AYLA: A Look Back: A Year Like No Other

AYLA PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

BY DAVID KING, ARMBRUST & BROWN

Here we are at the end of the 2020-21 bar year. As we wind down the year, we’re all excited to return to the in-person events that are the hallmarks of AYLA (starting with a bar-year kickoff at Hilgers House in August and our annual Evening with the Judiciary at the Austin Club in September). But, here at AYLA, we’re also proud of what we accomplished during a year of unique challenges.

We highlighted equity.

Not only did this bar year began in the middle of a pandemic, but it also began amidst wide-spread public acknowledgment of and activism regarding racial injustice in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. (I stop short of calling this a reckoning, which implies that a resolution has been reached; we’re not there yet.) AYLA partnered with the Austin Bar (under the dedicated leadership of Austin Bar President Kennon Wooten) to contribute to the discussion. In July, the AYLA board of directors held a special meeting to consider the online commentary of State Bar of Texas President Larry McDougal, and, on July 24, 2020, AYLA joined the Austin Bar in issuing a resolution to support proposed changes, including requiring anti-racism/implicit-bias training and providing funding to the Office of Minority Affairs to increase programming regarding diversity and racial issues. Members of the AYLA board of directors also actively took part in the Austin Bar’s newly formed Equity Committee.

We had fun—on Zoom.

Inevitably, we also spent a lot of time on Zoom, and we learned how to make the most of it. In place of our typical, in-person “Docket Call” happy hours, AYLA put on virtual events every month of the year. We hosted virtual happy hours, trivia nights, a cooking class, a mixology class, a movie night, and “crafts and cocktails.” We invited members of our local judiciary to host intimate “coffee hours” with small groups of young lawyers. Our Fitness Committee organized a virtual 5K and Zoom yoga sessions. And we held our annual Evening with the Judiciary, which garnered impressive attendance from all levels of the judiciary. We also organized CLE programs on topics ranging from Zoom court proceedings (in partnership with the UT Law School Board of Advocates), Employment Law and COVID-19 (with Austin Kaplan and Leslie Dippel), a “Law 101” series covering areas like estate planning and real estate, and larger-scale CLEs in partnership with the Austin Bar, including Bench Bar and the Government Law Symposium.

We gave back to the community.

Notwithstanding this year’s challenges, AYLA also continued to fulfill its mission of promoting community service. One stand-out event was AYLA’s 11th Annual MLK Day of Service project in January, which saw incredible turnout and enthusiasm from our members. We collected and delivered donations to twelve non-profits: Central Texas Food Bank, Austin Allies, Austin Area Urban League, Austin Urban Technology Movement, The Next Generation Project, Conduits for Change, BookSpring, The Inside- Books Project, Partnerships for Change, Seedling Mentors, We Are Blood, and Refugee Services Texas. We filled 27 spots for the We Are Blood bus—enough to keep the bus parked at Hilgers House all day—and we collected 665 pounds of donations for the Central Austin Food Bank. In December, we also organized our annual Holiday Program. While we couldn’t have the in-person festival we all love, AYLA was able to partner with the YMCA to raise money and collect gifts for 30 children, and our members had the pleasure of wrapping and hand-delivering the gifts to families across Austin.

As in-person events become a reality in the second half of 2021, we are all looking forward to a return to normalcy at AYLA—and a fond farewell to our monthly Zoom events. In a year that began with great uncertainty over how AYLA, like so many other organizations, would adapt to the pandemic, it is remarkable and humbling to see how the organization nonetheless thrived—all thanks to AYLA’s most active members and board members, and, of course, its dedicated director, Debbie Kelly. It has been a challenging—but rewarding—year at AYLA. Thank you to everyone who’s taken part. AL

David King