PRESIDENT’S LETTER | BY KEVIN E. MCREYNOLDS
provides tangible value to our new and young attorneys. In delivering more focused programing, we evaluated the broad swath of areas where the DBA had programs to focus on those that provided the greatest value to our members or had the biggest impact for the local community. For professional development, we collected information from our members to make networking events more useful, and significantly expanded the Bench-Bar committee’s events to promote attorney-judge relationships.
Hello fellow DBA members: As this is my first opportunity to communicate with many of you, I wanted to talk briefly about the guiding vision that your DBA leadership team is using to make your bar association stronger. For the first time in the DBA’s almost 130- year history, in May 2016, we adopted our first organization-wide Strategic Plan. This Plan was the result of more than a year’s work by DBA leadership and meetings with members, former members, and other parts of the Denver legal community. At the time, I was still technically a “young lawyer,” and our group had a lot of input into helping create this five-year Plan. Beyond stating our shared values, this Plan sets forth a vision for what we want this organization to be. “The Denver Bar Association is committed to promoting member success by: • •
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Cultivating an inclusive and engaged legal community; Delivering programing focused on enhancing professional excellence; and Supporting and advancing justice.”
Since its adoption, your Board of Trust-
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ees, Officers, and DBA staff have focused the DBA’s resources to make this vision a reality, and I wanted to briefly share some of our progress: To cultivate an inclusive and engaged legal community, the DBA recently adopted a Diversity and Inclusivity Action Plan that provides guidance to leadership to: (1) build a leadership pipeline that reflects our entire community; (2) promote and engage with the diverse communities within the DBA and the greater legal community; (3) implement procedures and policies that encourages D/I/E thinking at all levels of the DBA; and (4) hold us accountable by developing tools and collecting information to assess our progress in making the DBA an organization that is truly for everyone. While this Action Plan is new, the DBA has already made measurable progress on this part of our collective vision, as prior initiatives have promoted diversity and inclusivity in our leadership so that your Board of Trustees better reflects all of the communities within the DBA. We are working with our young lawyers to develop a similar plan to ensure they do not just have a seat at the table, but a real voice in DBA leadership. As someone who only recently got too old for the YLD, I’m committed to ensuring the DBA
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We are also providing more support to our Young Lawyers Division, which just this Fall will be hosting: (1) a DU/ CU Barristers After Hours networking event with the local law schools (September); (2) Law Suit Days, the YLD’s annual professional attire drive for the disadvantaged (October); and (3) its flagship Court Orientation program, a full-day CLE hosted at the Colorado Supreme Court (November). To support and advance justice, the DBA has enhanced its pro bono arm, the Metro Volunteer Lawyers, by shifting focus to the legal clinics that provide the most impact for communities in need. We’ve also launched some exciting new programs, such as the power of attorney clinic, and worked to solidify our relationships with the other local bar associations to ensure MVL provides the help needed throughout the metro area. Because of the crucial services it provides, MVL continues to be the largest program of the DBA, and about $40 of each member’s dues go to support these pro bono activities. I’m excited to have a role in building on this progress and I look forward to working with our members to continue moving our Strategic Plan from a vision to a reality.
Kevin E. McReynolds Kevin E. McReynolds, DBA President