PBA Annual Meeting Remarks by Tom Wilkinson HOUSE OF DELEGATES May 11, 2012

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1 PBA Annual Meeting Remarks by Tom Wilkinson HOUSE OF DELEGATES May 11, 2012 It is a great honor for me to carry on the long tradition of volunteer leadership of this great association. I appreciate your good wishes and support in undertaking this daunting but exciting role and it is my hope that I can do it with the energy, commitment and thoughtfulness so many of my predecessors and colleagues who have held this office have displayed. It has been my pleasure to have devoted over 25 years of active involvement in the PBA, starting out working in various committees and sections, which are the lifeblood of the PBA. That is a somewhat unusual path to leadership, but it has allowed me to grow to understand what an amazing wealth of experience and expertise our members have in numerous practice areas and how they truly benefit by interacting with their peers from across the state. To me, Committee/Section days always present a wonderful smorgasbord of opportunities to network with colleagues with similar interests, often with substantially more experience in the field, and always willing to share their lessons learned. Through the work of committees and sections, our members make a variety of recommendations for changes in bar policy, urge positions on pending legislation and rule changes, plan and present CLEs and focus on how

2 we lawyers can excel in the practice of law while also protecting the core values of this profession. I also had the remarkable opportunity to work closely with nearly 20 PBA Presidents, including many mentors, such as the one and only Reg Belden, who urged me to pursue this position. I had the pleasure of serving on the Board of Governors with many lawyers whom I greatly admire and respect, including Bill Carlucci, Ken Horoho and Andy Susko to name a few. I have learned from each of them, including I trust how to dodge a land mine here and there, and I must also credit my good friend Cliff Haines for several of those teaching moments. A Salute to President Matt Crème On a personal note, Matt has done a masterful job as your President. We have worked very closely together over the past couple years and previously on the Board. Matt s many strengths include his good judgment, patience and admirable ability to keep calm and collected in any situation. He is a man of strong faith, completely devoted to his family and at the same time managed to carry the PBA flag to bar events throughout the state, testing micro brews along the way, without hardly ever looking weary. And he seemed to have a new and amusing barnyard or Amish aphorism at every stop along the way. Matt also managed to keep his demanding municipal law practice humming and really is a role model for how to combine bar service with your law practice as a consummate professional. I very much look 2

3 forward to Matt s continued wise counsel and service on the Board over the upcoming year. Matt Crème quite properly highlighted in his column for the Pennsylvania Lawyer the important role and function of this House in establishing official policy for the association. It is a truly deliberative body and I can think of a number of memorable discussions and debates on controversial issues over the years. Not every member will necessarily agree with every policy position taken by the association. But they can be assured that key policies will be vetted by a wellregarded cross section of the leadership of the association before they are adopted and pressed on the Hill or before the Supreme Court. There is an opportunity for every House member to speak his or her mind and the discussion in this House has often been impressive and inspiring. Let s keep that tradition alive and then support the results with your letters and meetings with legislators and with your financial support of the Bar PAC. The PBA must have an effective voice, not just in support of pending bills, but also when, for example, misguided proposals that would impose a tax on legal services or undermine the independence of our judiciary or the substantive rights of your clients. Strategic Planning Committee Matt Crème and our leadership recognized a need to reinstitute the PBA s Planning Committee and ingrain it in the bylaws. This helps with continuity of policy, ensures buy in for initiatives and will help to 3

4 impose greater discipline on initiatives with a material budget impact. I very much appreciate Vice President Forest Myers diligent work in getting the committee underway. We intend to drive that planning process forward, and will devote substantial time to it at the upcoming Board retreat next month. Our staff has provided helpful recommendations for the committee as well. The PBA faces many of the same challenges faced by other voluntary state and local bars, including how to continue to develop and expand the scope of member benefits without placing undue upward pressure on dues. We also need to continue our focus on getting the most we can out of the resources available to our Bar Foundation, Bar PAC, our Sustaining Fund necessary to maintain PBA s historic properties, and be vigilant in developing non-dues revenue sources. In other words, visit the PBA store early and often and wear those PBA logo items with pride. Spotlight on Pro Bono Service As most lawyers know, legal services funding has been seriously cut back, that legal aid has been forced to lay off staff, that many citizens in this state that qualify for legal services cannot access them, and the problem is getting worse. Lawyers have helped to fill that serious gap through pro bono service, and many of you have for many years contributed your time and money to support legal services 4

5 providers. We encourage all of our members to do so, particularly in these economic times. To spotlight the remarkable volunteer efforts of some of our members, we have added this week a new spotlight on pro bono service that will be featured in PBA publications each month. The new column is called Making a Difference. This feature is in addition to the PBA pro bono awards we present in the counties and the special awards presented at the Annual Meeting. If you have someone who you feel would be the right person to help showcase pro bono efforts, please let our pro bono coordinator Dave Trevaskis know. Sustained and Adequate Court Funding Many states have faced serious cutbacks in court funding and court services. In Pennsylvania, our courts function with an allocation of onehalf of one percent of the state budget, and operating costs are less than three percent of the total budget. It is important that we stand behind sustained and adequate funding for our judicial system to ensure that our courts continue to fulfill their critical role. The promise of equal justice under law cannot be met unless our courts remain open and accessible. Therefore, consistent with the ABA s theme this year, without our courts, there is no justice and no freedom. We foresee continued pressure in these economic times to trim funding from the judiciary despite the budget shortfalls from the past seven years. When combined with the severe cuts in legal services 5

6 funding, there is a crisis in the making. Let s not let it happen in Pennsylvania, as it has occurred in other states that have shut down courthouses for certain days of every week or shut down the processing of civil cases, or terminate problem solving courts. So we urge you to be vigilant and work with us to ensure that our judiciary continues to receive the funding it needs to function well and in a timely fashion. Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille As I noted at the Annual Dinner, we appreciate the Chief Justice recognizing our distinguished 50 year members and for his support of the organized bar. There will of course be opportunities over the next 18 months to recognize his exemplary service to the Commonwealth, during which the Court faced serious fiscal and other unanticipated challenges. For now, I will simply say thank you for partnering with the PBA to promote pro bono service during these difficult economic times. Thank you for your steadfast support for construction of the new family court building in Philadelphia notwithstanding a variety of obstacles. Thank you and the other Justices again for supporting meaningful juvenile justice reforms, as well as approving the expungement of records of juveniles whose convictions were tainted by a juvenile court scandal. Our best wishes to you and to the Court for the remainder of your term as Chief. 6

7 Task Force on Code of Judicial Conduct I am pleased to announce that we have created a new Task Force to review and propose updates to Pennsylvania s Code of Judicial Conduct. The 12 member Task Force will work in parallel with the Ad Hoc Committee established by the Chief Justice and chaired by an esteemed member of the PBA House of Delegates, Superior Court Judge Anne E. Lazarus. Our Code for judges has not been examined and updated for quite some time, while the ABA Model Code of Judicial Conduct has undergone significant revision. Public and lawyer confidence in the impartiality and integrity of our judiciary is paramount. Having more up to date and clearer guidance for our judges, lawyers and clients as to how judges should address and disclose as appropriate, substantial gifts, judicial campaign contributions from lawyers and litigants who appear before them, as well as requests for recusal or disqualification due to the appearance of bias or impropriety are all important and timely. We expect that the that the Task Force recommendations will be presented to this House on a timetable consistent with that under which the Supreme Court s ad hoc committee is generating its work product and in time to address any published comment period issued by the Supreme Court. I am pleased to report that Bridget Montgomery of Dauphin County and Abe Reich of Philadelphia County, and also a longstanding 7

8 member of this House and the ABA House, have agreed to co-chair the Task Force and know they will do an outstanding job. Bar Leadership Institute We are also continuing to support the development of young bar leaders through the Bar Leadership Institute, which Gretchen Mundorff reinvigorated during her term as President. Website Enhancements We are delivering more substantive content to the PBA website, and invite your suggestions as to how the web offerings can better meet your needs. For those in leadership in the county bars, please advise your membership of the content and resources available on the website and consider linking to it to make it easy for your members to take full advantage of their PBA memberships. We also have made a resources page available dedicated to promoting youth courts, following a House resolution last year supportive of youth courts as an adjunct to civics education. Youth courts encourage in school and community problem solving for youth misconduct and minor infractions that tend to reduce bullying and help to get kids on the right track before they find themselves in the juvenile justice system. 8

9 We will also continue to stand behind the various juvenile justice system reforms approved and recommended by this House, some of which have been enacted by the Supreme Court and by the legislature. In Closing It has been one of the great pleasures of my professional career to work with many of you and to see what great things our member lawyers do for their clients on a daily basis across this state. I look forward to visiting as many of you as humanly possible at local bar events during the course of the year and urge you to register early for what promises to be one for the truly great Midyear meetings in St. Maarten next January. I am pleased to report that Common Pleas Judges Shelly New and Arnold New, the immediate past president of the Conference of State Trial Judges, have agreed to co-chair the Midyear Meeting. Both really know their way around the island and the resort and will plan a fantastic meeting. Thank you for your service to this profession and the PBA, and for starting my year off with a knockout welcome. # 9