President’s Message

Wellness

in the Workplace

Michelle Bernardo-Rudy, Esquire President Chester County Bar Association

First and foremost, I want to say how honored I am to be leading the Chester County Bar Association this year. Thank you to everyone for your advice and well wishes! I am excited to see what the year brings. I am also looking forward to working with the incoming board and the amazing staff that we have at the bar association.

It is the beginning of January 2022 – and looking in the rear-view mirror we have all been through a lot over the past two years. A never-ending pandemic, one of the ugliest election cycles in our lifetimes, fiercely divided politics, social unrest, and the list goes on. These issues have impacted our lives in some form or another. As I know from my own experience and those of my peers – these things also impact our clients’ lives, which adds another level of challenge to our abilities to serve them. Being a lawyer usually involves some level of conflict, however, when you factor in what we all have going on in our personal lives – school age children in a pandemic, aging parents, college age students, illness – it only adds to our growing pile.

I would like to look forward with hope and optimism. A judge in Alabama once called me stupidly optimistic. I’ll take it. I have certainly been called worse over the years. But I often think about that judge, looking at me from the bench as I tried to argue my client’s cause. “Counsel,” he said, “You are stupidly optimistic about your chances here today.” Isn’t that what this is all about? Don’t we take on the cause to fight for our clients no matter the odds? Don’t we, as lawyers, all possess some level of stupid optimism? I hope so!!! Otherwise, why do we do it?

This year my focus is at least two-fold. First, I want to focus on wellness for our members. I would like to help us focus on a little rejuvenating time for ourselves. As I mentioned at the Annual Meeting, each month we will pick a random member to receive a gift certificate to a local business. We will have gift cards to local restaurants, fitness studios/gyms, salons, and other local entertainment to help us step away and get some much needed down time. Go out to eat. Get a massage. Have a quiet cup

of coffee. Whatever you need to help you unwind and refresh. We have stressful jobs. You will not miss anything by taking some time to decompress. Believe me, it will all be there waiting for you when you return from meditating, or stretching, or reading. I also want to encourage the members to reach out to me and the board. Tell us what you would like to see in the Bar Association. Tell us how we are doing. This is your Bar Association, help us to provide you with the services you want.

In looking forward, it also means moving ahead. I would like to see the Bar Association come back to the table to share, with civility, our strengths with each other. As attorneys, I believe it is invaluable for us to engage with each other outside of the courtroom to help remind us that, as a society, while we can have differences of opinions, we must work to resolve disputes calmly and rationally to reach fairness. I believe that if we know the person on the other side, it not only helps us, but our clients as well. I am hoping and pushing for more in-person events. As I am writing this in January, the Omicron variant is burning like wildfire, and we just decided to postpone the Presidents’ Dinner to March 11th, because of the rising numbers. However, while I would not be surprised if there were a couple more variants rearing their ugly heads before the summer, I think we can gather, and do it safely and hopefully everyone feels comfortable enough to join us. I will not mandate anything, only that you come with an open mind and heart, and a willingness to help move the Chester County Bar Association forward, with hope and optimism. Especially optimism.

As a final note, I would also like to engage the community more, and do more for those of Chester County through our Foundation and Association. One way to achieve that is to help the community understand the role of Judges and Lawyers. In November, Judge Kearney of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania contacted the incoming presidents of the bar associations of the surrounding counties to inform us of the Federal Court’s initiative focusing on the Independence of the Judiciary. We have met via Zoom and phone conferences, and I am happy to collaborate with such an amazing group of people. You will see that message in the future as the Federal Judges roll out their initiative. In addition, I am fairly certain, this is the first time all Bar Association presidents of the surrounding counties (Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery) are women, and I think that is amazing and worth mentioning!

I look forward to the year ahead, and hope to see you around town and at our functions.

Let’s do this!

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