From the DeKalb Bar President:
Don’t Just Make Those Resolutions – Make Them Work!

by Denise Warner

DBA President Denise Warner

DBA President Denise Warner

Every New Year’s Day, millions of people resolve to make changes in their lives. Resolutions are testaments to improving our minds, bodies and souls. How many of us have pledged to stop procrastinating, start exercising, and be a nicer person this year? The promise may last one week or for the rest of your life. The important part is that you are moving forward.

In law school our professors did a great job in teaching us the federal rules of evidence and civil procedure (minimum contacts and International Shoe, anyone?). What law school did not teach us is that there is a business side of maintaining a successful law practice. A zealous attorney takes pride in reassessing his or her practice in order to provide quality legal representation.

I am no expert in practice or time management; however, I am a pretty good researcher. The American Bar Association and the State Bar of Georgia have fantastic resources to assist you in your quest to improve your law practice.

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On the Calendar:
DeKalb Bar Events

Family Law Section Breakfast Meeting Jan. 7, 7:30 a.m. Old Decatur Courthouse, 101 E. Court Square, Harrison room, second floor. Guest speaker: the Honorable Tangela Barrie from DeKalb Superior court. Cost: $12/member, $15/nonmember. Contact ddvesquire@yahoo.com. Click here to RSVP for…

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A New Juvenile Code:
The Purpose and Status of Senate Bill 292

A statewide coalition garners bipartisan support

by Rachel Elovitz

After three years of development, Senate Bill (SB) 292, also known as the Child Protection and Public Safety Act, was introduced by Senator Bill Hamrick at the conclusion of the 2009 session of the Georgia General Assembly. If passed, it would supplant the current provisions of the Georgia Code that govern our state’s response to children and their families in cases involving deprivation (abuse and neglect), delinquency, unruliness, and truancy.

The goal of SB 292 is to reorganize, modernize, simplify, and streamline the juvenile court sections of the Code to enable the state and practitioners to more readily and effectively address the needs of Georgia’s children and families. The changes are both administrative and substantive, the latter of which are designed to reflect a wealth of knowledge that has been gleaned in the last 40 years since the existing Code was adopted. Senate Bill 292 will also bring Georgia into compliance with federal mandates concerning juvenile court proceedings.

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The Practice Corner:
2010 Resolutions – Bigger, Faster, Better, Smarter

by Daniel DeWoskin
Trial Attorney
www.atlantatrial.com

As we roll into 2010, I thought it might be worth exploring how some of our members view New Year’s Resolutions. For me, the beginning of a new calendar year rarely feels like the perfect moment for a fresh start or the time to make a specific change. After all, the majority of my cases did not terminate arbitrarily at 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 31, so any fundamental practice changes do not seem well-timed simply by virtue of the fact that I need to remember what calendar year to write on checks.

We all know folks who see January 1 as the perfect day to quit smoking, start exercising, or to otherwise better themselves. I wondered if such resolutions might apply to lawyers and how they conduct their business. I am always intrigued to hear about new developments and practices that other lawyers have explored and used to better their efficiency and the quality of their work. I may even try to incorporate some of these things into my own practice on a trial-and-error basis, but I find that very few may ultimately go the distance.

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The Shadow Cursor:
Beating Justice Holmes

by The Shadow

In 1918 Justice Holmes famously observed that “[a] word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.” Towne v. Eisner, 245 U.S. 418, 425.

With apologies to the great jurist, such thinking has played no small part in the lack of clarity – or worse, sloppiness – that afflicts today’s legal writing.

Too much confusion – and indeed, litigation – has been sown by words that have been allowed to take on lives of their own. Bryan A. Garner, a law professor and the preeminent authority on modern American usage and legal writing, devotes considerable energy to promoting the use of Plain Language – “the idiomatic and grammatical use of language that most effectively presents ideas to the reader.” Garner, The Elements of Legal Style 7 (1991). To this end, Garner proscribes the unnecessary use of those words with more than one meaning – so-called “chameleon-hued words.” Garner, A Dictionary of Modern English Usage at 145.

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New Year’s Resolutions for a Successful 2010

by Jeri Kagel, M.Ed., J.D.

It’s a new year! Time to get back in shape after all the holiday merriment or all the lying around being couch potatoes. Now too is the time for the (obligatory) New Year’s resolutions.

We all deal with New Year’s resolutions differently. There are those who don’t make them because they are tired of breaking them. For those who do make resolutions, there is something of a typical range – folks without any intention of following through, others intending to “stick with it” (but secretly thinking that doing anything for a short time is good enough!) and those who begin the New Year with the hope of actually making good on their resolutions. (This third group tends to be in the minority!)

More often than not, any disappointment that arises from the failure to keep a resolution is over in a short time with the promise that “next year will be a better time to . . . (you fill in the blank).”

Here are some New Year’s resolutions I’d like to suggest to my attorney/litigator friends. I hope they resonate with you and add to your success in 2010.

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