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Scott B Campbell

I am honored to be SBCBA President for the coming year. I feel privileged to have the opportunity to work with fellow officers, Matt Clarke, Naomi Dewey, Katy Graham and Donna Lewis, with our returning board members Angela Roach, Shelley Vail, James Sweeney, Mike Denver, Jim Griffith, Emily Allen, Lauren Wideman, and with our new board members Paula Waldman, Alan Morton, Nathan Rogers, and Claude Dorais.

In most ways I am fortunate to be following Donna Lewis in this position. I use the term “most ways” advisedly. On the one hand, due in no small part to Donna’s keen attention to detail throughout her decade of service as board member and officer, the SBCBA is thriving, even as other small bar associations are static or in decline.

During Donna’s tenure as director and officer, the SBCBA has refined its mission to ensure that it remains relevant and useful for its members. Equally important, in that time the SBCBA has improved its money management in ways that will help it to succeed well into the future. That said, Donna’s accomplishments make for a very tough act to follow. She has set high standards for the SBCBA and the volunteers that help it run. Needless to say, I hope to do as well as she has done.

We have big plans for 2014. Our year will start with the annual Bench & Bar Conference, set for January 25, 2014, at the Mission. Board members Mike Denver and Shelley Vail have put together a superb conference. In addition to up to six hours of MCLE credit, attendees will be treated to our annual lunchtime slugfest, this year being “The Second Amendment and Assault Weapons, A Debate of Constitutional Proportions” featuring Adam Winkler, UCLA Professor of Law squaring off with Chuck Michel, Winner of NRA Defender of Justice Award. Over the past few years these luncheon programs have literally been spine tingling, easily justifying the price of admission and the sacrifice of a few hours on a Saturday. If six hours of MCLE credit and a raucous gun control debate are not enough to entice you, we are also proud to feature a keynote address by U.S. Congresswoman Lois Capps. If you attend, be sure to thank Mike and Shelley for organizing this year’s conference. It’s a lot of work and they have done a great job.

Among our other plans for 2014 is to establish a Legislative Liaison committee. The mission of the Legislative Liaison committee will be to create and maintain lines of communication between our elected representatives and the SBCBA so that as members of the legal profession our collective voices are more likely to be heard by our legislators. Angela Roach, who has done many things for the SBCBA over the years, has agreed to lend her considerable energy and talents to this project.

Another of our plans for the coming year is to implement our newly adopted Member Benefit program. We hope to grow this program with the goal of strengthening the SBCBA by increasing the value of a membership through the use of member discounts on goods and services that local attorneys need and want. Stay tuned for more on this.

Remember that this is your organization. We are here to serve all the attorneys in Santa Barbara County. We welcome any and all input, so please feel free to contact us with your ideas.

First published in the January 2014 edition of Santa Barbara Lawyers Magazine

 

- Scott B. Campbell
  Rogers Sheffield & Campbell, LLP
  2014 SBCBA President

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