Bar Executive Exchange

NEWSLETTER OF THE INTERNATIONAL BAR ASSOCIATION’S BAR ISSUES COMMISSION Bar Executive Exchange ISSUE 17 SEPTEMBER 2016 Ken Murphy Director General, Law Society of Ireland Co-Chair, Bar Executive Committee Merete Smith Secretary General, Norwegian Bar Association Co-Chair, Bar Executive Committee CONTENTS Co-Chairs welcome Obama has challenged lawyers message: Ken Murphy and Merete Smith 1 to be ‘problem solvers’ Bar Executive Profile – Paul V Carlin 3 ‘Most people who serve in Washington locals tend to call it) for the IBA’s Annual Bar Executive Officers have been trained either as lawyers or as Conference in this great city of lawyers, we in Committee Meeting political operatives – professions that tend the Bar Executives Committee will take up the Programme 5 to place a premium on winning arguments President’s perceptive and pertinent challenge New IBA publication rather than solving problems.’ that we be ‘problem solving’ in our orientation. – Benchmarking Bar President Barack Obama The first step to problem solving is the Associations 6 According to official remarkable statistics, one sharing of all relevant information and The American Bar person in every 12 living in Washington, DC is a insights with a view to evaluating and Association 8 lawyer. It is the greatest concentration of lawyers choosing possible solutions. This is the same in any city in the United States and, probably, in spirit which animated the very successful Bar The American the world. Executives business session at the meeting we Bar Association’s international work 10 President Obama, a lawyer himself, has held in Barcelona in May. As Co-Chairs of the lived in the White House for the last seven Bar Executives Committee we are committed Bar Executive and a half years. With Washington, DC in to that spirit also animating our discussions officers coming to recent years more associated with partisan in ‘DC’ to which every one of you, who is Washington, DC 2016 11 political gridlock than ‘problem solving’, it an executive staff member in a Bar or Law is perhaps not surprising that the eloquent Society, is hereby cordially invited. IBA Annual conference but often politically frustrated President has We shared information and ideas on Washington, DC 2016 remarked: ‘I wish the country had fewer several diverse agenda items at our meeting – Our sessions 15 lawyers and more engineers’! in Barcelona. By common consent the As thousands of international lawyers gather formula was very successful. Accordingly in Washington, DC (or simply ‘DC’ as the we have decided to put the following three ISSUE 17 SEPTEMBER 2016 BAR EXECUTIVE EXCHANGE 1 FROM THE CO-CHAIRS very different but challenging issues on our What are the international trends for agenda for the meeting which will be held change in the regulation of the legal at the American Bar Association's DC office. profession? They are:- For this we will be joined by special guest The big picture for small firms speaker Alison Hook, who is a consultant to the Solicitors Regulation Authority in England & What does the future hold for solo general Wales and who has been recognised by the IBA practitioner law firms? What can and should for her expertise in this field having recently Bars and Law Societies be doing to assist? produced the IBA legal Regulators' Directory. The economic pressure, from the modern We fervently hope to welcome you to world, on the business model in question the Bar Executives meeting in DC. This is seems to be increasing on every continent – in your opportunity to share your thoughts rural areas in particular. Should it all simply and experiences with your Bar Executive be left to market forces? Or should we be colleagues from around the world and to offering assistance to beleaguered colleagues? learn from theirs. This is a unique and If the latter, what assistance to solo general invaluable forum to which we can all practitioners (eg, to retire or to merge into contribute and from which we can all benefit. bigger law firms) has been tried with success? To conclude on an inspirational note, we could not do better than recall some now Brexit often-quoted but still stirring words of President Obama. In a famous speech in his 2008 election What are the Bars and Law Societies most campaign he said: directly affected doing to prepare for it? What, ‘Change will not come if we wait for some if anything, should the rest of us be doing? other person or some other time. We are We will hear from bar executives on the the ones we have been waiting for. We are front line on how they are trying to prepare for the change we seek.’ Brexit effects, for their professions, that are as Let the Bar Executives Committee help you to yet very difficult to predict. be a ‘problem solver’ in your organisation. Ken Murphy Merete Smith Director General Secretary General Law Society of Ireland Norwegian Bar Association Co-Chair, Bar Executives Committee Co-Chair, Bar Executives Committee CONTACT CONTRIBUTIONS If you have any queries about the BIC, please contact Becca Should you wish to comment or offer a contribution to Bar Executive Verhagen, Head of Bar Issues Commission, at the IBA office in Exchange, please contact Ed Green (Editor) at [email protected] London ([email protected]). On the Web www.ibanet.org/barassociations/bar_issues_commission.aspx 2 BAR EXECUTIVE EXCHANGE ISSUE 17 SEPTEMBER 2016 BAR EXECUTIVE PROFILE Bar Executive Profile – Paul V Carlin Executive Director, Maryland State Bar Association oon, I learn, you will be visiting Washington, DC (District of Columbia), Sour nation’s capital! Welcome! An interesting factoid is that all of current DC was formerly Maryland until 1791. This federal quadrangle was originally donated to the new United States Government by the states of Maryland and Virginia, but due to the dispute between our northern and southern states in the 1860s, Virginia reneged on its part and never gave it back. So, welcome to Maryland! A bit of tongue-in- cheek humour is that we like to say that DC is ‘an eight mile quadrant bordered on all sides by reality’. We also refer to Maryland as America in miniature – from the Atlantic coast to the Appalachian Mountains in the West, with its predominant geological feature being the Chesapeake Bay, America’s largest bay. We also like to say that it is ‘The Land of Pleasant Living’. While Maryland is just 43rd of the 50 States in land area, we do claim to have the 14th highest number of lawyers, and the to Washington, DC to establish their Lawyer Maryland State Bar Association is the fifth Referral and Information Service, which was largest voluntary bar association with about the first of its kind in the US. I then became 25,000 members. the Executive Director of the Baltimore City Washington, DC is a fascinating city with so Bar Association and the Connecticut Bar much to see. As to the legal profession, if New Association before beginning a 32-year tenure York City is the centre of business and finance with the Maryland State Bar Association. for the US, Washington, DC is the epicentre At each stop, I made the delivery of legal for US lawyers. The mandatory DC Bar has services to all, regardless of financial means, about 110,000 lawyer members. a priority. Like most of you, I did not I am finishing up 42 years of satisfying envisage a career with a bar organisation, but employment with bar associations this am grateful to find a path that has been so December. After spending three years in rewarding and productive. Europe, primarily Munich, West Germany, I Looking back, my biggest involvements returned to the US with the determination were the creation of our own malpractice to assist persons who do not have ready insurance company, when the market access to the law and our courts. I started tightened and so many commercial with the Philadelphia Bar Association as companies stopped writing policies; the their Director of Legal Services and was creation of a pro bono corporation to able to start an inner city clinic and also organise and coordinate the delivery of pro the Senior Law Center, which 40 years later, bono legal services in the state; the creation is the largest legal service provider to the of professionalism courses for our newly elderly in Pennsylvania. From there I moved admitted lawyers; and also the development ISSUE 17 SEPTEMBER 2016 BAR EXECUTIVE EXCHANGE 3 BAR EXECUTIVE PROFILE 2016 Bar Executives Subcommittee meeting in Barcelona, Spain of a legal education department within the us abreast of all the current developments state bar when our former institute ceased occurring with the profession and our ever doing business. While those high points faster and demanding flow of information stand out, our prime activity is the day-to- in modern society. The world has indeed day business of administering programmes become smaller and communication almost and events to our 25,000 members and anywhere can become instantaneous. We find arranging about 500 meetings a year for more and more that the situations we deal more than 100 separate entities, like our with are very similar for all of us worldwide. committees and sections. Just like in your To these situations and problems, we need various organisations and certainly with our to assess the facts and create the workable voluntary association, our mantra is ‘Service solutions. We do this in an orderly fashion to Our Members’. which we call the rule of law. I’m sure that Just like your Bar Executive group, I your gathering in DC will continue to pursue have always been active with the National this ideal through your exchange of ideas and Association of Bar Executives (NABE) in valuable communication.

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