President's Perspective: Let's succeed this year - together

By Susan R. Steingass

It is now my turn to join in the 120-year tradition of this great Bar and its leadership. I follow in the steps of President Steven Sorenson and his predecessors, and walk with President-elect Leonard Loeb who next takes this step. I am humbled and challenged by the year to come.

I want you to know what's on my mind for this year.

As you know, as a mandatory bar, we have the highest responsibility to provide service to our members. Our success or failure turns on how we meet our members' needs. During my campaign and during my year as president-elect, I have had the pleasure of meeting with the majority of the 55 local and 23 specialty bars around the state. Among them there is a common thread of commitment to clients, to the highest standards of the legal profession, and to community.

I want to reach out to local bars. For those of you in local and specialty bars who believe that the State Bar is remote, I want to change your minds. We have undertaken a statewide survey of local and specialty bar leadership to ask how we can serve you. We will respond to your needs.

It is uniquely apt, in Wisconsin's sesquicentennial year, that we remember and honor the contribution of lawyers to this state over the last 150 years. I am pleased to announce that the State Bar is sponsoring a dinner event on Oct. 28, 1998, at the Monona Terrace Convention Center in Madison, honoring the first 150 women lawyers in Wisconsin. The response of our volunteers to this project is overwhelming! Throughout the state, lawyers, judges, historical societies, friends, and relatives are writing biographies of these women. Of the first 150 women lawyers, more than 25 are still living, and some are still practicing. The stories of their times, their struggles, their achievements and the people who mentored, trained, and encouraged them are pieces of living history and remind us of the larger story of the legal profession in Wisconsin.

Member service alone is not enough. We are a service profession. We need to be out front on the issues that face the legal profession. I do not need to tell you about declining respect for our profession. Nor do I need to tell you that we are, almost to the man and woman, hard-working, decent, and honorable people who give not only to our clients and our profession but to our communities.

We have a right to expect our State Bar to provide leadership on the issues that affect the legal system and the regard with which we as a profession are held. Topping that list is the delivery of legal services. Funding cuts at the national level, fueled in significant measure by lawyer bashing and lack of understanding of the pivotal role lawyers play in the justice system, have left our legal service organizations unable to provide the most basic necessary legal services to those who cannot afford them.

In 1996, Past President Skilton's Delivery of Legal Services Commission recommended, with considerable foresight as these subsequent events have shown, that an ambitious private fund-raising effort be undertaken, with the support of the State Bar, to bridge the gap between reduced funding for legal services and the ever-increasing need. The Equal Justice Coalition, a voluntary fund-raising group comprised of a broad-based coalition of attorneys, is actively engaged in this effort. It has already generated significant funds for legal services. With recent developments, this effort becomes even more critical. We must continue and renew our support for these efforts. Lobbying efforts to reinstate secure funding for legal services is important, but so are the efforts of State Bar members who give of their time and resources to provide legal services for those who cannot pay for them.

For this year, I have tailored my ideas to the reality that we already have a great deal on our plates. During this year, we will see our new home, our new Bar Center, take physical shape northeast of Madison. Though we are funding this center in part through the sale of our existing building and our own monies, we need to raise funds from our volunteers and friends in the community. Thus, we are launching a fund-raising effort. Nathan Fishbach, who guided the successful campaign for the new Milwaukee Bar Center, has agreed to chair this effort, and former Chief Justice Nathan Heffernan will serve as honorary chair. Dean Dietrich from Wausau will cochair the northern region campaign, and Jim Friedman from Milwaukee will cochair the southern region campaign, with the assistance of a statewide campaign cabinet. The true value of our new center is not bricks and mortar but the space it provides us to enhance service to our members and our profession.

I look forward to this year with anticipation, humility and, I admit, some trepidation. We are fortunate to have as competent, committed, and professionally excellent a Bar staff as we could hope for. With their help and yours, I will do everything I can to serve you well.

I want to hear from you. I want your ideas and your involvement. To leave a voice message for me at the State Bar, dial (608) 250-6182 or (800) 444-9404, ext. 6182. Or call me at my office in Madison at (608) 255-6663, or email me.

Let's succeed this year - together.

Wisconsin Lawyer