View from the chair - TIPS, Your Business Generation and Professional Development Home, Part 4

• Pages: 4-4
• Date: 01 April 2025
• Published date: 01 April 2025
• Author: Chris Nolan

4THE BRIEF❭ Spring 2025

View from the Chair

In this fourth message in The Brief, I wanted to share

a special note concerning a meaningful event for our

Section. Hopefully, you were one of the 400 people in

attendance. If not, the TIPS 10th Annual Section Conference

was held in Washington, D.C., May 7–10, 2025. It featured

important CLE panels featuring insurance, defense, corporate,

and plainti’s attorneys, as well as the judiciary. This year, we

were honored to partner with our friends from the ABA Solo,

Small Firm and General Practice Division (GPSolo) and the

ABA Judicial Division.

Our Conference Cochairs and TIPS members, Jordan

Howlette, Michelle Worrall, Chris Ward, and Victoria Alvarez,

deserve our praise and admiration for putting together incred-

ible programming. It was only possible thanks to the incredible

eorts of our TIPS sta, led by Director Theresa Livingston

and Associate Director Janet Hummons.

We have a good deal to be grateful for. Our gala provided

unlimited access to the Smithsonian Institution’s National

Museum of African American History and Culture. The

Section’s Lifetime Liberty Achievement Award was given

to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and the

Liberty Achievement Award was awarded to the Honorable

J. Michelle Childs of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C.

Circuit. The awards, presented by our TIPS partner, Thomson

Reuters, featured a reside chat with Justice Sotomayor and

Judge Childs, joined by our own Janet Hummons, the recipient

of the Section’s Andrew C. Hecker award. Finally, we toasted

more than 90 years of Section service by recognizing the 18

Chairs Emeriti in attendance. Their leadership provided the

sound foundation upon which we ourish as a Section.

For those who were not in attendance at the gala, I cannot

do justice in summarizing the poignant speeches and messages

of support provided by our award recipients. Of particular note,

we are fortunate that Justice Sotomayor chose our Section gala

to provide a message to the legal community, read far and wide

thanks to 15 news organizations and news aggregators in atten-

dance. Please enjoy key portions of the ABA’s summary below

(full article available at https://www.americanbar.org/news/

abanews/aba-news-archives/2025/05/justice-sotomayor-

time-to-stand-up/), and I look forward to sharing my nal

message as Chair in the next edition of The Brief.

The legal profession and the judiciary are at a crossroads, and

lawyers and judges must ght to preserve the system, U.S.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Judge J. Michelle

Childs of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said

in a wide-ranging talk at the ABA TIPS 10th Annual Section

Conference . . . .

Sotomayor said the legal profession “is poised to show its

greatness,” adding: “I tell law students if you’re not used to

ghting losing battles, don’t become a lawyer. Our job is to

stand up for people who can’t do it themselves. Our job is to

be the champion of lost causes.

“But right now we can’t lose the battles we are facing,” she

said. “We need trained and passionate and committed lawyers

to ght this ght. With all the uncertainty that exists at this

moment, this is our time to stand up and be heard. For me,

being here with you is an act of solidarity,” she told the audi-

ence of more than 400 attorneys and judges.

Childs said the legal profession is at a crossroads, but that the

frustrations of the moment also present an opportunity. “You

should be concerned about justice and equity and what your

role is in all of that,” she said. “You should be concerned that

there is a poor reception of the transparency, of the trust and

condence in our court and in our public institutions. You

should be concerned about civics education and how our

children are growing up and [should] have the opportunity to

learn about what government is, what it should do and how

they can participate in it.”

She urged the audience to remember why they went to law

school: “To ght, to be there to represent those who can’t

artfully represent themselves,” she said. “So you have to stand

tall and strong and ethically and civilly and professionally as

you put yourself forth before the courts in representing your

clients.”Z

TIPS, Your Business Generation and

Professional Development Home, Part 4

By Chris Nolan

PUBLISHED IN

THE BRIEF,

VOLUME 54, NUMBER 3, SPRING 2025. © 2025 BY THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION. REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS INFORMATION OR ANY PORTION THEREOF MAY

NOT BE COPIED OR DISSEMINATED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS OR STORED IN AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE OR RETRIEVAL SYSTEM WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN CONSENT OF THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION.

PUBLISHED IN

THE BRIEF,

VOLUME 54, NUMBER 3, SPRING 2025. © 2025 BY THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION. REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS INFORMATION OR ANY PORTION THEREOF MAY

NOT BE COPIED OR DISSEMINATED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS OR STORED IN AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE OR RETRIEVAL SYSTEM WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN CONSENT OF THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION.