Learning From the Past, Keeping an Eye on the Future

The new year has many opportunities in store for ISBA members, the legal profession, and all Illinoisans.

January is upon us, the month of the year when we traditionally take time to look back at the recently concluded holiday season and look forward to what the new year has ahead of us. January is, of course, named for the Roman god Janus, the god of beginnings and endings, time and transitions, passages and doorways. Depictions of Janus show two faces: one looking one way, and the other in the opposite direction.

For ISBA leadership, we look back to lessons learned, and forward to implementing new ideas and changes so that the association becomes more operationally and financially efficient. We are ever mindful that providing you, our members, with the best bar association value for your hard-earned dues dollars is job one every day of the year. We know that some of our most popular benefits of membership are free CLE, the Fastcase online research platform, and access to malpractice insurance from ISBA Mutual.

We also are continuing to focus on life/work balance, and just completed a very well-attended

and successful program at the Joint Midyear Meeting on that topic. Our efforts in this area continue to grow and become more sophisticated as we educate ourselves as to the needs of our members.

Aspiring leaders

Recently, I had the privilege to address the chairs of our 50-plus section councils and committees and provide them with an update as to our activities on a variety of different issues and situations facing the ISBA. I believe that sharing this information with you will not only shed some light on the value of membership but keep you in the know as to our activities on your behalf.

An integral part of our role as officers is to encourage members to step into leadership positions. The life blood of any association is to foster and promote younger, more diverse members to ready themselves for leadership by becoming active in the association. To that end, I encourage all of you who wish to participate in a section council or committee to self-nominate using the link on our website, isba.org/membergroups/nominations. (See also the call for self-nominations on Page 9). President-elect Shawn Kasserman will be making those appointments in April. Our committees and section councils are at the very core of member benefits, so self-nominate today.

We will also be announcing very soon plans for another class of our Leadership Academy, the brainchild of Immediate Past President Anna Krolikowska, to train the next generation of ISBA leaders. Several graduates of the Leadership Academy’s inaugural class have become elected members of the Board of Governors. Our Diversity Leadership Council has also planned and conducted CLE events designed to encourage more minority participation in ISBA leadership.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion

We have completed the assessment phase of our diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative and are now working toward developing a series of goals and protocols to move forward in those efforts. We continue to work with consultants Kimberly Norwood and Richard Harvey. Our working group has been designated as the Steering Committee on Equity Strategy. This small working group continues to work toward our goal of a long-term, sustainable plan for a more diverse and inclusive membership.

Innovation in the legal profession

While I’m pleased with the leadership role the ISBA took in securing the passage of ABA Resolution 402 affirming the profession’s opposition to nonlawyer ownership of law firms and fee splitting with nonlawyers, I also understand we can’t simply sit back, contented to be against something. We need to create and advance new ideas and programs if we are going to be part of the solution to current access-to-justice problems. To that end, we’ve commenced several programs, among them an expansion of the Rural Practice Initiative (RPI). This new program will apply some of the lessons learned from the RPI to underserved urban communities throughout the state and expand ISBA’s efforts to bring lawyers to these legal deserts.

Another new program underway is a review and analysis of the use of the billable hour as the principal, if not sole, metric for attorney fees. Creating and implementing new ways to provide those who can least afford legal fees access to a lawyer is a key priority.

We know that we at the ISBA cannot do this alone. We must work with our partners in the legal assistance community, other bar associations, and the Illinois Supreme Court to begin discussions on real-world programs that will provide legal advice and services to those who need it. The new year presents us with new opportunities. I can assure you, our members, that the ISBA will be an eager participant in the conversations ahead of us to affect real change.

The pandemic has taught us many lessons, among them the need for and utilization of office space. In conjunction with the ISBA Mutual and the Illinois Bar Foundation, we have been discussing opportunities for significant savings in rent and office space in Chicago. While those efforts are ongoing, our goal is to maintain our Chicago office presence while cutting existing costs, thereby saving our members money in the longer term. Conversations have just begun, and we hope to have something exciting to announce soon.

In short, like Janus, we look back at existing programs, changing, fostering, and enhancing them to provide continued value to our members. At the same time, we are ever mindful of the need to come up with new and creative ways to remain valuable to our members and serve the legal system and our citizens.