Spring 2020 Gavel 268650 SBAND Gavel Magazine_web | Page 5

SBAND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
TRYING TIMES BRING OUT
STRENGTHS IN PROFESSION
TONY J. WEILER
SBAND Executive Director
Do trying times make us stronger, or do they
cause more harm? These are certainly trying
times for lawyers, the bench, and those we
serve in our great state. It’s often difficult to
write articles based on “current” events when
you know what you write won’t be published
for a month or so. In our era of instant
information, what is written today is often
out of date by the next day!
SBAND faced the same challenges posed by
the COVID-19 pandemic as our members
and those we work closely with on a daily
or weekly basis. We are a small staff of five
employees, with one part-time staff person
that pitched in during the crisis. We shut
the office to the public but had one staff
member here each day to answer phones and
deal with the mail. The rest of the time, we
worked from home in an attempt to make
sure you didn’t see any disruption or changes
in the services we offer you as members. Like
some of you, some of us are parents who had
to manage not only working from home,
but also assisting our children with distance
learning. Those are challenges none of us
had planned for, but once we put a plan into
place, the staff and I went to work to make
sure it was the best solution possible.
One problem with working from home is that
it doesn’t “translate” well for every employee.
Some don’t have the correct equipment at
home to do so, and the work they do can’t
always be done from a computer. That’s
why working one day in the office was
instrumental for all of us to get work done
that we couldn’t do from home, or take home,
on a weekly basis.
We also heard from many of our members
about how they planned to keep working and
their need to do so. Some went to court every
single day, and their clients still needed legal
services. Others had clients whose legal needs
and issues didn’t just stop in the face of the
pandemic, and they needed to hear from their
lawyer and have their legal needs met as well.
For that, I thank you for making a difference
for our profession and the citizens of the state.
One positive that came out of this for
SBAND is that we really HEARD from you
about how we could help, how we could be
more nimble, and how we could still do the
work that we do with as little disruption as
possible. Further, we were able to provide
your comments and concerns to the North
Dakota Supreme Court anonymously, and
the Court answered many of those questions
and addressed many of your concerns. As a
bar, we have to appreciate the courts taking
into account our concerns and addressing
those in a timely manner.
On another note, we pay attention to the
number of licensed North Dakota lawyers.
Much of that has to do with the fact we are
a unified bar and every licensed lawyer is a
member. We also do so in an effort to keep
a handle on where our numbers could be
heading.
Currently, we have just under 3,000 licensed
North Dakota lawyers, and finished 2019
with 3,101, the highest year end number
on record. One thing that this tells us is,
the practice of law in our great state is alive
and well, and notwithstanding the recent
pandemic, it is our belief lawyers in North
Dakota will continue to thrive!
SPRING 2020
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