Nassau County Bar Association

From The President

Challenges and Opportunities, Part 1

Last year was one of great change for our bar association. We hired a new executive director, Keith Soressi, who is doing a splendid job. We added staff members to greatly augment our resources in the pro bono area, which was made possible by a grant that we received from the New York State Attorney General's Office. We brought in the services of a new caterer. And we responded strongly to the challenges presented by the devastation that was wrought by Superstorm Sandy.

And through it all, there was one person who led the charge, who responded to each of the unforeseen events as they unfolded with wisdom, calm, good humor, insight, and collegiality. I can't imagine how we would have weathered the storm of last year if Marian Rice had not been at the helm as our president. I am thrilled that she will continue on our executive committee as immediate past president this year.

This is a remarkable bar association in many respects. It is remarkable in the range of services and benefits it offers to its members. Most conspicuous among these are our substantive committee structure and the opportunities for networking and professional growth that it presents. Another outstanding benefit is the very economical access that membership offers to our academy of law and all of its educational offerings. We are also a powerful voice in shaping our judiciary and taking advocacy positions on legislation that affects our profession. And we provide information to the public about the charitable activities of our members in a way that shatters stereotypes and presents them in an accurate and favorable light.

Since the recession of 2008, our volunteer attorneys have conducted 50 mortgage foreclosure clinics. Since last fall, our Superstorm Sandy clinics have continued unabated, and in fact, we are seeing convergence between the issues being presented there and at our mortgage foreclosure clinics, as represented by a recent offering entitled the NCBA Mortgage Foreclosure and Sandy Recovery Free Legal Consultation Clinic. We also offer enormous service to the public through our Lawyer Referral Information Service, which provides a reasonably priced consultation to prospective clients who would otherwise have no idea where to turn to address their problems.

And then we have LAP, one of the most important charitable programs of our Bar Association, and one whose role has become all the more important in these troubled economic times, which have impacted on the legal community in the form of increased stress and use of alcohol and drugs. Please note that I described it as a charitable program, not a benefit of membership. LAP reaches out to assist attorneys whether or not they are a member and whether or not they work or reside in Nassau County. And the program benefits the clients of lawyers whose cases are adversely affected by these problems every bit as much as it does the lawyers themselves.

I am our 111th president, and yet I am the first to be employed as an assistant district attorney. In this regard, I am like many other attorneys employed by the government, most of whom do not choose to become members of their local bar association. I hope to bring to this presidency some perspective as to how we can make membership more attractive to government attorneys and to many others who have not traditionally been among our ranks.

Our working theory in the past has been that NCBA has a great deal to offer, if only we can showcase it properly for prospective members, and that has never been done more spectacularly than during our recently concluded Membership Month of May, but there is more to it than that. People do not join volunteer organizations because the organization wants them; they join because they perceive something of value to them in the organization. We need to devote more time and energy to issues that are of importance to all attorneys, regardless of the substantive area in which they practice – issues that would be relevant whether they work for a large firm, small firm, are self-employed or work for the government.

Our outgoing president, Marian Rice, put her finger on one such issue at our Law Day celebration last month, when she criticized Chief Judge Lippman's decision to require attorneys to report their pro bono activities. This was a well-intentioned but ill-guided edict to compel charitable works by our profession, and it completely ignored the fact that charity is intended to enrich the life of the donor every bit as much as it does that of the recipient, albeit in a very different sort of way. By compelling charity under the threat of scrutiny, it ceases to be charity at all or to offer anything of personal value to the attorney who undertakes it.

Thank you for everything that you freely choose to do as caring volunteers to make our bar association the great institution that it is.