January February 21 Report

Colleagues. I am probably not alone in being so happy to see the year 2020 pass into memory! But even with the hopeful thoughts of a vacci- nated spring, I want to thank all the employees and volunteers who have helped keep our great association going in these times. First, thank you to all the employees and volunteers of the Bar who assisted in our collective pivot to virtual CLEs and meet- ings. Thank you to Kate Lawrence, director of CLE and now our interim director of membership, for undertaking the complex task of moving all CLE programming to virtual offerings. We’ve all figured out how to Zoom now, but Kate had to take the lead on virtual classes before any of us were comfortable with it. She handled the transition seamlessly, and in fact, attendance numbers have increased for several different CLE. While we are all eager to congregate in person at the Cincinnati Bar Association headquarters again one day, hopefully sooner rather than later, it is safe to say virtual CLE will stick around in some capacity. Thanks to John J. Williams for putting togethera very timely and relevant CLE on the history of the Cincinnati Collaborative Agreement with the original participants (and thanks to Judge Dlott for participating!). The city has faced its share of turmoil this year, and John’s informative and thoughtful CLE helped our members better understand where we’ve been as a city, what we have accomplished, and where we go in the future. Thank you to BLAC president and CBA trustee Wednesday Shipp for planning and organizing great content on diversity in the legal profession for the CBA BLAC roundtable. On page 10, you’ll find a fantastic article from Wednesday about what the Round Table has planned in the year 2021. Please join your fellow members at the next Round Table event on January 14. Thanks to all committees who have gone virtual so that the association can still provide the networking and community opportunities that are crucial to the success of legal community. Be sure to check in with your committee and practice group chairs to get details on meetings in the coming year. And do not forget to join your committee and practice groups on LinkedIn. We are trying to meet in places we already are, so it made a lot of sense to put these groups on this professional-friendly platform. Second, thank you to the CBA employees for the sacrifices they have made. A special thank you to the employee leadership of Lisa McPherson, Maria Palermo, and Jamie Shiverdecker who toiled so tirelessly to keep our organization solvent when faced with the sudden onslaught of a two-pronged health and economic crisis. Their work is so impeccable that it often goes unrecognized and I want to give them a public commendation for their dedication to this great association. Finally, thank you to the membership for placing their faith in and recognizing the value of our association. We have main- tained our membership through these trying times and have done better than many of our sister organizations in the state. As I have written previously, the practice of law is difficult, but the greater sense of community the association establishes helps the prac- tice of law grow and thrive in Cincinnati. Thank you for your continued faith. Cheers to a new year and our renewed commit- ment to our community. Wagner is a judge of the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas and the 2020-2021 CBA president. By Hon. Christopher A. Wagner President’s Brief Thank You. 4 l January/February 2021 CBA REPORT www.CincyBar.org