PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
I do not fear what the future will bring.
I am confident that we will rise to the challenges of this age
and this transition.
Whenever we seem to have lost our direction or the
challenges seem too great, we should remember that we
are the heirs of a powerful legacy.
It is a legacy born of the enlightenment, forged in the crucible
of a revolution, and tested to its limits in a bloody civil war,
two world wars, a cold war, and now the war on terrorism.
First, we are the heirs of the legacy of our character as
Americans.
We have within us a fundamental DNA that sustains us and
uplifts us even when we are unaware of it.
As Americans, we are forever forming associations of one
kind and another in order to improve ourselves and our
society for the public good.
have 15 that participate in the Multi-Bar Leadership Council.
In addition we have multiple city and county bar associations,
plus new bar associations spring up all the time. The most
recent is the Korean Bar Association. Whatever ethnic,
geographic, gender, or cultural affinity you may have, there
is an association for you.
The same is true of our own Atlanta Bar Association. We
now have 22 sections serving the various practice areas and
interests of our members. New committees and sections
form every year. And this is a good thing.
While the activities of these bar associations and sections
in our own bar vary, they share in common two things: they
are voluntary, and they are composed of people dedicated
to improving themselves and their communities through
collective action.
My friends, there is nothing more fundamentally American
than that.
As Americans, we are the heirs of a powerful legacy.
While we admire individualism, we often show our admiration
by forming an association to promote it.
A second powerful legacy we have as members of the Atlanta
Bar Association is found in our name: Atlanta.
And it has always been this way in America.
We are the heirs of the legacy of the City of Atlanta.
In his 1835 book, Democracy in America, Alexis de
Tocqueville famously observed, “Americans of all ages,
all stations in life, and all types of dispositions are forever
forming associations.” “Hospitals, prisons, and schools take
shape this way.”
What does that mean? Well for most of us, it means that we
were not born here. Rather, it means that we chose to live
here. And for the few natives among us, you chose to stay.
In his biography of Benjamin Franklin, Walter Isaacson
credited Franklin, more than any other individual American,
with helping establish the American character. Franklin
believed that “Man is a sociable being.”
One answer is that Atlanta, unlike many cities in the
southeast and around the country, is an open and welcoming
city. What do I mean by that?
Beginning in the 1730s, Franklin launched in Philadelphia:
a library, a fire brigade, a night watchman corps, a hospital,
a militia and a college.
“The good men may do separately is small compared with
what they may do collectively,” Franklin wrote.
What evidence do we have that this American character of
forming associations to promote the collective good is still
alive among lawyers?
Well, in our 12 county jurisdiction for the Atlanta Bar, there
are literally dozens of volunteer bar associations; we already
The Official News Publication of the Atlanta Bar Association
Why?
When I moved here over 30 years ago to start ג