President's Page, 0122 ALBJ, Vol. 83 No. 1 Pg. 8 (January, 2022)
| Author | Tazewell T. Shepard, III |
| Position | Vol. 83 1 Pg. 8 |
Tazewell T. Shepard, III
President Shepard has designated a theme for each month of his term as president. State bar sections and local bars are encouraged to plan events and activities for each topic. Be sure to let us know about your activities relating to these themes so that we can report them to our members statewide!
January: Human Trafficking
February: Diversity and Inclusion
March: Women in the Law
April: Mediation and Dispute Resolution
May: Lawyer Health and Wellness
June: Annual Meeting
As I write this article for the January issue of The Alabama Lawyer, we are halfway through my term as state bar president. I want to tell you about some of what we've accomplished so far and what we can look forward to during the next six months.
You may recall that in my first and second articles, I talked quite a lot about the Golden Circle of Simon Sinek and the importance of finding the "why" of your organization. The "why" could also be described as the core mission of an organization. Mr. Sinek emphasizes how important it is to define your "why" before you start looking at how and what you do.
We watched a portion of Mr. Sinek's TED talk and discussed the "why"of the Alabama State Bar during our Executive Council retreat and our leadership meetings with leadership of the sections, committees, and task forces.
There were some interesting responses, such as "to serve the attorneys of our state,""to serve and protect the public," and even "to champion the truth and to protect our legal system in the state and in this country."
Once we had examined the "why"of the state bar, we moved on to discuss what the bar should do and how the bar should do it. We considered the broad spectrum of duties and opportunities, including legal issue discussion groups, member discount benefits, CLE events, mentoring young lawyers, and cooperating with local bars on events around the state.
Then we hit a pothole in the road. Because of the loss of our executive director, assistant executive director, and director of programs within the last year and a half, we found that there were large lapses of institutional knowledge that would have been very useful. It is hard to call a meeting or plan an event when there is no list of necessary participants and no one to ask how it was done in previous years.
However, I am proud to report that our executive director...
To continue reading
Request your trial