Bar in Brief > The Fab Four (Strategic Goals!) Coming in FY 24

COLUMN > A Note From the WSBA Executive Director

BY TERRA NEVITT

Four is a nice number, don’t you think? There are four seasons and dimensions, four chambers in a heart, four Ninja Turtles, and four members of perhaps one of the best-known bands: The Beatles.

New to the lineup of favorable foursomes are our WSBA fiscal year (FY) 24 strategic goals. There’s a risk that I might be overemphasizing the quantity here, but in fact we wrestled quite a bit with this number. As we began the brainstorming process last summer, the list of critical initiatives and programs that the state Bar could and should be performing easily ran into the dozens. It took many deliberative hours together to winnow down the possibilities to four. More than that, and as I noted in my article in September 2023,¹ our efforts might fall prey to the adage: when everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. Any fewer, and it seemed like we were leaving something critically important behind.

Thus, four goals emerged as the sweet spot—the John, Paul, George, and Ringo of strategic planning, if you will. With their adoption in November, the Board of Governors indicated that these are our focus areas, which represent the biggest opportunities and challenges for the legal profession right now. As such, these are the initiatives we are prioritizing to receive attention and resources outside the scope of our ongoing regulatory and professional services. The WSBA’s daily work continues, but the strategic goals direct our efforts above and beyond that.

Like any much-heralded introduction, and to continue the Fab Four theme, I am excited to present each of our FY 24 goals to you with its very own walk-up song:

“Strawberry Fields Forever” (and perhaps potato fields and apple orchards, too)—Support rural practice and access to justice in small towns and rural parts of the state. We have a debilitating shortage of legal practitioners in many parts of our state, and these so-called “legal deserts” are predicted to expand in coming years because many rural practitioners are reaching retirement age.² The scarcity of criminal defenders and family law lawyers is especially acute. To find solutions, the WSBA is committed this year to continuing its Small Town and Rural (STAR) Committee, exploring paid law student internship programs and possibly a student loan forgiveness program for rural jobs, convening a summit with key collaborators, and delivering CLEs to support rural practitioners. And we will continue the practice begun in November 2022 of offering free postings of rural positions on the WSBA’s Career Center: https://jobs.wsba.org/employer/pricing/.
“I Feel Fine” (or perhaps “stop working ‘Eight Days A Week’”)—Study member well-being and expand and improve resources for and assistance to legal professionals and the legal community. We all know the statistics that show legal professionals suffer higher rates of hazardous drinking and substance use, burnout and stress, and depression,³ all of which negatively impact our members professionally and personally. To begin to deeply understand what is happening with our members and what resources and programs can best help, this year we will convene a task force (with a three-year timeline) to study and survey various sectors in the legal community and engage in an assessment; the ultimate result will be a comprehensive report regarding recommendations for well-being programs and services.
“Revolution” (it’s coming … if not already here)—Assess technology-related opportunities and threats and determine the WSBA’s role vis-à-vis regulation, consumer protection, and support to legal practitioners. Technology such as artificial intelligence is already drastically changing the practice of law and has the potential to change it even more dramatically in years to come. How can the WSBA help legal practitioners adapt to and use these new technologies? And how should the WSBA itself adapt as a legal regulator to protect the public while supporting innovative legal services? Our work here will include convening a task force to assess threats and opportunities and make recommendations about how to support legal professionals and to continue to work with the Practice of Law Board and Washington Supreme Court to study data-driven regulatory reform.
“Come Together”—Improve the experience of belonging among legal professionals and in the legal community. Data and countless stories tell us that the legal profession does not accurately reflect the communities we serve and that many do not feel a sense of belonging in the profession. Those most impacted tend to identify as BIPOC, LGBTQ2IA+, female, and people with disabilities, among other identities. We want to foster a diverse profession where everyone is welcome and able to thrive, which, in turn, will better serve the public and justice. We have already begun our comprehensive decennial membership study, and the resulting data will help us create, adopt, and begin to implement a refreshed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Plan.

I am proud of the deeply public- and member-centric discussions that went into deriving our very own Fab Four goals. I am encouraged by the clear direction they provide. I am eager to get to work. We intend to report our progress at upcoming Board of Governor meetings, in the pages of this magazine, and on our website.