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YOU SHOULD KNOW …there is a lot going on at the NHBA! April 2008 There is a lot going on through the New Hampshire Bar Association! While it is difficult to paint a concise and complete picture of what your professional organization produces, this report is intended to give you just a glimpse of some of what has gone on lately. Member Services By invitation, a presentation on “the latest” at the Association (services, website, etc.) was given by Jeannine McCoy and Rose Anocibar to approximately 30 Attorneys at the McLane Law Firm on April 11th. Annual Meeting - a Solo and Small Firm program will be featured on Friday, June 20, entitled, “Small Firm Flight Plan for the 21st Century” being held in conjunction with the 2008 Annual Meeting. Ethics – As the new rules went into effect on Jan.1, 2008, we have negotiated with Lexis Nexis to offer the Rules of Professional Conduct, as a stand alone publication for $22 (previously only sold by Lexis as part of the NH Court Rules Annotated for $99.00). Swearing-In Ceremony - On April 15, 2008 there were thirty-five “admission on motion” new admittees sworn into the Bar. Association leaders and staff greeted members, provided information, and hosted a reception following the admission ceremony. New Lawyers’ Committee – A Mentor Reception will be held on May 28th from 5:00-7:00 with Justice Hicks speaking on the value and benefits of the program to the alums of the program, as well as current Mentors/Associates and any new participants interested in attending. Law Related Education The 50th ANNIVERSARY of “Law Day” is upon us, and many schools and attorneys will mark the day by taking part in our signature LRE Program (ALIES) “A Lawyer and Judge in Every School”. Schools are being matched to Attorney Volunteers all over the state of NH. We have interested schools as far north as Stark, NH as far southwest as Jaffrey, NH, as far northeast as North Conway, Sutton, Portsmouth, and Attorney Volunteers are even traveling up from Massachusetts to take part in the special events being planned. Merrimack Valley High School is very excited to be hosting the Chief Justice John T. Broderick Jr. The audience will be upwards of 100 or more students and media will be on hand to capture the event. We are gearing up for the culminating events of our Pilot Project “Leapholes” and the visit to a NH Classroom by the author of the book, James Grippando. “We The People . . . The Citizen and the Constitution” - The Milford team who will be representing NH in the National Finals in DC on May 2, found themselves in the Governor’s Chambers being honored for their hard work in “We the People…”. The Governor read a Proclamation to the class and presented each member of the class with a personal copy of the proclamation. Executive Councilor Deb Pignatelli was also on hand to extend her Congratulations and Best Wishes for the trip. “We the People . . . Project Citizen” State Showcase is coming up as well. To date 13 projects have registered to take part in the State Showcase to be held at the Legislative Office Building in May. Proposals were submitted for the 2008 New Hampshire Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference to be held in October. Workshops will be held demonstrating the “We the People . . .” programs and Vendor space will be held to highlight the other Law Related Education programs for teachers from around the state. Bar Center usage In the 3 weeks since the March 27, 2008 BOG meeting:
Member Log-In for nhbar.org 22 requests from members for their log-in information were filled. Legal Services This past month, the Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic (LITC) Project Coordinator:
Did you know that because of the faithful contributions of the dedicated members on the pro bono panel, 188 cases were referred to volunteer attorneys during the first quarter of 2008? This represents a 7% increase over 2007 first quarter figures. Sections 7 Section meetings scheduled in April 5 Section meetings currently scheduled in May Elections are ongoing through May 15.
Pamphlets "Worker's Compensation" - 1000 being printed and available to public/attorneys soon. Will take requests now. E-mail Dawn Brasil for requests. Pay postage only or pick them up at the Bar. Nashua Probate Service Center picked up another couple hundred pamphlets ("Administering an Estate"). Coos/Grafton Probate Court Service Center also picked up several hundred pamphlets for those service centers including "Selecting, Hiring and Working with an Attorney" and "Administering an Estate". LawLine The firm of Wensley & Jones hosted LawLine on April 9th, fielding 48 calls from the public seeking legal advice and information. Communications New E-Bulletin Format Debuts A graphically enhanced version of the e-Bulletin debuted at the end of March. Several members have written to compliment us on its appearance and readability; one minor complaint was registered by someone who said it is more difficult to read table of contents in the in-box preview pane. The service we used to send it provides us with easy-to-access usage figures. First three issues show about 35 percent of the e-mails sent out are opened, and about one-third of those readers are also clicking on at least one link. The software allows us to see what links users are clicking on, which will be helpful in evaluating the content we are putting in it. The 35 percent open rate is above-average for newsletters of this type. Web site advertising Much work is underway to launch website advertising, including working on a template of some small ad sizes to run on the web site and approaching loyal contract advertisers from Bar News first with opportunities. Continuing Legal Education We had a full house for the April 2nd and April 3rd CLE programs. This week we are offering a full day program co-sponsored with the Children’s Law Section and the Court Improvement Project of the District and Family Division on representing parents in abuse and neglect cases. We are gearing up for a very busy May beginning with a program on the new Stark Regulations. This is a program co-sponsored with the Health Law Section and we have Maine, Massachusetts and the Boston Bar listed as co-sponsors. We have shared this out nationally as a live webcast and hope to get more registrations. The numbers are somewhat low at this time. However, it is proven that the registrations for webcasts double in the last week before a program. We have two programs in May that got a late start in developing and we hope to finalize those details and get marketing materials out to members soon. Two other programs are right on target and we expect to fill our seminar room for Business Split-ups and Advanced Condo Law. The CLE Committee is working on finalizing our fall calendar. Joanne has also explained the new deadlines that will be needed with a reduction in Bar News issues. We have also worked up a check list for Committee members assigned to a co-sponsored section CLE program to facilitate the smooth flow of information. We are working very hard to clarify with the section planners, what is needed to market a program properly to the entire membership. We also have had some difficulties with last minute changes that were not communicated to our Program Coordinator. |
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