PRESIDENT ' S MESSAGE
The Gates Are Re-Opening
L ike most of you , the last seventeen or so months have been , well , hard . With the 24-hour news cycle , there is a plethora of information , daily , regarding the new developments in the pandemic- good , bad , and terrifying . As lawyers , we are used to reading and digesting large volumes of information , but when there is so much information , so different , and so directly personal to each of us , it is hard to avoid overload . We have spent the time trying to stay abreast of current guidelines not just to provide valuable advice to our clients , but to make better choices in our own lives . We follow vaccines through testing , approval , and distributionincluding sitting in front of our computers for hours reminiscent of how some of us spent our time in our youths trying to score the hot concert ticket on Ticketmaster ®. ( I fully understand how that simultaneously made me ancient to some members and a mere baby for others ). We struggled to balance a new and perhaps unwanted role as a homeschool teacher while still maintaining our legal career . Friends , family , and perhaps us contracted the virus and fought to recover . Pantries were simultaneously devoid of certain items while overstocked with others . ( My waist asked , why couldn ’ t there have been a cookie shortage instead of paper products )? And on top of that , many of our tried-and-true coping mechanisms were a distant memory for portions of the time . ( Happy hours with your fellow lawyers to vent about the latest decisions , client issue , or success ? Forget about it ).
CHRISTINA M . BAUGH Barnes & Thornburg , LLP cbaugh @ btlaw . com
Despite all of this , many of us found at least one silver lining . Whether it was time spent with our families that would usually be spent at the office late at night , the ability to take our practices “ remote ” including very remote such as to mountain houses or beyond , or the ability to take advantage of programs and meetings you may not have been able to make if Atlanta traffic had been involved , but virtually was possible .
As we move into the next stage of the pandemic , the re-opening , I hope that we maintain our connection with the silver linings and avoid forgetting the lessons learned . Recognizing why the “ hard ” was so hard . Identifying what made those silver linings so shiny . However ,
4 July / August 2021