Editor's Corner, 0520 ALBJ, 81 The Alabama Lawyer 186 (2020)

• Author: W. Gregory Ward.
• Position: Vol. 81 3 Pg. 186

EDITOR'S CORNER

Vol. 81 No. 3 Pg. 186

Alabama Bar Lawyer

May, 2020

W. Gregory Ward.

This is an historic edition. COVID-19 is working its way across our nation, taking many lives, shutting down an economy, and generally wreaking havoc. We are being tested as a people, and we are being tested as a profession.

You've likely heard that the state bar annual meeting has been postponed. I was slated to speak at Divorce on the Beach, and it suffered the same fate. Our bar commissioners' next meeting will be a virtual meeting. Our courthouses are largely shuttered. Did you ever think you'd live to see this?

We've gone from living our lives at 100 miles per hour to getting three weeks to the gallon.

I don't know the future. I can't even forecast what I'm having for supper. But if there is one thing I'm sure about, it is this: I'm proud of the members of the Alabama State Bar. The stories I'm hearing are absolutely wonderful. Y'all have contributed in so many ways, done so much, helped so many.

I just heard a story taken from Alfred Bester's 1953 science fiction classic, The Demolished Man. Bester wrote that in t he future there will be mind readers, and their skill will be so highly prized that they establish schools to teach it. Applicants to the school are warned that the process is arduous. While the applicants are filling out their forms, the actual mind readers are watching them and thinking, "If you can hear me, get out of the line, walk to the door that is marked 'No Admittance.'Go through it."

You do the hard things. You walkthrough doors marked "No Admittance," pushing barriers, and just trying to help. And I'm proud to be counted among your number.

We will get through this. We really are better together.

Now, to this issue:

Welcome to the workers' compensation edition! I've been excited about this one for a long time.

This one began when Larry King and I sat together at a docket call. I mentioned to him that I was thinking of dedicating an edition of The Alabama Lawyerto workers' compensation. He told me that I should talk to Mike Fish, who was also in the courtroom. I did. Mike is one of the smart guys in this field, and he wound up gathering all of the articles and giving them a once-over before they came to me. Boy, did he do a great job.

Julia Aquila is the chair of the state bar's workers' compensation section, and she wrote a welcoming message so warm that it...