Staff Volunteerism

How We Spent Our Summer Vacation

by George C. Brown, State Bar executive director

Lawyers are famous for volunteering. This is often forgotten by the public in the midst of a lawyer-bashing spree, but you don't have to look too far on any roster of volunteers before you find an attorney. The State Bar staff certainly appreciates lawyer volunteerism, because, just as lawyers give back to society and the profession, so too does the staff that works for you at the State Bar. I think you'll enjoy some of their stories.

Amy Curl, who works in CLE Books, got her hair cut this summer. Her nearly waist-long auburn hair now ends substantially above her shoulders. A cooler cut to fight the summer heat? The result, maybe, but not the purpose. She donated her tresses to be made into a wig for a child suffering from cancer and the hair loss that results from treatment.

Early this summer, Shell Goar and Deb Tobin of Member Services put their long months of training to the test as sponsored participants in the three-day, 60-mile walk from Kenosha to Chicago to raise thousands of dollars for breast cancer research. Similarly, lobbyist Cory Mason gave a week of his time to bike the 500 miles from Minneapolis to Chicago as part of the AIDS ride. This is the same fundraising ride taken by Dee Runaas and Tina Nodolf, who also work in Member Services, and crew volunteer Maria Parker of Computer Services, a couple of summers ago.

Member Services Director Betty Braden started this summer by being inducted as the president of the National Association of Bar Executives, the first Wisconsinite to serve in this capacity since long-retired State Bar Executive Director Phil Habermann filled that post in 1951. Locally, Administration Director Pat Kelley took over as president of the Madison Convention and Visitors Bureau this summer. Numerous other staff members serve on panels or speak at professional conferences. Public Affairs Director Linda Barth spoke to a packed room at the National Conference of Bar Executives on Wisconsin's work on public trust in our justice system. From the CLE department, Kira Zaporski and Steve Rindo spoke respectively on technology and e-commerce and on customer service at the annual meeting of the Association of Continuing Legal Education Administrators (where they received the Outstanding Achievement in Programs Award for the Appellate Advocacy Workshop).

These are just a few examples of staff volunteerism; there are dozens more. Many other staff also give their time and talents to numerous organizations, from charities like Goodwill, Red Cross, and Big Brothers/Big Sisters, to their neighborhood schools, food pantries, and other public works, to their houses of worship, and to their professional associations.

This is the type of people you have working for you at the State Bar of Wisconsin. I am proud of the sacrifice of time and family they willingly make to help make this a better world. I hope you are, too.

As for me? Most of my extra time this summer has been spent visiting with members at various local bar meetings. I spent a weekend last month with one such bar whose team-building activities include something called full contact croquet. Injury report to follow.

Wisconsin Lawyer