Midyear Meeting 2009

Times Have Changed, ABA President Tells House

  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  • Print.

Corrected: With ample understatement, ABA President H. Thomas Wells Jr. of Birmingham, Ala., told the ABA House of Delegates this morning that “the world has changed since we last met” in August.

“We have a new President and a new Congress. We’ve had productive outreach to the Obama Administration about how we can work together on our common core values,” he said.

He also noted the economic crisis, noting that in August “the Dow that week closed at well over 11,000.” As Wells spoke, the Dow stood at 7,850.

Today, “many of America’s lawyers are being affected by the downturn. It’s during times like these that our members can take excellent advantage of the association’s resources” regarding both career assistance and developments concerning the substance of the law, he said.

The ABA has gathered many of its recession survival tips into a Lawyer Resource Center on its website.

Also see a report on our interview with Wells:

ABA Journal: “ABA Pushes for 1,000-Lawyer Legal Corps”

Corrected at 4 p.m., Feb. 18, to delete a sentence that read in part “One of the ABA’s leading goals in Washington is to restore the Association to the role of reviewing federal judicial nominees before their nominations are made public … ” That is not a goal of the ABA.


Correction

This post originally stated: “One of the ABA’s leading goals in Washington is to restore the association to the role of reviewing federal judicial nominees before their nominations are made public . . . ” That is not a goal of the ABA.

Give us feedback, share a story tip or update, or report an error.