For
my first act after the passing of the gavel, let me offer a prayer
of thanksgiving, for the good year just ending; a prayer of hope for
the new bar year that, whatever good purpose this organization may
serve, we lawyers will submit our organization and ourselves as fit
instruments for that purpose; and a prayer of fellowship that, while
doing good work together, we will also share good times and enjoy
good friends. For myself, I thank you for your confidence in me, and
I thank God for this opportunity for service, for both of which I
am truly grateful.
Honoring President Kelly
I
begin my presidency by honoring my predecessor, President Patrick
J. Kelly, for his outstanding leadership in his presidency and throughout
his years as an officer.
The
phrase that I have heard most often from Pat is, “I got your back.”
And he has. Throughout his presidency, Pat Kelly has represented and
honored our profession through his wisdom, his humor, his foresight,
and his compassion.
When
Minnesota Lawyer magazine honored Pat a
few months ago as one of its attorneys of the year, I got to know
Pat’s circle rather well. It was easy. I waited until he got up from
his table, I walked over from the MSBA table to the Kelly table, I
introduced myself, and I asked, “So, does anyone know any good stories
about Pat?” Instantly I was greeted by knowing smiles, heads nodding,
and hands going up. I can’t share everything that I learned. But let me share
just a few examples:
I
am not planning any radical new changes. President Kelly wrapped up
his administration with the successful launch of his “Wills for Heroes”
program, and I begin mine by supporting and carrying on the work that
he began. Likewise, this association is engaged in many good and important
projects—in service to the profession, in service to the public, and
in service to the administration of justice—that have defined and
uplifted us over many years while our annual presidents come and go.
I am humbled as I stand at the end of a long line with Pat Kelly,
and with Sue Holden, and all the presidents stretching back more than
a century who have shepherded the work that the bar carries on to
this day, and will carry on in the years to come.
But
there are always areas with room for growth and improvement, for renewed
emphasis, and for fresh perspectives. I ask that we focus this year
on three such areas: judicial selection, civic education, and pro
bono service.
Judicial Selection
First,
judicial selection. The issue that will dominate the coming bar year
is the same issue that has already dominated this convention and today’s
meeting.
The
genius of the American experiment lies largely in the notion of a
government of limited powers, in which the sovereign power derives
from the “consent of the governed,” but is nevertheless subject to
certain basic rights and freedoms—enshrined in a written constitution—that
the individual enjoys, and with which neither the ordinary legislative
power nor the executive power can legitimately interfere. The rule
of law and the scheme of ordered liberty that guarantee our individual
rights and freedoms depend essentially upon an independent judiciary—independent
not only of the legislative and the executive branches, which the
judiciary checks and balances, but independent as well of political
parties and factions, of moneyed interests, and of popular majorities.
The existing constitutional and statutory framework for selecting
judges does not adequately ensure an independent judiciary in the
post-White era.
For
more than a year, former Governor Al Quie and the Citizens Commission
for the Preservation of an Impartial Judiciary labored on that problem.
Today, the State Bar Association joined the Quie Commission in its
quest for the system of selecting judges that best ensures an independent
judiciary, accountable to the law, but still inspiring public confidence.
I look forward to helping lead that quest along the path that the
Assembly has chosen.
Civic Education
Second,
civic education. I applaud the work of the MSBA Civic Education Committee
on educating the public about the justice system, especially helping
today’s youth learn about, understand, and appreciate their rights,
their responsibilities, and their relationships in a democratic and
diverse society.
The
perspective of the student citizen is unique, and valuable, and hard
to regain later in life, and we must hear it and listen to it if we
want this nation to sustain itself as a free and democratic society
in the years and generations ahead. Democracy is not easy, and the
democratic institutions that we take for granted—a written constitution,
an independent judiciary, a bill of rights, freedom of conscience,
and the rule of law itself—are under a constant attack that they will
not survive unless each generation embraces them for its own. Civic
education is the contribution that the organized bar can make toward
giving the next generation the tools that it needs in order to preserve,
protect, and defend those great institutions for themselves and for
generations to come.
Pro Bono Legal Services
Third,
pro bono legal services. Anyone who spends time around the bar association,
or any other nonprofit organization, has heard of “long-range planning.”
The first question that a long-range planner is supposed to ask is,
Why does this organization exist? How does it do what it does better
than anybody else can? So let’s ask: Why does the bar association
need to exist?
As
lawyers, we earn a little more respect and a little more money, maybe
a lot more money, because of the profession that we have chosen. That
respect comes from the monopoly that we hold on an essential commodity:
access to justice. The legal profession holds the keys to the courthouse.
In exchange for that monopoly, we are obligated to practice in the
public interest. That public interest compels both fiduciary loyalty
and efficient delivery of services in the case of clients who can
afford those services, and a social responsibility to compensate for
the failure of the market in the case of those who cannot afford legal
services.
The
unmet legal needs of children and the working poor have never been
greater than they are today. The firms who show their lawyers that
they value and reward active pro bono service shape the culture of
the bar, and set the standard for the profession. A few years back,
the American Bar Association challenged large law firms to guarantee
a minimum level of pro bono service from their attorneys—three percent
of their billable time. Several Minnesota firms signed onto the Pro
Bono Challenge, and a few even hired paid administrators in order
to coordinate their pro bono work. I applaud and admire those firms
and their example.
But
the ABA Pro Bono Challenge limited itself to large law firms and,
after a season in the spotlight, has gotten less recognition than
it once did. But the firms who participate deserve our recognition
today more than ever. Likewise, the firms who support their attorneys’
pro bono work, but who don’t qualify for the ABA Challenge on account
of their size, deserve the support and recognition that the larger
firms have enjoyed. The Minnesota State Bar Association can help fill
that gap and recognize pro bono service not only in large law firms,
but in any law firm, as well as in corporate law departments and government
offices.
We
represent a powerful profession. But hopefully we are not so captured
by power that we let experience outweigh principle when we make the
hard moral choices that our work involves.
Why
does this organization need to exist? Imagine a bar association in
a different world—not a stable and prosperous America, but say an
Iraq, or Liberia. If we had lived in Liberia or Iraq these past years,
we would have had the chance to fight injustice directly with our
bodies and our lives. The people of those nations have relied on their
lawyers, not only in defense of their human rights, but for heart
and courage in the face of oppression.
As
lawyers in a free and wealthy society, though, do we have that same
nerve and courage? America too needs our profession to be its heart
and conscience, in the legal profession as much as anywhere else.
The evils that this society faces are not so concrete as tyrants and
tanks, but they still oppress. They are poverty—homelessness—powerlessness—bigotry.
There may be little that we as lone individuals can do, but we shirk
our responsibilities as human beings if we walk past uncaring.
Why
does the bar association need to exist? Because to us, law is not
a market in which justice goes to the highest bidder, and lawyers
are not just hired guns. The law is a way to bring the benefits of
due process, equal protection, and constitutional democracy to the
underrepresented, the have-nots, the discriminated-against, as well
as those who can afford legal services.
The Law as a Vocation
I
didn’t grow up here. I didn’t attend grade school or college or law
school here; my family and relatives live four states away at the
nearest; I never even visited Minnesota until I interviewed for my
current job. I landed here because, with a whole world full of choices,
Minnesota looked to me like the ideal society to settle down in and
live and love and work and play and raise a family and grow old. I
have lived here for 16 years now and have sometimes doubted whether
Minnesota was the right choice for me. Notwithstanding “Minnesota
nice,” Minnesotans can be a tough crowd to get to know, especially
for an outsider and even more especially for a slightly eccentric
refugee from the East Coast.
My
work in the bar association, starting with the New Lawyers Section,
was the first time that I really felt like I belonged in the community
that I have chosen. I am deeply grateful to those lawyers who have
taken the trouble of getting to know me and of becoming my friends.
Their support has shown me that I made the right choice in coming
here. I look forward to serving as your president for the coming year,
and to working for many years to come with this community’s bar and
bench.
As
I accept the presidency, I am reminded of how much the people with
whom I have worked have mattered as much as the principles for which
we have worked. Let me recognize a few of the people who are here
with me today who have made possible my career in the bar. First,
my partners and colleagues from Faegre & Benson, who began supporting
my work in the bar when I was a young associate, and who have maintained
that support through a decade and a half of increasing involvement,
which has been not just my involvement as an individual volunteer
but rather the contribution of an entire firm that has stood behind
me for thousands of volunteered hours. Second, my friend and mentor
John Gordon, who has been the voice of experience and encouragement
throughout my career in bar leadership, and has been a example to
me in the kind of leader, the kind of lawyer, and the kind of human
being that I aspire to be. Third, my friend John Dornik, with whom
I have grown up in the bar, who has steadily reminded me about the
best that we can accomplish through our work here. Finally, the noble
and long-suffering legal administrative assistant who has run my professional
life for a dozen years, Dawn Revenaugh, without whom I’m just a confused
lawyer drowning in paper.
My
conclusion that it is the people that matter in the legal profession
has been reinforced from an unexpected source. When I was a law student,
I also earned a degree in theology. Many people mention how disparate
the two curricula seem; I am struck more by how alike they are. The
cardinal maxim that underlies both law and religion is, Do unto others
as you would have them do unto you: who seeks equity must do equity.
For all its talk about absolute truth and divine wisdom, the salvation,
redemption, enlightenment, or gratification of the individual is the
goal of virtually every religion or ethical system. For all its pretension
to economic efficiency, social engineering, and neutral principles,
it is justice in the individual case to which our legal system aspires.
What ought to matter to us as lawyers is the same thing that has always
mattered to us as moral actors: the lives that we touch, the pain
that we soothe, the faces that we make smile. The law is more than
a business or a profession, it is a vocation, and we who have been
called must never forget that it is people that matter.
My
hope for the new bar year is that the association will rededicate
itself to that principle. More than a quarter millennium ago, Benjamin
Franklin wrote that: “The noblest question in the world is, ‘What
Good may I do in it?’”
The organized bar has always searched for fresh and useful
ways of answering that question. Let’s keep looking for new answers
together.
Thank you.
BRIAN MELENDEZ
is president of the Minnesota State Bar Association and a partner
in the law firm of Faegre & Benson LLP. He received his undergraduate
and law degrees cum laude, as well as a master’s degree in theology,
from Harvard University. He is active in numerous professional, civic,
and alumni organizations both locally and nationally.
