From the Executive Director's Desk
| Publication year | 2023 |
| Pages | 07 |
By Emma T. Dean
My dad used to talk about connections. Not the connections in the movies that get you a good table at a fancy restaurant - that was not Dad. No, Dad was a chemistry professor for 50 years who would wear the same threadbare, blue clothes (they were always blue) while investing his heart and soul into helping his students and me, his daughter, become the very best versions of ourselves. The connections Dad spoke about were the links to each other's hearts that invigorate us, challenge us to be better and cause us to improve the world around us. Real connection with someone lets you understand and respect them, even if you do not always agree with them.
All attorneys and judges share a great connection with each other born out of our love and respect for the justice system. We found ourselves lugging heavy textbooks around law schools because we are problem solvers who wanted to take on the problems of the world because we knew we could help others. That common story, that link, that connection is what allows us to bring a great level of civility to our profession. It is how we zealously represent our clients, fight for justice in an adversarial system and then shake hands with opposing counsel and say hi to them at a kid's basketball game the next night.
This level of civility in our profession is something to be celebrated. Judge Clifton Newman spoke to the House of Delegates in May about civility. He spoke about how the profession first calls us to be adversaries, but how important it is to find common ground and uplift each other. Judge Newman also discussed the importance of not insisting on the last word.
Navigating an adversarial system for the purpose of justice is a difficult task for us all, and non-attorneys may not understand the challenges and deep societal need for our profession to be civil - but we do. We feel it in our souls. In those connections, in those links we know it and we feel it. These connections give us our legal community.
Our legal community has been important to me all my life. Coming from a family of non-attorneys, I learned the profession from mentors who graciously and selflessly shared their time with me. Perhaps though, I most felt the strength of our legal community this year when lawyers supported me during Dad's illness. Great advocates and problem solvers started showing up at my...
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