Emma Garrison�new Yld Chair to Focus on Outreach
| Publication year | 2013 |
| Pages | 63 |
| Citation | Vol. 42 No. 9 Pg. 63 |
By Matt Masich
Departments Young Lawyers Division
The CBA Young Lawyers Division Department comprises practical articles and essays of interest especially to novice attorneys. Suggestions for article topics or final draft manuscnpts may be sent to Coordinating Editor Christopher D Bryan—(970) 947-1936, cbryan@garfieldhecht.com.
About the Author
Matt Masich is a writer with Colorado Life Magazine. He previously was a reporter for Law Week Colorado, covering bar associations, the business of law, appellate courts, and the Colorado Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel—matt.masich@gmail.com.
When you talk to Emma Garrison about her role as the new chair of the CBA's Young Lawyers Division (YLD), you find she has the zeal of the converted and the regret of a cautionary example. Garrison, staff counsel at the Denver law fum of Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell, was five years out of law school before she joined the CBA, having previously avoided bar associations and the dreaded practice of "networking." Now that she sees how professionally and personally rewarding it has been to make connections through the bar association and the YLD, she wishes she had joined earlier.
Garrison talked recently to budding lawyers studying for the July bar exam, and she conveyed a simple message. "I wanted to prevent them from being like me and waiting years to join the bar association, " she said. "I let them know we're here for them, and that they should get involved."
She has two big goals for her term as YLD chair. She will be spearheading a project to keep the CBA relevant to younger lawyers by identifying what they want from a bar association. She also wants to work o n concrete measures to include lawyers from beyond the Denver metro area.
Coming to Colorado
Garrison grew up in Austin, Texas, the daughter of a lawyer mother and English professor father. Her mom worked for the Texas Attorney General's Office, writing opinions for the state of Texas when the legislature or local governments sought legal guidance. Garrison admired her mother, but she didn't always know she wanted to follow in her footsteps into the law.
She began thinking about law school midway through her undergraduate studies at the university of Texas (UT) at Austin, where she majored in Classics, reading the Iliad and Odyssey and Roman poetry in...
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