multijurisdictional Practice of Law) as revised
(4) Rule 4-209 (and related changes to other rules necessary to create a Coordinating Special Master) -- Rudolph Patterson
8) WRITTEN REPORTS
a) Consumer Assistance Program Report
b) Fee Arbitration Report
c) Law Practice Management Report
d) Law-Related Education Report (Bar Leader article)
e) Unauthorized Practice of Law Report
f) Transition Into Law Practice Management Report
g) Chief Justice's Commission on Professionalism Report
h) Election Results
i) Medical Insurance (BPC Financial)
j) Georgia Legal Services Program (Budget)
k) Georgia Bar Association and State Bar of Georgia Presidents
l) LexisNexis EZ Law
m) Military Legal Assistance Program Report
n) Section Annual Reports
Appellate Practice Law Section
Business Law Section
Corporate Counsel Section
Creditors' Rights Section
Employee Benefits Section
Family Law Section
Fiduciary Law Section
Franchise and Distribution Law Section
General Practice and Trial Section
Judicial Section
Labor & Employment Law Section
Nonprofit Law Section
Real Property Law Section
Technology Law Section
Tort and Insurance Practice Section
Workers' Compensation Section
9) CLOSING
a) Old Business -- Kenneth L. Shigley b) New Business -- Kenneth L. Shigley c) Remarks, Questions/Answers, Comments & Suggestions d) Adjournment e) Pictures (very important)
Immediately following the meeting, all new Board of Governors members are requested to meet with Sarah Coole in the front of the room for pictures. Current members who wish to have their pictures updated are also invited to stop by. Also, the 2011-2012 Officers and Executive Committee will have their annual group photograph.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Welcome Aboard New BOG Members
Congratulations to the newly elected BOG members for the Stone Mountain Judicial Circuit!
Stone Mountain Circuit, Post 2 William Dixon James, Decatur
Stone Mountain Circuit, Post 10 A. Dionne McGee, Decatur
Stone Mountain Circuit, Post 2 William Dixon James, Decatur
Stone Mountain Circuit, Post 10 A. Dionne McGee, Decatur
Monday, April 18, 2011
Board of Governors Approves $2 Dues Increase
At its Spring meeting on April 16, 2011, the State Bar's Board of Governors approved a $2 dues increase, raising the annual assessment for active members from $236 per year to $238. That makes the dues amount for inactive members $119, because it is set at half the active member rate.
State Bar President Lester Tate explained that this dues increase, the first since 2008, is largely the result of the State Bar taking on $881,378 worth of programs in the past couple of years, which previously had been funded by the Georgia Bar Foundation, such as the Law Related Education Program and the BASICS-Bar Association Support to Improve Correctional Services-Program, as well as the creation of the Military Legal Assistance Program. (The economic downturn and low interest rates on IOLTA-Interest On Lawyer Trust Accounts-have reduced the bar foundation's funding.)
These programs were absorbed or created without going through the bar's dues indexing policy, which calls for using small, frequent dues adjustments as needed to adequately fund programs.
The per member cost of absorbing and creating $881,378 worth of programs in the past two years is $22.78. This has been done without a dues increase because the State Bar has had budget surpluses, due to the frugality of its staff spending just 92 to 95 percent of its budget, and also due to addition of new lawyers.
President Tate explained that if these programs continued to be funded merely through surpluses, that eventually the State Bar "will run off a cliff" in about five or six years, necessitating a large dues increase that would hit the $25 cap on annual dues increases.
Thus, Tate suggested a "glide path" to get back to dues indexing, that involves raising dues in small increments, while still using some surplus.
"Can we slide by [without a dues increase]? Sneak this in one more year? We might be able to do that. Is it a responsible thing to do? I don't think it is," Tate said, adding that postponing a small dues increase would only create potential fiscal problems for the future.
The $2 dues increase reflects a concurrent requirement for the State Bar staff to decrease the first draft of the 2011-12 operating budget by $160,000, which is the equivalent of $4 per member.
Honorees
In other action, the board honored two late Court of Appeals judges, the Hon. Debra Bernes and the Hon. John H. Ruffin, for their work with the Law Related Education Program.
In addition, the board recognized Dr. Elbert Parr Tuttle Jr., whose father, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Elbert Parr Tuttle, has been honored by the naming of The Marshall-Tuttle Award. This award is given to an attorney for commitment and service to the Military Legal Assistance Program.
The award was given at the winter meeting, which Dr. Tuttle had been unable to attend.
Legislation
The board received an update on matters the State Bar was supporting in the recently ended legislative session, which State Bar Secretary Robin Clark pronounced was "pretty darn impressive." You can find on-line at this link updates on all of the measures the bar was tracking: http://www.gabar.org/programs/legislative_program/
Recognition of Retiring Board Members
Fifteen members of the Board of Governors who are retiring from service were recognized. These include two from the Stone Mountain Judicial Circuit: Johnny Mason, who has served twelve years on the board, and Tara Lee Adyanthaya, who has served two years on the board. Thank you to you both for your service to the legal profession.
Don't forget that there are contested elections underway in the Stone Mountain Judicial Circuit to fill each of their seats. (That's in addition to a contested race for secretary of the State Bar.) You can find information on the candidates at this link: http://www.gabar.org/news/vote_here_2011_state_bar_of_georgia_election_information/
Votes must be cast by May 2 and results will be available May 13.
In addition, President Tate announced that Gwen Keyes Fleming has resigned from her post on the Board of Governors for the Stone Mountain Circuit and that he has appointed Department of Juvenile Justice Commissioner Amy Howell, who is the immediate past president of the Young Lawyers Division, to fill her unexpired term.
Lawyers Without Rights Exhibit
The Spring board meeting was held at the State Bar headquarters in downtown Atlanta while the Lawyers Without Rights Exhibit was showing from April 13 to April 22 on the third-floor of the Bar Center. This exhibit, which is in conjunction with the German Federal Bar Association, provides the historic account of the lives and fates of Jewish lawyers during Nazi rule in Germany. You can find more on the exhibition at this link: http://www.gabar.org/news/state_bar_hosting_lawyers_without_rights/.
ABA News
Linda Klein, who is speaker of the American Bar Association's House of Delegates, encouraged board members to urge Congressional support for the Tax Intercept Act, which she says could lead to the recovery of $15 billion in uncollected fines and fees assessed in state courts. These funds would be intercepted from income tax refunds.
President's Advisory Council
The newly appointed President's Advisory Council was introduced to the Board of Governors. While the board met, the council heard from Chief Justice Carol Hunstein and Justices Hugh Thompson and David Nahmias, as well as Court of Appeals Chief Judge John Ellington and Hall Superior Court Judge Kathlene Gosselin. The council members also toured the Bar Center. The council, comprised of lay persons and non-practicing lawyers, is designed to further the public advocacy work of the State Bar.
Katie Wood
Stone Mountain Circuit, Post 1
Friday, April 15, 2011
Spring Board of Governors Meeting Preview
The convergence of tax season and the Spring Board of Governors meeting has me running way behind schedule in getting out a preview of the April 16, 2011, meeting. There are only a couple of items on the agenda that will require board action. But, as my learning curve on my first year on the board continues, I'm finding that sometimes some thorny issues erupt during the meeting that don't appear overtly on the agenda.
2011-12 Dues Recommendation
One dues-related item up for consideration is to increase dues by $2, from $236 per year to $238. This seems be a de minimis increase and dues have held steady at $236 since 2008. The dues amount for inactive members would be set at $119.
The Treasurer's Report contained in the February 14, 2011, Executive Committee minutes noted that dues have not been indexed in recent years due to surpluses in the operating budget that eventually will be depleted. Small, incremental increases in dues over the next several years would be an option to get back to an indexed model, so that a substantial increase would not be necessitated by a depletion of reserves.
According to the draft minutes of the Finance Committee meeting, which was held on February 25, 2011, the committee decided to recommend increasing dues by $2 after a discussion that included consideration of the Board of Governors' recent decisions to help fund the BASICS program and current economic conditions. Some programs have been carried in the State Bar's budget the past two years due to the loss of IOLTA funds to the Georgia Bar Foundation, but for which dues indexing has not occurred.
The Finance Committee recommendation to increase dues by $2 included a concurrent requirement to the State Bar staff to decrease the first draft of the 2011-12 operating budget by $160,000, which is the equivalent of $4 per member.
Other dues related issues on the BOG agenda include section dues, assessments required by bar rules and check offs for the Legislative and Public Education Fund and the Georgia Legal Services Program.
Law Related Education Resolutions
The other action items on the agenda relate to resolutions honoring two late Court of Appeals judges, the Hon. Debra Bernes and the Hon. John H. Ruffin.
Legislation
A timely agenda topic, given that the Georgia General Assembly just adjourned on April 14, 2011, is a legislative update.
The State Bar's Legislative Program has reports on the recently completed legislative session, which you can find on-line at this link. http://www.gabar.org/programs/legislative_program/
Recognition of Retiring Board Members
Fifteen members of the Board of Governors who are retiring from service will be recognized. These include two from the Stone Mountain Judicial Circuit: Johnny Mason, who has served twelve years on the board, and Tara Lee Adyanthaya, who has served two years on the board. Thank you to you both for your service to the legal profession.
Don't forget that there are contested elections underway in the Stone Mountain Judicial Circuit to fill each of their seats. (That's in addition to a contested race for secretary of the State Bar.) You can find information on the candidates at this link: http://www.gabar.org/news/vote_here_2011_state_bar_of_georgia_election_information/
Votes must be cast by May 2 and results will be available May 13.
Lawyers Without Rights Exhibit
The Spring board meeting is being held at the State Bar headquarters in downtown Atlanta. As a result, we will also be able to check out the Lawyers Without Rights Exhibit that is showing from April 13 to April 22 on the third-floor of the Bar Center. This exhibit, which is in conjunction with the German Federal Bar Association, provides the historic account of the lives and fates of Jewish lawyers during Nazi rule in Germany. You can find more on the exhibition at this link: http://www.gabar.org/news/state_bar_hosting_lawyers_without_rights/
Katie Wood
Stone Mountain Circuit, Post 1
Monday, April 4, 2011
State Bar Elections-Check Your Ballot
Ballots for State Bar elections have been mailed and most, if not all of you, should have received them by now. Mine came in today's mail. It is erroneous and I called immediately to have a new one sent.
The problem is that it places me in the incorrect judicial circuit. I live in DeKalb County, which is in the Stone Mountain Judicial Circuit. I work in DeKalb County. I use a Post Office Box mailing address that is located in DeKalb County. But because that P.O. Box says it is in Atlanta, the State Bar thinks I am in the Atlanta Judicial Circuit, not the Stone Mountain Judicial Circuit.
I discovered this error last year when I was running for the Board of Governors and called to double check whether some of my petition endorsers were in the Stone Mountain Circuit or the Atlanta Circuit.
Umm, they said. You are in the Atlanta Circuit. I am not, I responded. Telling them what I just stated. All of my personal and professional and mailing life is in DeKalb. So, they changed it over, so that I could vote for myself.
Now, a year later, the computer has reverted me back to the Atlanta Circuit. I called today and they say they will send me a new ballot.
A friend who lives in DeKalb and wanted to vote for me last year and could not because her work address is in Atlanta, changed over to the Stone Mountain Circuit. She too received an Atlanta Circuit ballot today despite her effort to change last year to the Stone Mountain Circuit.
If you live and/or work in DeKalb County, you can declare yourself to be in the Stone Mountain Circuit. But, as you can see, it takes effort and staying on top of it. I think this may be why there are so many members of the Board of Governors from the Atlanta Circuit, but not the Stone Mountain Circuit.
All this to say, check your ballots. Demand to be in the Stone Mountain Circuit if that is your affiliation. We have two contested races and some terrific candidates running for the positions in the Stone Mountain Circuit. You deserve to be able to vote for them.
See their info links below.
Katie Wood
BOG-Stone Mountain Circuit, Post 2 (click on candidate's name to view their bio)
Hubert J. (Hugh) Bell Jr.
William Dixon James
BOG-Stone Mountain Circuit, Post 10 (click on candidate's name to view their bio)
John G. Haubenreich
A. Dionne McGee
Chadwick R. Walker
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Back to BASICS (and other issues) at the 2011 Midyear Board of Governors Meeting
At its midyear meeting, the Board of Governors of the State Bar of Georgia voted against abolishing the BASICS Committee, a move tantamount to a promise of future financial support for the program whose aim is to reduce prison recidivism. Other highlights of the January 15, 2011, meeting in Nashville, Tenn. included the nominations of officers for the State Bar for 2011-12; the creation of a new Professional Liability Section; and, the presentation of the Marshall-Tuttle Award for pro bono service through the Military Legal Assistance Program.
BASICS
Last June, the Board of Governors agreed to appropriate $140,000 to the BASICS program, ostensibly as a stop-gap measure to keep it alive while it secured independent sources of funding. However, fundraising for BASICS--which stands for Bar Association Support to Improve Correctional Services—has proved difficult in the past year.
As a result, State Bar President Lester Tate determined that the Board of Governors should vote on whether the standing bar committee that oversees the program should be abolished. The reasoning was that if the board voted to continue the committee, then funding for the program should be included in the upcoming budget for the State Bar.
“It is a stark policy choice that you have to make,” Tate told the board, equating abolition of the committee to setting the BASICS program adrift in a storm in a small life raft.
BASICS is a 30-hour course for soon-to-be released prison inmates that provides instruction, guidance and employability counseling to help them transition back into society and thus reduce recidivism. According to the State Bar's website: "BASICS Mission is to aid and steer inmates in the direction of self-rehabilitation. During the classes, we assist with developing career, educational and/or work plans, preparing resumes, setting goals, and teaching interviewing techniques. Upon release, we assist with job research, applying for colleges or vocational schools, completing or changing personal action plans, as well as developing financial plans. This decreases the likelihood that these individuals will return to jail."
As Seth Kirschenbaum, the chair of the State Bar's BASICS Committee, explained in June, the 35-year-old program has been funded in the recent past by the Georgia Bar Foundation. However, he said those funds were not available last year because low interest rates have caused IOLTA (Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts) to dry up. Thus, the request in June for State Bar funding.
While fundraisers have been held since that time, and efforts are being made to secure grants, there have been some impediments, Tate and Kirschenbaum explained at the midyear meeting. One problem is the program is not a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization, and thus is not attractive to those who prefer to make donations or grants to tax-exempt organizations. In addition, there is a perception that “rich lawyers” should pay for a program that is a creature of the State Bar.
The program trains approximately 500 inmates a year. While precise statistics on its effect on recidivism rates were not available at the board meeting, Kirschenbaum said such information is being gathered to quantify anecdotal claims about its success.
Nomination of Officers
The Board received nominations of officers for the State Bar for 2011-12. President-elect will be the Robin Frazer Clark, who currently serves as Secretary. This nomination puts her in line to become only the second female president in the State Bar’s history. (Linda Klein, who currently chairs the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates, was the first, serving from 1997-98.)
Buck Ruffin was nominated to serve an additional term as Treasurer.
Two candidates were nominated for Secretary, creating a contested election between Patrise Perkins-Hooker of Atlanta and Derek White of Pooler.
In other election action, the Board received the nominations of Paula Frederick and Donna Barwick to succeed themselves in two-year terms to the ABA Board of Delegates.
The State Bar will be sending all Bar members their ballots in the coming weeks.
Marshall-Tuttle Award
Buck Ruffin presented the Marshall-Tuttle Award to Drew Early for his pro bono work with the Military Legal Assistance Program.
The award is named in honor and memory of Corporal Evan Andrew Marshall, a soldier from Athens, Ga., who was killed in action in Iraq in 2008 and United States Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Elbert Parr Tuttle who handled many pro bono cases before his appointment to the bench.
The Marshall family attended the board meeting and was recognized for the sacrifice of their son and brother. Also recognized in the presentation of awards were Past President Jeffrey Bramlett and Jay Elmore for their work in establishing the program.
Other Board Actions
The Board adopted a policy to have its advisory committee on legislation review proposed amendments to the state constitution and decide whether the State Bar should take a stance on such measures.
The Board voted to petition the Supreme Court to allow law students to become student State Bar members for no cost and receive bar publications electronically. Student members have been required to pay $25 to offset the cost of publications being printed and mailed to them.
The Board created a new Professional Liability Section, which will focus on non-medical fields, including architects, attorneys, CPAs, land surveyors and professional engineers.
In other action, a by-law change was approved to allow the Executive Committee to meet by telephone or electronic conference, in lieu of in-person. Specially called Executive Committee meetings could occur upon the affirmative vote of two-thirds of the Executive Committee membership.
Legislative Issues
The Board voted to support legislation regarding indigent defense in Georgia that would move the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council from the executive branch back to the judicial branch. Another key legislative point supported by the bar to improve governance and functionality of the indigent defense system includes having a director hired by and reporting to the council, who could be removed for cause by a super majority of the council.
Henry Walker, chair of the Indigent Defense Committee, also reported that the ability to obtain a dedicated funding source for indigent defense through an amendment to the state constitution would be improved if the legislature can become comfortable with the governance of the program.
The Board did not consider a repeal of the rule against perpetuities because the matter had been previously tabled by the Advisory Committee on Legislation (ACL). Similarly, adoption of a uniform Estate Tax Apportionment Act, which had been on the board’s agenda, was not reached because it was not approved by the ACL.
The Board did vote in favor of amendments to the Georgia Code regarding utility liens; funding requests by the Judicial Qualifications Commission; and, adoption of a statewide jury source list that would eliminate forced balancing of the jury list.
As for correcting the problems created by HB 1055, which after last year’s legislative session raised the per page cost of preparation of an appellate record to $10 from $1.50, the Board approved a legislative proposal to return the fee to $1.50. At the same time, the Board approved a resolution to urge the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals to retain the dual system that allows attorneys to prepare their own record if they prefer. In addition, President Lester Tate will appoint a committee to work with the Court of Appeals to determine what, if any, kinks there have been in having attorneys prepare the record and what can be done to ameliorate such problems.
The Board also learned that the Special Council on Tax Reform and Fairness for Georgians did NOT recommend a tax on legal services among the various personal and household services for which it did recommend taxation.
Informational Reports
The YLD will hold a fundraiser to benefit Georgia Legal Services on March 5, 2011, at the Palomar Hotel in Midtown Atlanta.
The Board discussed confusion over a request from the Georgia Supreme Court which asked the State Bar for briefing regarding an Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee Advisory Opinion. The opinion at issue stated that a nonlawyer who answers for a garnishee, other than him or her self, in a legal proceeding pending with a court of record is engaged in the unauthorized practice of law. The confusion was over whether the State Bar should present a brief in support of that opinion or whether the court wanted to know more generally what the Bar really thinks about the issue. The Chamber of Commerce has taken a position against the advisory opinion. Executive Committee members expressed concerns about banks needing legal advice on what funds are subject to attachment before freezing bank accounts and about preserving the ability of lawyers to protect their livelihood rather than opening the floodgates to other areas of unauthorized law practice.
Past President Linda Klein, who now chairs the ABA’s House of Delegates, invited all to the ABA’s Midyear Meeting in Atlanta February 9-15, for which there is no registration fee. There will even be a free CLE on Value Billing, held from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on February 11.
Stone Mountain Circuit
Your representatives to the Board of Governors are: Katie Wood (Post 1, exp. ‘12); Johnny W. Mason, Jr. (Post 2, exp. ‘11); J. Antonio DelCampo (post 3, exp. ‘12); John M. Hyatt (Post 4, exp. ‘11); Gwen Keyes Fleming (Post 5, exp. ‘12); Claudia Saari (Post 6, exp. ‘11); Anne Workman (Post 7, exp. ‘12); R. Javoyne Hicks White (Post 8, exp. ‘11); Edward E. Carriere, Jr. (Post 9, exp. ‘12); and, Tara Adyanthaya (Post 10, exp. ’11). Please let us know if you have any thoughts or questions about what the State Bar is doing or suggestions for what it should undertake.
Similarly, if you are interested in serving on the Board of Governors, you can run for election. Each representative serves a two-year term. The even numbered posts are up for election this year and Johnny Mason has announced that he is not seeking re-election. (Even when incumbents are seeking re-election, anyone in the Stone Mountain Circuit can run.) To do so, you must file a petition to place your name in nomination for a particular post. For more information contact Brinda Lovvorn (404-527-8780) or Judy Hill (404-526-8625) at the State Bar.
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