- Nomination of Richard McNamara of Manchester as President-Elect. McNamara, currently vice president, was nominated for President-elect for the 2005-06 Bar year starting in July. The Board unanimously approved the nomination, made by NHBA President Jim Gleason. Nomination petitions for the spring Board election appear on page 11 and will be published in issues of the Bar News until the nomination deadline closes on Feb. 15, 2005.

- Legislative outlook by John MacIntosh, who monitors legislative matters for the Bar Association. MacIntosh said that election results and the outreach efforts of the Supreme Court may help create better relations between the legislature and the Bar Association in the upcoming legislative session. Gleason reiterated the need for the Bar Association to work towards reestablishing a relationship with the legislature. Belknap County Governor and former State Senator Ned Gordon shared his views on what the Association needs to do to begin repairing the relationship.

- A better alternative to the Bar exam. The Supreme Court, its Board of Bar Examiners and the Franklin Pierce Law Center are collaborating on what could be a trail-blazing program to provide a better alternative to the two-day Bar exam. Briefing the Board were NH Supreme Court Justices Linda S. Dalianis and James Duggan, from Franklin Pierce, Dean John Hutson and legal writing professor Sophie Sparrow. They explained that, instead of sitting for the exam at the end of law school, selected students would have the opportunity to take a number of practically oriented courses emphasizing the application of legal skills in such tasks as drafting documents, law practice management and professionalism. As a condition of admission to the NH Bar, the students’ work would be gathered in portfolios and evaluated along with their performance in something akin to the oral "defense of a dissertation" that graduate students must pass. (This program, known as the Daniel Webster Scholars, will be more extensively discussed in an upcoming issue of Bar News.)

- Pro Se Task Force Update. Supreme Court Associate Justice James Duggan also provided an update on the court’s Pro Se Task Force, which issued a comprehensive report and recommendations almost a year ago. Duggan noted that since the report it has been learned that there are differences between the profile of pro se litigants in federal courts —specifically, that those who proceed without counsel in the federal courts do so mainly by choice, while many pro se litigants in the state courts want legal counsel but cannot afford it.

Through several task forces (see page one article on Family Court Implementation Project, as an example), the judicial branch is moving forward with reshaping the court system to better meet the needs of users who access the court system without the benefit of legal counsel, including:

• using more case managers and public access computer terminals to ease access to court forms and dockets;
• considering changes to Rules of Professional Conduct to allow limited representation by attorneys;
• increasing emphasis on use of alternative dispute resolution throughout the court system.

- Ethics Committee Review of Rules of Professional Conduct. President-Elect and Ethics Committee member Richard Uchida notified the Board that the rules revisions process is nearly complete. The Rules Committee will have a comment period (ending Jan. 1, 2005) and the Board may want to submit comments at that time. Uchida urged Board members to watch what’s happening with the rules revisions and to let their constituents know. The Ethics Committee draft is posted under NH Practice Guidelines/ Ethics Committee Review of NH Rules of Professional Conduct. Concerns with any of the proposed revisions should be directed to Rolf Goodwin of the Ethics Committee at rolf.goodwin@mclane.com.

- Leadership Conference Report. Uchida briefed the Board on the 2004 Leadership Conference held October 22nd –23. (See page 1 article.)

- New Lawyers Outreach. Assistant Executive Director Denice DeStefano briefed the Board on the successful Nov. 17 New Lawyers Reception . (See article on page 8.)

- Membership Survey Update. DeStefano reported that initial results indicate better than a 33 percent response rate to the first survey. Findings should be available to the Board for the December meeting.

- Pro Bono Year-End Referral Marathons. NHBA Executive Director Jeannine McCoy challenged the Board to refer 50 cases during the Pro Bono referral marathons being held in December.

- Bench-Bar Meetings. NHBA President Jim Gleason said the Supreme Court has expressed an interest in meeting with Bar leaders on a quarterly basis. President-Elect Uchida reported on discussions held between Bar leaders and members of the superior court. (For more on these issues, see interview with Chief Justice Robert Lynn on page 26.)

- Recent Judicial Nominations. A Special Board Meeting was scheduled for Nov. 29 to interview recent judicial nominees. (See article on page 28.)

The Board meets next on Dec. 16.

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