Valerio No Title

• Publication year: 2001
• Citation: Vol. 2001 No. 12

Vermont Bar Journal 2001.

December 2001. Valerio No Title

THE PRESIDENT'S COLUMN

Matthew F. Valerio

My first couple of months as VBA President have afforded me some great opportunities to learn why lawyers are fundamental to the preservation of a healthy democratic system. These oppor-tunities have also provided me with insight into the reasons why others do not always agree with that proposition.

Over the last two months I have had the opportunity to speak to a number of coun-ty bar associations at their annual or semi-annual meetings. I have been privileged to speak to non-lawyers at Rotary and Kiwanis functions and at local community events. The print and electronic media has covered some of these events and reported them, for the most part accurately, causing me to engage in more than casual conver-sation with my neighbors.

In keeping with my oft-expressed belief that lawyers should be evangelists for the rule of law, civil liberties, constitutional rights, and protection of the public, I have discussed various topics ranging from Vermont's apparent indifference to legal practice by non-lawyers and the VBA's new focus on the issue, to the erosion of civil liberties, constitutional rights, and judicial review in the wake of the horrific events of September 11, 2001. Folks are aggressively interested in the latter.

What has become apparent is that, when it comes right down to it, lawyers and most everyone else do not seem to speak the same language. I think that I commu-nicate relatively clearly. Other lawyers seem to think that I communicate relative-ly clearly, or at least they applaud and encourage me when I speak to them about constitutional rights, civil liberties, and the importance of the rule of law. To local community groups I give substantially the same speech, sometimes with a different joke thrown in here and there, but the response of the non-lawyer audience is sometimes more like what I would expect if I was reading Bin Laden's favorite pas-sages from the Koran, rather than espous-ing the virtues of the Constitutions of Vermont and the United States. Non-lawyers, while they seem to respect that I am trying to say something important, have also thrown bread at me. Now, grant-ed, the flying bread incident was apolo-gized for as inadvertent. And at the time I bought the explanation as plausible.(fn2 )Upon reflection, however, I realized that nobody really understood what the heck I was talking about.

After...