Ethics for Good Xi
| Publication year | 2010 |
| Pages | 17 |
Ethics for Good XI
By Meg Wickham, Kansas Bar Association Public Services Manager
The evenings are getting longer, fun family vacations are in full plan mode, many wedding invitations are being received …WAIT, it’s June already! “Oh no! I said I wouldn’t do it again,” said a Kansas attorney in a panic. “June 30 is right around the bend and I still need two hours of ethics CLE.”
The 11th annual Ethics for Good CLE seminar fills the two-hour ethics requirement, but that’s just the Ethics part of the title. There is still the “good.” This is where the story begins.
An unplanned lunch between Judge Steve Leben, of the Kansas Court of Appeals, and Mark Hinderks, of Stinson Morrison Hecker LLP, started a conversation of how the two had done multiple ethics presentations and "found it remarkable how well-received presentations could be when they were made in an entertaining manner," said Hinderks. They found injecting humor into ethics presentation engaged the audience and increased their level of attention to the program substance, rather than a diversion from the material. A connection was created between humor and substance. With the help of Stan Davis (Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP),who immediately and enthusiastically stepped up, they refined the idea and made it a reality.
The program has expanded from a few simple jokes and game show formats to more elaborate scripting, staging and blocking. Regular program segments have become expected from the "ethics for good melodrama" to the ending haikus. The ethics event has moved from the typical conference rooms of hotels to theatrical venues, the Polsky Theatre in the Carlsen Center (courtesy of the Johnson County Community College Foundation) and the Folly Theater in downtown Kansas City, Mo. Both locations lend themselves to complex lighting, sound, and costuming. Two years ago new "cast" members Todd LaSala (Stinson Morrison Hecker LLP), Lori Schultz (Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP), and Jim Griffin (Husch Blackwell Sanders LLP) have also added to the new ideas and talent.
The next goal was to not only entertain and educate, but Leben and Hinderks also wanted to accomplish a link to the ethical "good" with trying to serve. It was then the idea to channel the money raised...
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