Mary Smith passed the gavel to William R. Bay, who became president of the American Bar Association on Aug. 6 at the end of the ABA Annual Meeting in Chicago.
In his remarks, Bay asked the House of Delegates to “choose change.”
August 06, 2024 Top Legal News of the Week
Bill Bay asks ABA to “meet lawyers where they are”
The partner at the St. Louis office of national law firm Thompson Coburn LLP is a longtime leader in the ABA. Bay co-chaired the Practice Forward initiative, which addressed member concerns regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and the future of the profession, served as chair of the House of Delegates from 2018-20 and chaired the Litigation Section from 2012-13. Bay chaired the ABA Day Planning Committee in 2021 and 2022. A Fellow in the American Bar Foundation, he served on the ABA Board of Governors and chaired its Finance Committee from 2015-16 and has been a member of the ABA House of Delegates for more than 20 years.
“Today, we are called to renew our journey with a goal of being the home of the profession,” he told the House. “We must engage a new generation of attorneys who don’t see the association and profession as we do.”
Bay called for “a different approach” and to “move past the ways we have always done things. Instead, we need to focus on who we need to be to remain faithful to our mission,” he said.
“The data and facts are very clear,” he said. “The rest of the world is changing. If our association is to endure and thrive, then we must change.”
Being “the home for the profession” requires doing “home improvement projects,” he said, and “now is the time to renovate our ABA house to strive to meet lawyers where they are.”
Bay called member engagement and member experience the keys and said the goal “is to provide multiple opportunities for every member of our profession to experience the great value and opportunity we offer.”
He wants to simplify the process by which members can be engaged. “Sometimes it feels like you need a decoder ring to understand our organization — we can do better,” Bay said.
In addition to simplifying the dues structure, he wants to “provide access to what members want in the way they want it.”
Bay urged House members to break away from “what you typically do in the ABA and check out another part of the association” and said in doing so he discovered “other parts of the ABA which are making real impact.” For instance, the ABA’s $2.65 million investment in public interest work yields “upwards of $40 million in grants,” he said.
“We change lives. We help people,” Bay said. “It is eye opening. I encourage you to volunteer.”
A poster in the office of an ABA staffer in Washington, D.C., caught his eye. It said: “We make justice real.”
“What a succinct statement of our mission and what we do,” Bay said.