Women’s Summit

BCBA WOMEN’S SUMMIT

A MINUTE WITH THE FOUNDATION’S NEW TRUSTEE

Sarah Ryan

Tell us about your career.

I am the Director of Marketing & Business Development at Stark & Stark. With a full range of legal services at Stark & Stark, my days are never the same. I am lucky enough to serve the Bucks County Bar Foundation as a Trustee, and I look forward to engaging with our community. Also, during my 1,000-hour work week, I serve the Legal Marketing Association as the CMO Sig Co-Chair. We focus our efforts on bringing education to fellow legal marketers.

When you were younger, what did you want to be?

A lawyer! How funny that I’ve ended up doing what I love for a law firm.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

When I am not coaching lawyers, I spend my time with my family in Bucks County. My husband Steve and I have a daughter, Charlotte, who is five years old, and a son, Carter, three, and two dogs. We love spending time at the lake and doing anything outdoors. We enjoy traveling and spending time with family and friends. Recently, we started keeping bees, which has been an exciting and sometimes painful learning experience for us.

Advice to lawyers?

As a marketing professional, I have to say, Business Development and Marketing are not the same; you really need a healthy balance of the two. You will always benefit from having a plan, writing it down, setting goals, and sticking to them. If you’re not good at this, set assigned time aside on your calendar to dedicate to developing business. Additionally, ask your clients for feedback. You can learn so much by listening! Lastly, if you have a team of professionals working for you, work as a team. You will always see more engagement, ideas, and support when people feel included, supported, and valued. 

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BENCH BAR IS OFFICIALLY BACK!

By Melanie Wender

2020 was an extremely tough year for all of us. Events were cancelled, postponed, virtual, or transferred to outdoor venues. While the events that we had in 2020 were enjoyed by many, we all missed the traditional events and being together. When 2021 rolled around, uncertainty remained as to whether any of the Bar Association’s traditional events could be “normal.” With that uncertainty, questions circulated around whether we would be able to have our traditional annual Bench Bar Conference, which is the hallmark event of every year. Fortunately, as 2021 continued, it became more and more likely that the conference was actually going to happen. Then, on September 23, 2021, 140 registrants drove out to Crystal Springs Resort in Hamburg, NJ for the 2021 Bench Bar Conference!

The conference started with CLEs from USI Affinity, PNC Private Banking, and the traditional Young Lawyers Division (“YLD”) CLE. This year, YLD’s CLE was quizzo and it provided the opportunity to learn some interesting facts about the judges on our bench. For example, did you know Judge Bowman played rugby? At the end of it, the teams with the three highest scores were awarded prizes. However, for third place, there was a tie and the only solution was an epic three-round game of Paper, Rock, Scissors. I’m sure you can guess who won (hint: it was the person writing this article).

The next day brought the highlight of the whole conference, the plenary session. This year’s speaker was Jan Hargraves, a body language expert. She was completely enthralling, interesting and educational. She even got our Bar Association’s treasurer, Mr. Larry Sheetz, involved in the presentation.

From there, the next few hours were broken into smaller CLEs sections. The Orphans Court Section provided a very interesting CLE regarding the conservatorship surrounding Brittney Spears. Have you ever wanted to see Judge Gilman attempt to impersonate Kevin Federline? This CLE was your opportunity. Also included were CLEs regarding current issues happening in business law, family law, civil law and criminal law, as well as a very interesting and topical CLE presented by the Women’s Law Division and the Diversity

Section. On the whole, the CLEs were truly exceptional and the credit is owed to all of the presenters.

This year’s Bench Bar Conference was exciting in many ways, but primarily with regard to all of the new faces and sponsors. Fourteen law clerks attended this year’s conference, which was amazing. The law clerks were able to attend as a result of scholarships that are available through the sections and divisions of the Bar Association and it was wonderful having these new faces there. This year’s conference brought in many new sponsors, resulting in a total of 49 sponsors! The best news is that for the Bar Association, this conference was not a financial bust, but a financial win and money was actually earned from the event! At such an uncertain time, I am incredibly happy that this event left the Bar Association in a better place.

Additionally, this year’s conference also managed to raise a total of $9,650.25 for the Bucks County Bar Foundation! Thanks to Jessica Pritchard’s courage to go down the water slide, she started a “slide” of donations. The donations kept coming when cash was awarded to the winners of different golf prizes. Many of those recipients generously donated those funds to the Foundation. Hopefully these fundraising efforts for the Foundation will continue into future Bench Bars!

The whole event ended with an epic Breakfast with the Bench. A huge thank you goes to all of the judges who participated in that panel. The panel itself was a great opportunity to ask questions of the judges and learn. Additionally, the law clerks were given the opportunity to ask all of us questions, which is an exciting opportunity.

In the end, it was a very successful conference, both educational and great fun. I’m sure that the success of this year’s conference will result in an even better conference next year, when we head back to the beloved Hershey Hotel. With Elaine Yandrisevits as next year’s chair of the Bench Bar committee, I have no doubt that next year will be incredible. 

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