SBAND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
EMBRACING CHANGE
TONY J. WEILER
SBAND Executive Director
My wish is that 2016 will be a great year for
you, your family, and your colleagues. Each
New Year brings an opportunity to set new
goals and then to reach those goals. That’s
not always easy, but the rewards can be great.
As the saying goes, “Life is a journey, not a
destination.”
New years and new goals bring change.
As lawyers we struggle with change – it
takes us out of our comfort zone. We like
routines, and schedules, and a sense of
control. Change may lead to a feeling of
loss of control. No two cases are alike, but
the routines we employ to get from the
beginning of a case to the conclusion of the
case provide comfort.
Change is here for those of us practicing
law. Technology has required us to change
the way we deliver legal services, how we
communicate with clients, and how we file
documents with the court. Clients and
consumers are tech savvy, and are looking
for alternative ways to deal with legal issues.
Consumers are looking to non-lawyers for
legal services (e.g. LegalZoom and Rocket
Lawyer). Online legal service providers
allow consumers to create legal documents
and forms. We are consumers of the DIY
Network and Home Depot. We take pride
in doing things for ourselves, and that may
include a belief that legal work is much
like updating a bathroom. As lawyers, we
know that is not the case. No internet legal
service provider can give hands-on, clientcentered advice and representation. Service
and advice from a competent lawyer meets
the needs of the client and also provides
assurance that documents will be drafted
properly. The services provided by a lawyer
are backed up by the requirement that we
follow the rules of professional conduct and
malpractice insurance.
As lawyers, we must adapt to a changing
environment. The ABA anticipated the
changing climate in provision of legal
services, and created a Commission on the
Future of Legal Services to study the issues
and find the best way to deal with change.
Lawyers and state bar associations will need
to work hard to stay ahead of the curve in
dealing with the rapid pace of change in the
practice of law.
A recent change at SBAND provides an
example of difficulty with change. In my
first couple years as executive director,
lawyers would tell me that they would like
an easier way to download, edit, and then
save or print pattern jury instructions. Those
instructions were available on SBAND’s
website, but only in a PDF format. With
the help of the Pattern Jury Instruction
Commission and Jennifer Hauge, who staffs
the commission, we have looked at options
to make pattern jury instructions more
user friendly. We considered a stand-alone
website or making t H ] \