Washington Lawyer - July/August 2024 - 12

FEATURE
I feel like I had a leg up because I already understood many of the facets
involved in membership organizations, including internal operations and
finance, which helped since I was the treasurer. Plus, we have a great staff
and core group of leaders at the Bar, which makes serving on the Board
of Governors a very engaging and rewarding experience.
Driving engagement is one of your key priorities. How will you encourage
more Bar members to get involved?
Membership organizations must constantly make sure they are providing
sufficient value to keep and grow their membership. And sophisticated
organizations like the Bar offer programs and services designed to
meet the needs of their very diverse membership at all points of their
career.
We are a mandatory bar, but we have
to operate like a voluntary bar, in
many ways, and make sure that we
are offering the benefits and services
that make membership valuable.
I want to ensure that members know
how the Bar's services and benefits
can help them in their professional
career.
My involvement in the Bar has provided
a bird's-eye view of the breadth
and depth of what the Bar has to offer
that an average member may not
be in a position to see. It's up to those
of us in leadership and those who are
involved to help connect our colleagues
to Bar services and programs
that they would find beneficial.
There's so much opportunity in terms
of networking and professional development.
There are great opportunities
in our Communities and CLE
Program to keep abreast of what's
going on in a particular area of practice,
and opportunities for leadership
that can let people not only get involved,
but also give back to the
community.
Being a lawyer is really about relationships.
It's a massive component of
what we do as lawyers. So, the ability the Bar provides to expand those
relationships and build those networks ... that alone is a great reason to
participate in the Bar.
The new Early Career Lawyers Community (ECLC) is a great example of
getting people involved in the Bar early on. ECLC is designed for lawyers
in their first 10 years of practice and has already held some great programs,
including a fireside chat with the D.C. attorney general. The earlier
people get involved in the Bar, the more likely they are to stay for the
long term, which benefits them as well as the Bar. Building on ECLC, we
have discussed increasing law student involvement at our six law schools
in the District to help put future attorneys on the track to engage with
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the Bar even earlier and create a stronger pipeline to organizational engagement
and leadership.
The D.C. Bar is a large bar with 118,000 members, but it is also a very
small community. There are many opportunities for new attorneys to interact
with the District's most prominent lawyers, to learn from their experiences,
and to seek mentorship. Programs like the John Payton Leadership
Academy can help put attorneys on a path to taking on leadership
roles in the organization.
What other issues will be central to your presidency?
I think it is important for us to continue our discussions related to the future
of legal practice. I recently attended
a conference where a speaker said that
when artificial intelligence is sufficiently
advanced to perform a task in minutes
that would take an attorney hours, there
may be an ethical responsibility to use
the technology and bill accordingly.
It struck me that the legal profession
needs to make sure it's out in front of
what it will look like in the coming years
before AI systems and platform developers
make those choices for us.
The D.C. Bar's preeminence in the legal
profession means that we should be
helping to lead that discussion and
driving what the future of the profession
looks like. I look forward to the Bar
facilitating more of those discussions in
the coming year.
I also want to continue my predecessors'
focus on access to justice. We hear
the statistics that well over 80 percent
of individuals appearing in civil cases
have no legal representation. And so
many of those cases involve critical issues
such as family law, housing, and
immigration. These are complex areas
that can be difficult to navigate without
legal representation. There is so much
opportunity to marshal the large number
of attorneys in the Washington,
D.C., area to help with pro bono cases.
As a member of the D.C. Bar Board of Governors, I also sit on the D.C. Bar
Pro Bono Center Board of Directors, and I get to see firsthand the amazing
work the staff and volunteers do there. But we need more attorneys
to volunteer for pro bono representation.
That's easier said than done, of course. I remember how intimidated I was
the first time I volunteered at a Pro Bono Center Advice & Referral Clinic.
However, the staff and mentors made it very manageable, and by the
end of the day, all of the hesitancy I had was gone. [Pro bono work] gives
you a great feeling of knowing that you're helping people who would
otherwise not be able to afford help.
Washington Lawyer - July/August 2024

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