A Friend You Can Count On
 

 By Genevieve Frank

WITHOUT A DOUBT, the most exciting thing about being BAMSL President is also the most intimidating.  Throughout the next year, I will have to write eleven more columns for St. Louis Lawyer magazine, as well as four introductions to the St. Louis Bar Journal.  Of course, I am very excited about the opportunity to communicate with all of you on a regular basis.  But I am fairly intimidated about the prospect of having to come up with something interesting to say sixteen times.  To add to the stress, I have now attended at least half a dozen seminars in the past two years dedicated to the topic of writing a bar president’s column.  At each, the presenters gave out a list of helpful hints, common mistakes to avoid and examples of great columns.  The problem is, some of the helpful hints on one list show up as mistakes to avoid on another. 

I decided to seek the advice of a good friend who is also a past BAMSL President.  I had always enjoyed his columns, so I hoped he would have some words of wisdom for me.  What I most recall about that conversation is that I was more apprehensive afterwards than I was before we talked.  For one thing, he had advised I write about personal experiences in order to connect with readers and I now have the unsettling feeling that I may not be a particularly interesting person.  He also suggested I look to O. Henry as an example of how to write a column that would keep the reader’s attention.  That wasn’t a whole lot of help either, since O. Henry is known as the master of the “twist ending” and I don’t think I am creative enough to come up with sixteen twist endings and I really don’t know how I would work one into a Bar Journal column.  Also, O. Henry has an annual literary award named after him and in1952, Hollywood turned four of his short stories into a movie.  I seriously doubt that any producer will read my thoughts on, say, the importance of an independent judiciary or pro bono and think “summer blockbuster”.

However, on further investigation, I discovered O. Henry wrote, according to various sources, between 400 and 600 short stories during his lifetime.  That is impressively prolific and also makes sixteen submissions seem extremely doable by comparison.  O. Henry also spent some time in prison after being convicted of embezzlement at a bank where he worked.  He did most of his writing while in prison and after his release.  I always take great comfort in the notions that no one is perfect and that it is possible to recover from big mistakes.  In the end, I was glad that I had gone to my good friend for advice, because the conversation made me think seriously about what I wanted to accomplish in these columns.  It also prompted me to research facts about O. Henry, whose work I have always enjoyed but about whom I knew very little.  But I digress.

The exchange also caused me to reflect on the importance of friends you can count on.  When I was a brand new lawyer, my law school classmate and co-worker Cynthia Albin and I attended many bar events together.  Two natural-born joiners, we attended them all:  BAMSL, BAMSL YLD, Lawyers Association, WLA.  You name it, we were there.  Naturally, we were a little nervous and very anxious to make a good impression and effectively “network”, which everyone told us was so very important.  Making sure we made that good impression and did not embarrass ourselves required some advance planning.  One important part of that plan was our pact that we would make sure to monitor one another’s teeth in order to avoid the situation where an otherwise brilliant conversation with a new acquaintance would be marred by a stray chive or piece of spinach from the dip.   Of course, we were also there for each other to watch out for other potentially devastating faux pas such as a slip below the hemline or a run in the pantyhose.  You can’t really argue with the wisdom of that pact, given that I am now writing to you as BAMSL President and that Cynthia and I are both satisfied in and happy with our personal and professional lives at this time.

The conclusion to draw from these somewhat rambling anecdotes is this:  Life is much better when you have a friend you can count on.  President-Elect Dave Crawford and I have spent the last year working with many smart and creative people to develop a plan for the next two bar years.  Our new Executive Director, Zoe Lyle, has jumped into that process with a fresh perspective and an infectious energy.  In the final analysis, all of it comes down to one simple premise: BAMSL should be a friend you can count on.  This Association should be there for you, the members, to provide you with tools and resources to foster your professional and personal success.  You should be able to count on BAMSL for quality educational opportunities.  You should be able to count on BAMSL for professional development training.  You should be able to count on BAMSL to provide you a path to community and professional leadership.  You should be able to count on BAMSL to provide you with social opportunities that will allow you to effectively network for business purposes and to make new friends.  You should be able to count on BAMSL to provide you practice management assistance and practical benefits, such as insurance and discounts on products you need.  You should be able to count on BAMSL to be your voice in the Legislature on important issues of administrative justice.  You should be able to count on BAMSL to provide you with timely communication about important issues affecting our profession.  You should be able to count on BAMSL to offer you meaningful and satisfying pro bono and community service opportunities.  You should be able to count on BAMSL to offer you whatever you need to achieve success, however you define that success. 

That is my pledge to you:  I, the BAMSL Staff, the Executive Committee, the Board of Governors will work as hard and as smart as we can in 2007-2008 to ensure BAMSL is a friend you can count on.  Of course, being a good listener is a quality we all value in a good friend.  That is why we will spend a great deal of time this year listening to all of you.  In the next few months, we will initiate a very comprehensive long term strategic planning process.  The process will involve extensive communications with the membership in order to obtain information about what you need from our Association.  We truly hope that as many of our members as possible will assist us in this process.  We cannot become a stronger, more relevant Association without your help. 

My introduction in the upcoming issue of the Bar Journal will outline our plans for the next two years (including the strategic planning process) in more detail.  I hope that you will take the time to read the article and provide us with any ideas or feedback you have.  In the meantime, please feel free to contact me, President-Elect Dave Crawford or Executive Director Zoe Lyle at any time.  I can be contacted at genfrank@aol.com, 314-952-5506 or 418 Summer Top Lane, Fenton, MO  63026.  Contact information for us, as well as for all BAMSL Executive Committee and Board of Governors members and all BAMSL Committee Chairs is available on our website at www.bamsl.org. 

Finally, many of our members participate in our Sections, Committees and Task Forces.  You will soon receive a complete listing and description of all our member entities.  I hope you will take the time to review all the opportunities available.  If you do not currently participate in the work of any of our member entities, I hope you will consider getting involved.  Even if you are already active, I hope you will consider exploring a new opportunity. 

RANDOM THOUGHTS

It is a privilege to have this forum to speak to you each month as BAMSL President.  I hope you will indulge me, each month, as I use this portion of the column to tell you about people and events I believe are worth noting.

ü      I want to make a personal plug for the 2007 BAMSL Bench & Bar Conference, which will be held 5/31/07-6/2/07 at the Lake of the Ozarks.  The hard-working committee, chaired by The Honorable John F. Kintz, the Honorable Donald L. McCullin, Dale Weppner and Zach Pancoast, has put together a great CLE program and lots of fun social and sports events.  For more information, contact BAMSL at 314-421-4134 or visit the website at www.bamsl.org.

ü      Congratulations to the winners of the contested elections we had this year.  As reported elsewhere in this issue, Tom Glick won the contested race for BAMSL Secretary and Erv Switzer, Stan Platke, Seth Albin, Morry Cole and Heather Hays were the top 5 vote-getters in contested race for Member at Large.  Thank you to all who ran.  All of the candidates were very impressive.

ü      My personal congratulations to our Law Day honorees, who are featured elsewhere in the May issue of the St. Louis Lawyer.

ü      Congratulations to Dan Rabbit, a fellow former YLD Chair, who received the Lawyers Association Award of Honor on April 21^st.

ü      Congratulations to Senator Claire McCaskill, Kayla Vaughan, and Carrie Hermeling who were the 2007 recipients of the Daily Record’s Women Justice Awards on April 26^th.  Senator McCaskill is a groundbreaking woman attorney in Missouri and a personal inspiration. Kayla is my former colleague at Legal Services of Eastern Missouri and as served as a role model for many attorneys in public service, including myself. Carrie is the first managing partner of the Husch and Eppenberger firm. She was also the firm’s pro bono coordinator while I was the Director of the Volunteer Lawyer Program at LSEM and during that time she significantly raised the bar for pro bono at the large firms.

ü      Thank you to the Honorable Mary Rhodes Russell, who administered my oath of office at the Law Day ceremony.  Judge Russell has spent countless hours mentoring young women in our profession. 

ü      One of our long-time members and a great friend to many, George Kosta, recently passed away.  My husband, Joe Frank, and I enjoyed Mr. and Mrs. Kosta’s company at many bar events over the years.  Mr. Kosta was also very kind to us when Joe and I were going through a particularly difficult time.  He will be greatly missed. 

ü      Last, but certainly far from least, I would like to take one more opportunity to recognize Immediate Past President Lynn Ann Vogel for the outstanding job she did during the 2006-2007 bar year.  For the first half of the year, BAMSL did not have a permanent Executive Director.  Lynn Ann performed all her Presidential duties while also spending countless hours working with our Interim Executive Director, Sherry King, to keep our Association going on a day to day basis.  We were very fortunate to have the right person in the right job at the right time, as Lynn Ann is not only a skilled lawyer but possesses a wealth of management expertise.  We will never be able to thank her enough for navigating our Association through a time of great challenge. I also have to thank Sherry King, our Assistant Executive Director for her incredible work during the past year.  She demonstrated incredible leadership, calm, grace and skill during what could have been an incredibly difficult time.  The leadership and membership of our Association owe her a huge debt of gratitude.