Executive Committee: Message from the Chair

• Publication year: 2019
• Author: Monique D. Jewett-Brewster

Executive Committee: Message from the Chair

Monique D. Jewett-Brewster

It has been my honor to serve as the 2018-2019 Chair of the California Lawyers Association (CLA) Business Law Section (BLS), and I can hardly believe that my term is almost over. As this CLA/State Bar year is coming to a close, I would like to use my final Business Law News Chair Address to highlight an important component of the BLS' success: collaboration with both internal and external partners to (i) produce the highest quality educational content, (ii) provide resources for the career advancement of new lawyers, and (iii) create a dynamic and inclusive community of California business lawyers in which all lawyers feel they are welcomed and belong.

Proving the adage that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, the BLS's fifteen Standing Committees worked with each other as well as with other Sections of the CLA to produce programs and publications of interest to their overlapping constituencies. For instance, if you will recall, the BLS's Standing Committees publish "E-Bulletin" updates about case law, regulatory, and legislative developments as well as Committee activities to their respective "constituency lists." (By way of background, anyone who signs up to receive a particular Standing Committee's E-Bulletins is a member of that Standing Committee's "constituency list".) Recognizing that their respective constituency lists might benefit from content produced by other Standing Committees, our BLS Standing Committee leaders have cultivated a culture of forwarding "hot topic" E-Bulletins to each other.

For example, the Nonprofits Organizations Committee often presents free educational programming at its monthly meetings (as do many of our BLS Standing Committees), and, at the time of this writing, is presenting an upcoming program on the consequences of one's failure to pay employment taxes to the IRS. As this topic is one that is applicable across practice areas and industries, the BLS Executive Committee encouraged each Standing Committee's leaders to share this valuable program opportunity with their constituencies. In this manner, the BLS's Standing Committees can share developments in their unique industries or areas of business law expertise for the betterment of the entire Section.

Just as the Standing Committees are greater as a whole, so too are the Sections of the CLA. This year, the BLS was a proud contributor to the immensely successful California Solo & Small Firm...