Editor's Message

Betsy S. Kimball, Editor

Welcome to the final 2018 issue of Sacramento Lawyer. Thanks to the Sacramento County Bar Foundation and the SCBA’s Pro Bono Committee, we have included with this issue a tear-out pamphlet on pro bono opportunities. The information is also now available (and regularly updated) on the SCBA’s web page. Please let Mary Burroughs or any member of the SCBA’s Pro Bono Committee (Jeff Galvin, Chair) know if you are aware of a pro bono program that can/should be listed. For this issue, Judge Shama H. Mesiwala has written a primer on the dependency system. Dependency court is where decisions are made that affect the lives and wellbeing of children – children especially vulnerable due to the circumstances that landed them in the dependency system in the first place. As lawyers, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, human beings, there are things that we can do for these kids. Learning about the dependency system is a good place to start (buying a backpack for school, soccer shoes, a prom dress = also good). In this issue, we have also taken the unusual step of re-printing an article first published elsewhere on the new Rules of Professional Conduct. If you missed the SCBA’s October 24th program on the new Rules, this article will give you a good start on the Rules. The SCBA’s centennial anniversary year draws to a close. I have taken the liberty of copying portions of my Editor’s Message published in the SCBA’s Centennial Book (on sale at the SCBA office). It seems a positive way to end the year. Some things survive; others don’t. Tower Records (1960-2006), Pontiac cars (1926-2010), The Village Voice (1955-2018) – all gone. Reaching a centennial is no small accomplishment. For a voluntary organization to last 100 years, it needs at least two things. One is to keep itself relevant to its membership, meaning it must change with the times. The other is that it must provide something of value to its members and to the broader community. In working on the [SCBA’s centennial] book, I have had a glimpse back into how the SCBA has managed to do these things. … [¶] … In 1918, the SCBA was a group of exclusively white men. Today, it is a thoroughly diverse organization, and proudly so. The early [SCBA] minutes suggest that the founding members were working to address the concerns of their day. But those good men could no more imagine our concerns, 100 years later, than we can know what lawyers will face in the coming decades and beyond. The SCBA has changed with the times, and it serves its membership and its community well. It is, after all, an association of lawyers who wish to support, and to be supported by, their brother and sister lawyers. I do not see that changing.