Change Is In The Professional Association Air

The growth in size, number and breadth of bar and other legal professional associations in the past two decades has been dramatic. Bar and other legal personnel associations once numbered only a handful of large state associations and another handful of national associations. Since then, the number of associations has grown quite significantly and the numbers and types of constituents have become wide-ranging and varied.

In response to this growth, in January of this year, Special Counsel, long a supporter of legal professional associations, began an initiative to explore and define the best relationship between various national affinity groups and Special Counsel. Chaired by senior vice president David Maldonado, liaisons from Special Counsel offices were selected by senior leadership to work with a prominent group of affinity organizations. The goal of these national liaisons is to align with these professional associations to determine how best to develop these relationships and how best to help each of the organizations meet their national, regional, and local goals. Of mutual benefit is input and dialogue on how these entities and their vendors can work together.

It is the charge of each liaison to spearhead these efforts, and to develop recommendations on what the optimal relationship with each group will be. The list of organizations and their national liaisons (and the city in which the liaison is located) is in the chart below.

There has already been excellent progress with several of these groups. Exploratory meetings have been held with the 2007/08 President of the National Conference of Women’s Bar Associations (NCWBA); the President and President-elect of the Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA); and the President of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA). These discussions focused on ways in which Special Counsel could assist the groups in meeting their goals and to get a deeper understanding of their missions.

As an example of efforts that are being made, Special Counsel (through liaison Jennifer Blaga of our Cleveland office), has agreed to reach out to all bar associations in Special Counsel markets that are not NCWBA members, to encourage membership in NCWBA and to encourage them to evaluate financial sponsorship participation. Also, Jen Blaga and Carine Hodges from our New York office attended the NCWBA Annual Summit and were able to meet and seek input from organization members from regional and local level associations. These interactions assist us in knowing how we can be of service to these and similar organizations and how participation can vary between them and Special Counsel. We will continue to offer our support nationally by reaching out to potential members, encouraging membership, and providing market information, relevant articles and speakers.

Marya Brancio, Executive Director of our Denver office, provides us with another notable example. Marya recently joined forces with a few of her local paralegal managers to begin the process of creating a new IPMA chapter in Denver. The idea began to brew when a paralegal manager, who has a working relationship with Marya, and who is one of only three active individual IPMA members from the Denver area, attended the IPMA national conference in Phoenix this past year. He attended a
Special Counsel dinner at this conference. Through his discussions with Marya and his interaction with IPMA board members at the conference, he was prompted to create a chapter in the Denver area. He thereafter asked Marya to be a participant in his efforts at building the new chapter.

We are happy to report that after an initial meeting in mid-July, the Denver chapter of IPMA was formed and the paralegal manager was installed as its founding President. The group is currently preparing for a dinner/membership drive event, tentatively set for November, to spread the word to local paralegal managers about the chapter. Special Counsel will be assisting in making calls to encourage attendance at the dinner and to assist in membership signups.

If you have ideas to share with us, please feel free to contact your local Special Counsel representative. Affinity partnerships are win-win scenarios for all.

Special Counsel-Approved Liaisons
Organization	Special Counsel Liaisons
American Bar Association	Alexis Reed (Chicago)
Association of Corporate Counsel	Marci Dunnagan (Boston) Steve Mims (Houston)
Association of Legal Administrators	Tara Boosey (Nashville)
Hispanic National Bar Association	David Maldonado (Dallas)
International Paralegal Management Association	Laura Fulton (DC)
Minority Corporate Counsel Association	Keisha Hudson (Atlanta)
National Asian Pacific American Bar Association	Beth Palmer (San Francisco)
National Bar Association	Carine Hodges (New York)
National Conference of Women’s Bar Associations	Jen Blaga (Cleveland)