Association workings require much volunteer time

By Charles J. Gearhiser

The due date for this column slipped up on me. If the column is bad, the fault lies in the airport of today. Even when you find the remote corner of a waiting area, there is no "quiet time" to write in an interesting and stimulating fashion. Often you are distracted by an obnoxious ringing sound from afar. The ringing stops only to be followed by someone talking on a cell phone at length in a very loud voice. One of the cell phone operatives will attract another like flies on stink, reminding me of a nightmarish party line.

You retreat eventually to the interior of a cramped plane trying to find leg room and avoid impact with large black bags. Cell phones again erupt all around you. In the interim you find the source of the stink that attracts them: It is a penetrating perfume so intense your nostrils flare in protest as your eyes begin to water. The little air thing in the plane provides no relief so you are stuck between the cell phones and the stink until the flight is airborne.

All of this assumes that you and your shoes made it through security. You then constantly seek reassurance that you have not again misplaced your "photo identity," also known as your driver's license. Assuming that you do not have a gum-popping person sitting next to you, or one dictating, or suffering bleed-out from headphones, maybe you can work a little on the plane.

Most bar meetings, club meetings, and even depositions are laced with cell phones ringing. Even fine restaurant eating is no longer serene and romantic as you must listen to a few well-placed loud discourses.

House of Delegates one of many ways to be involved

It was under these most trying conditions that it occurred to me to discuss the Tennessee Bar Association (TBA) House of Delegates in this column. From time to time, the need for the existence of a House has been challenged. My view of the function of the House substantially changed after attending some meetings of that body.

The bylaws of the TBA charge the House with making recommendation on the public policy of your association. To me, that means that the House is the conscience of the membership on issues of great importance to the profession. The House has more members than the Board of Governors and it is more broadly representative of the state and the membership, making it a unique resource that is often overlooked.

In prior columns, I talked about the importance of participation by you, the member. I claim no credit for this, but recent participation has been remarkable. The House met on Jan. 4 and Nippert Hall was full and others participated by telephone. The Board meeting later in the month, I am told, had 100-percent participation for the first time "since the memory of man runneth not to the contrary."

To better reflect the work of the House, association policies have been accumulated and will be published and kept up-to-date. Committees from both the Board and the House reviewed these policies under the leadership of Gif Thornton for the Board and Ewing Sellers for the House. Both did a great job.

An association election handbook has been approved by the Board and will make the election process more understandable and consistent (view it at www.tba.org/news/elexhandbook2001.html). This was done under the able leadership of Buck Lewis.

We have been approved for a new delegate slot with the American Bar Association (ABA). The Board asked President-elect Al Harvey to fill the slot until someone is elected, which fits in nicely with Al's role in connection with Ethics 2000, an ABA special commission working on revisions to the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. (The Model Rules are the basis of rules for Legal Ethics in 44 jurisdictions as well as for the proposed ethics rules the TBA has proposed for adoption in Tennessee.) ABA delegate slots have produced some of the more exciting and hotly contested races in recent years. Those contests led to the election handbook.

The ABA meets in exotic places, I guess, and maybe there is expense reimbursement, but I can tell you that I would prefer to serve on a state or local level. Those ABA meetings, while perhaps good and informative, can often be just a touch boring.

At Al Harvey's suggestion, we invited and met with numerous local bar leaders in January. We hope to make that bi-annual to mutually promote areas of interest to the profession (or deal with mutual problems). The meeting was very productive and informative. Years ago when I was president of the Chattanooga Bar Association, the bar presidents of the four large cities met once or twice a year.

TBA Executive Director Allan Ramsaur, Al Harvey and I met with Chief Justice Frank Drowota to discuss mutual aims and goals and to see if there were any particular areas that the bar could be of greater service to the court.

We have a Long Range Planning and Transition Committee that has met on two occasions to analyze and plan the future direction of the association.

Now that I am on the down slope of this year and will become a "past president" of this association in June, I would like to say that one observation of the association in comparison to the Chattanooga Bar Association, is the use, or lack of use, of past presidents. Our local bar has a very active past-presidents group and I think the local bar enjoys receiving the views of the group. As far as I know all the state bar does is have a breakfast for the group at the annual meeting. Maybe that group could and should do more. In other words, I am not ready to go out to pasture or "just fade away."

I would, however, remind you that I served under Presidents Paul Campbell III, Harris Gilbert, Howard Vogel, Dan Breen, Dan Nolan, Pam Reeves, Randy Noel, and Katie Edge. These folks, like me, might be a little burned out, but I think we need to keep their interest viable and tap into their ideas and views.

The danger to our bar is for us to abdicate our responsibilities to attend to the business of promoting our profession. Whether it be running for a position on the Board, a House delegate, or an ABA delegate, attending a meeting, serving on a committee or just simply paying attention, we need to ensure that the TBA is our association and never let it wander astray. Associations, in my view, are vulnerable.