Ever since my first meeting at 16 Beacon Street nearly 16 years ago, the Boston Bar Association has been an invaluable resource for me professionally.
As lawyers, we are all in pursuit of professional excellence. But we also need support and intellectual nourishment outside of our firms or organizations in order to be, and remain, successful in this competitive industry. And for me, those resources always have been found at the BBA.
In addition to the rich educational programming and the ability to develop a strong network, perhaps what is most exciting about the BBA as an organization is its capacity to bring some of the brightest, most powerful people in the legal industry together, regardless of where they practice or how they identify themselves, in order to help solve problems affecting all of us.
Over my nearly 3 decades of practice, I have experienced how much we can do – as lawyers – when we step outside our own individual practice silos and work together on common issues in the profession. For me, nothing demonstrates this more clearly than the work of the BBA’s Amicus Committee.
If you’ve been following Issue Spot’s coverage of the Amicus Committee this month, you know that through this important group of volunteers, the BBA has weighed in on some of the most important – and sometimes controversial – issues of our time.
In 2002, we submitted a brief in support of marriage equality in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, a landmark case which helped paved the way for equality across the nation.
In 2012 – and again in 2015 – the BBA filed a brief in Fisher v. the University of Texas, supporting diversity in higher education as a means of increasing diversity in the legal profession.
The Goodridge and Fisher cases demonstrate that when the BBA takes a position on an issue – like marriage equality or diversity in higher education – it is not just words to be taken lightly, but a firm belief that is reflected in our core values.
In addition to the issues that attract a national spotlight, our Amicus Committee has allowed the BBA to argue successfully for some of the bedrock principles that affect the very core of what it means to practice law.
In keeping with our long-standing advocacy on behalf of access to justice, in 1990 we filed a brief regarding House Bill 5858 An Act Establishing the Economic Stability and Recovery Compact arguing that a tax on legal services would infringe upon each individual’s ability to, in the words of the Massachusetts Constitution, “obtain right and justice freely, and without being obliged to purchase it.”
And just last year, the BBA filed an amicus brief in Commonwealth v. Wade, a case in which we argued there had been a misinterpretation of a new post-conviction forensic testing law – a law that the BBA helped create – resulting in a forced waiver of attorney-client privilege. The SJC agreed with our brief, clarifying how the law should be read and protecting the confidence of attorney-client communication.
Over the years, courts have, time and again, cited BBA amicus briefs, both during oral arguments and in their written decisions.
The dedication and talent of our Amicus volunteers have helped shape the BBA into an organization whose opinion matters. We are the ones the legal community turns to – and listens to – in matters of law.
That is why during today’s Annual Meeting, I gave the 2016 President’s Award to the more than 100 volunteer attorneys who have helped contribute to BBA amicus briefs throughout the years as Committee Chairs, members and brief writers.
It is through the talented and dedicated volunteers on our Amicus Committee that we’ve been able to do this work, the collective force of which not only stood up for individuals’ rights, but forever changed all of our lives by re-shaping the legal landscape in which we live.
Carol Starkey
President
