Chair’s Message

Here are my goals for the Section and for your participation:

Develop online and virtual programming and networking as a new paradigm to facilitate participation by younger lawyers, government, solo and small firm lawyers, and law students who often cannot afford to attend in-person meetings. Our Fall Online Conference CLE will be two afternoon panels a day, in the afternoons of October 27, 28, and 29. With a new platform, you can see our panelists in real time and also participate in social events and networking opportunities; all programs are recorded, available on demand, in case you have to Zoom away.

Provide opportunities for younger lawyers and new Section members to present or moderate on panels and publish articles in State & Local Law News and The Urban Lawyer. Some conferences will be called “Symposia” with published papers.

Build Section leadership for the next 10 to 15 years by appointing and mentoring committee chairs, co-chairs, and vice chairs. We have many new faces, and that builds our future.

Enhance diversity on the basis of tribal identity, religion, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity, and age, and provide relevant programming and mentoring.

Increase membership through outreach to lawyers in state, tribal, regional and local governments, firms that serve such constituencies and firms that represent clients before them, and law students—with a focus on relevant topical programming. The new ABA membership model facilitates young lawyers’ transition from being law students and builds a group of younger members for our future. There are very affordable group rates for government law offices and NGOs, as well as for small firms adding new ABA members.

Provide robust programming and related publication opportunities concerning public policy issues, including elections and voting rights; implicit and explicit bias—social class and economic, racial, ethnic, religious, sexual orientation, gender and gender identification, and age—as it manifests in programs and agencies at every level of government; the police; resiliency planning and government responses to disasters, natural and otherwise; public discourse; and the rule of law. If an online program interests you, invite a friend to listen—and then to join the Section.

Provide online communities, through each committee’s Community page, for dialogue about the issues for our time; and provide monthly or bimonthly committee phone calls with a speaker on a hot topic, for which there is no charge.

Enhance programming collaboration among Section committees and with other ABA entities.

Often an idea for a program begins with a talk on a committee’s regular phone call, develops through a short article in State & Local Law News, becomes the basis for one or more CLE programs, and ultimately becomes a book in our exemplary publication program. Similarly, working groups within the Section can provide the substance and momentum for resolutions that our delegates bring to the House of Delegates.

All of these goals relate to all Section members. Our Committee meetings are open, and all members are encouraged to call in. And there is one final goal, traditional to our Section and our approach to life and law practice: to have fun!

I would be remiss if I did not give heartfelt thanks to Marti Chumbler, our 2019–2020 Section Chair, who faced the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic head-on and shifted our Spring Conference, Land Use Institute, and Annual Meeting programming online, and whose wisdom and love of the Section made my year of planning as Chair-Elect possible; to my colleagues in the Section leadership; and to Tamara Edmonds-Askew, our Director, and Marsha Boone, our Program Specialist, for providing the framework within which we can serve as volunteers.

And at this time when we live with uncertainty and a kind of mourning, for that which is no longer normal, as we remember those who have died of COVID-19, whether known or not known to us, let us also remember four men who gave us much and died this year: Rep. Elijah Cummings, our Baltimore keynote speaker; Rep. John Lewis, the 2020 ABA keynote speaker; Otto Hetzel, longtime Section member and leader, author, raconteur, and friend; and especially Jim Dimos, ABA Deputy Executive Director and General Counsel, who died unexpectedly the day after our successful ABA Virtual Annual Meeting. May they rest in peace.

Let us join together, in celebration of our common purpose, as lawyers and citizens and friends, and have a great year in 2020–2021.