Inside the Bar
Using Your State Bar Center
by George C. Brown,
State Bar executive director
One year ago this month the new State Bar Center
opened its doors. Several years of planning and a year of construction
resulted in a building that better serves you, the member, in so many
ways.
Most importantly, you are actually using the building to help
you in your business. In the last year, more members have used the State
Bar Center than ever before. The Bar Center has hosted multi-day
arbitrations, where the lawyers are from Madison and the arbitrator is
from Milwaukee. Lawyers from as far away as Wausau have held depositions
in the Bar Center conference rooms. Members from other cities who are
visiting clients in the area have stopped in to use the phones and work
spaces between meetings. And government lawyers and the State of
Wisconsin have held contract negotiations in the Bar Center.
These are only some of the stories from members I know who have
stopped in to say hello or from members I had a chance to meet for the
first time. In the last year (figures for the 11 months from August 1999
through June 2000 available at the time of this writing), 1,316 meetings
have been held at the Bar Center. That is 449 more meetings than were
held in the entire previous year at the old Bar Center. The number of
meetings by members who are not at the Bar Center for a committee,
section, division, or CLE meeting has nearly doubled, from 73 in the
last year at the old Bar Center to 143 in the first 11 months at the new
Bar Center. The trend line shows that, except for two of the first three
months at the new Bar Center, member usage has increased every month
over the same month last year - in several cases by a factor of four.
These numbers do not include the increased usage for CLE seminars,
including the 40 hands-on technology seminars held this spring in the
technology training center that provided intensive training in Internet
research to more than 300 State Bar members and their staffs.
All of this points out one simple fact. The new State Bar Center is
truly a members' building. Lawyers from across the state are meeting at
the Bar Center to do business. The members I have talked with are
impressed and proud of their building.
The next time you need a place to hold a client meeting in Madison,
call the Bar Center at (800) 444-9404, ext. 6169, to reserve a
conference room. It's easy to get to. For directions, please see the site
map online. But call ahead as soon as you can. We've already had
several days when every conference room has been booked with meetings
and CLE seminars. And when you are in the building, stop in to say "hi."
If you're an old friend, I'd enjoy seeing you again. If we don't know
each other, I'd like to meet you. And it would be my pleasure to show
you around your building.
Wisconsin
Lawyer
