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Posted November 2013The holidays are around the corner. CABA’s annual Christmas party is Thursday, December 5th, from 5:30 to 7:30 at the Old Capitol Inn. It is always a good time. Plan to come and enjoy good food and fellowship with the CABA membership. Remember to bring a toy for JYL’s Toys for Tots drive.
CABA is grateful to Dean Richard Gershon for making the trip from Oxford to speak at the August meeting. The Dean brought us up to date on developments at Ole Miss Law School. The turnout for the meeting is a testament to CABA’s interest in and support for the law school.
We are also grateful to Mississippi Bar General Counsel Adam Kilgore and Deputy General Counsel Missye Martin for providing an hour of ethics CLE at the October meeting. Adam and Missye brought us up to date on Ethics Opinion 259 on metadata and then threw in a general overview of the attorney discipline process to boot. It was a useful presentation offered in a lively manner. Adam and Missye have worked out a dialogue format that keeps things interesting.
The pro bono committee reported success with their Lawyers in the Library event on October 21 at the Eudora Welty Library. As many as 70 people received help with family law, criminal law and expungements, social security, disability, and estate planning issues. Thanks to Carlyn Hicks and Tiffany Graves for spearheading the event. (See photos from the Lawyers in the Library event on pp. 14 – 15.)
The Community Outreach Committee had the benefit of great weather for the Gallant Hearts Dog Walk on November 2. Gallant Hearts breeds, raises and trains guide dogs for the blind. Thanks go to Committee Chair LeAnn Nealey for organizing the event and for the volunteers who turned out to represent CABA.
The CABA presidency has not previously been lacking in opportunities for embarrassment. Every membership meeting affords the chance to mispronounce a judge’s name or two, to fail to introduce a judge who is there, to mistakenly introduce one who isn’t, or to go for a grand slam of all of the above. Now the president also gets to attempt the feat of synchronized candle lighting before the assembled dignity of the en banc Mississippi Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals and many other honored guests during the annual Mississippi Bar Memorial Service — a dignified and moving ceremony. The CABA and JYL presidents have been asked to serve as ex-officio members of the Memorial Committee. They greet, usher and then light memorial candles during the beautifully solemn reading of the names of our fellow lawyers who passed away during the past year. A grown lawyer perhaps ought to be able to light some candles without palms sweating and knees knocking, but then …
Our next regular membership meeting is February 18, 2014. We look forward to hearing from Dean Jim Rosenblatt about developments at Mississippi College School of Law and his recent decision to step down as Dean and step in as a professor in the coming year. Be sure to join us.