Letter from the Chair

• Publication year: 2019
• Author: By Renee N. G. Stackhouse

Letter From the Chair

By Renee N. G. Stackhouse

Renee Stackhouse is a San Diego trial attorney and founder of Stackhouse, APC who focuses on plaintiff's personal injury, military, and criminal defense. She is Chair of the CLA Solo & Small Firm Section, Immediate Past President of California Women Lawyers, President of the CWL Foundation, and sits on the San Diego County Bar Association. She is faculty at the prestigious Gerry Spence Trial Lawyers College and the founder of MSheLE.com. She can be reached at Renee@StackhouseAPC.com.

BEING SOLO DOESN'T HAVE TO MEAN YOU'RE ALONE.

Istarted my message to you in 4th Quarter 2018 with the same words. A year later, I hope you truly feel it. Over the course of this past year, the Solo & Small Firm (SSF) Section has taken a critical look at what it does and what it should do. Early on, the members of the Executive Committee met and asked whether we provided tangible benefits to our members, and, if not, what changes we could make.

And so, this has been a year of change. We started with creating a Mission Statement that would ref lect the work we do. That mission is "to foster a supportive community for solo and small firm practitioners across all areas of practice, to guide our members on their path to becoming strong, competent and ethical solo and small firm business owners, and to recognize the accomplishments of solos and small firm professionals across the state."

In order to help SSF practitioners become strong, competent and ethical business owners, we determined that we needed to really focus on what this section is about: the particular challenges facing solos or small firms. To this end, we created a bi-annual Signature Event, the Symposium for Solo Success which focuses on how to open, manage, and grow a solo and small firm and provide guidance on the technology that really helps SSF practitioners. We also partnered with multiple practice specific Sections to make sure that the SSF practitioners within that practice area would receive tips that would especially benefit them.

In order to properly recognize the accomplishments of our solo and small firm professionals across the state, we revamped our Attorney of the Year Award. This year, we began the Excellence Awards, recognizing SSF practitioners that epitomize excellence in their practice and their service to the community. We celebrated the inaugural recipients in conjunction with the resurrected Solo and Small Firm Summit with the largest awards reception...