The theme for the Judicial Division’s Lawyers Conference for the ABA bar year 2024-2025 is “Collaboration and Celebration”. First, the Lawyers Conference is excited to focus on outreach to lawyers while collaborating with the other Judicial Division conferences, beginning with the National Conference of Specialized Court Judges. An ABA Webinar titled “Pathways to the Bench” is planned for January 2025 featuring three judges who reached the bench in different ways - through a governor appointment, through a contested election and through the federal appointment process. This program is important as knowing how to get a judicial appointment or how to run a judicial election is not common knowledge and is often not talked about. The program will aim to take away the mystery while providing tips on creating an application, getting endorsements and how to run a judicial election.
The Lawyers Conference will also be working with each of the different JD Conferences through its new program “Bench Bound”. This program will provide informal conversations with judges for new and young lawyers. Whether a lawyer appears before the bench or wants to be on the bench, information will be offered in a virtual setting about the different types of judicial positions and both what these judges expect from those who appear in front of them and how to become a judge of that type. Eventually, the plan is for a publication that will incorporate this information in written form.