Another New Blog

Roanoke City Councilman Dr. Dave Tinkle has started a blog. www.davetrinkle.com. (Actually, it looks to me like more of a full-blown website, not just a blog.) Here's an interview about it.

Faddish though it may be, I think that organizational leaders ought to blog. I've already gotten a little bit of feedback and comment from this one, which has been very much appreciated.

Unlike some thinner, low-rent blogs (such as this one) Councilman Trinkle's is packed with information. In particular, the "Roanoke 2012" page is worth a careful read to anyone who wants to think about Roanoke's future.

Remarks

I am very honored to have been elected to serve as the 84th President of the Roanoke Bar Association. This Association dates back to 1925. The papers of Mr. J. M. Kincanon contain a handbook of a predecessor organization called the Bar Association of Roanoke City Virginia, which was published in 1911.

This Association was originally a formed or to assist the courts in the execution of justice, to maintain the ethical standards of the Bar, to promote good fellowship that the Bar, to own and maintain libraries, and to do generally any and all things that may be helpful to the courts or bar. The 1925 handbook also included a code of ethics and a schedule of minimum fees.

Over the years there have been a few changes to the purposes. For example, now we assist the City with the Library. The Codes of Ethics has been taken over by State Bar. Minimum fee schedules violate the Sherman Act since Goldfarb v. Virginia State Bar. 421 US 773

I have been a member of this Association in the early 1990s. I became active in this Association in about 1997. I checked with my then-new employers Brian Jones, Jane Glenn and asked them if they minded if I helped out with a bench Bar committee. They told me, and I quote “Do whatever you want-- that's okay with us.” I was only following their example. At the time Jane was on BOTH the State Bar Executive Committee and the Board of the VADA , and Brian was one of Virginia CLE and the VADA’s most heavily used lecturers and authors. Al Wilson and I had some success with the Bench Bar conference and in 1999 I received a letter from then President Will Dibling asking me to serve on a new Young Lawyers Committee. I am not the first president of this Association who has served on that committee and I am certain I will not be the last. I hope that all of you will encourage your young and new lawyers to sign up for that committee.

Two of the Presidents with whom I have served on the board’s executive committee have been selected as the State Bar's local Bar leader of the year-- Gene Elliott and Steve Higgs. The rest of the Presidents with whom I have served probably should have been Local Bar Leader of the Year, but I think the State Bar needs to spread it around. The number of successful programs sponsored by our Association and its related foundation has exploded: Barrister Book bodies, Youth Court, the James N. Kincannon scholarships, Senior Citizen Law Day, Santa in the Square, Wills for Heroes, and the Gala. That is not a complete list. And it is going to grow.

This is a great Association not because of its leaders-- this is a great Association because its members, individually and in the aggregate, are quality, competent people dedicated to the law and to community service in all of its many forms.

This association is your Association. In the newest corporate lingo, it is "radically transparent." My contribution to the radical transparency will be a Roanoke Bar Association President’s Blog. If you would like to find it go to the associations website at www.RoanokeBar.com. Click on news. Then click on notes from the President at the top of that page. Please keep in mind that the blog is not the product of a committee, it is merely my attempt to tell you about where this Association has been and where it is going. You can comment on the blog if you want. You can call me and you can e-mail me.