Tinder Box

"TWO TREMENDOUS COMMITTEES"

When you go "surfing" on the Internet, I hope that you will take the time to visit the State Bar’s Home Page - www.wvbar.org

For those of you who are computer challenged, just ask your seven year old son, daughter, niece, nephew or grandchild to show you what to do!

On the Bar’s Home Page, you will find all sorts of important and beneficial information, materials and links to legal data bases. As was announced last month, the TechNet System - with its important and helpful data - is now available for your use - free of charge.

The Home Page also includes a listing of the more than thirty State Bar Committees. There is a Committee on almost every type of legal practice. The Committees, most of which consist of volunteers, are the backbone of the State Bar. They review legal issues, discuss high priority matters and make recommendations to the Bar’s Board of Governors so that policy decisions can be made.

There are two State Bar Committees which I wish to highlight for you. One of them meets only once a year to guarantee the continuation of the State Bar and the other administers a program that is in operation every single week.

The first is the State Bar’s Elections Committee. It is made up of less than fifteen individuals, the vast majority of them from the Charleston area, who give their time and effort each year to count the ballots for the elections to the State Bar’s Board of Governors and the Young Lawyers Section’s Executive Committee. Every year, hundreds of ballots must be opened, separated, counted and re-counted to elect the necessary representatives to the Board of Governors and to the Executive Committee.

Both Board and Executive Committee members serve just one three year term. There are twenty elected members of the Board and seventeen elected members of the Executive Committee.

Every third year - and 1999 was that third year - the election process takes several additional hours because of the votes from Kanawha County. With more than 1,400 of the 3,900 active practicing lawyers in the state located in Kanawha County, it is a much greater election process.

Each of the Elections Committee members has served in this capacity for several years. They have refined the procedures so that the ballot counting is done in the most effective and efficient manner. They are to be commended for the professional manner in which they handle their election responsibilities.

The members of the Elections Committee are - Timothy Armstead, Nelson Bickley, Mark Browning, Michael Cline, Jim Cooper, Scott Damron, Cheryle Hall, Bill Harvit, Stephen Horn, William Porth, Donald Stennett and Robert Wilkinson.

The other Committee is the Lawyer Information and Referral Service Committee. Incidentally, they do not like to be reminded of the acronym for the group!

For more than twenty years, this Committee has administered the Lawyer Information Service Program. Every Tuesday evening - no matter what - the Lawyer Information Service is available from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Citizens from all over the state can call in on a toll-free telephone number and talk with real, live lawyers about their legal situations.

The toll-free telephone number is 1-800-642-3617.

The telephones ring constantly for the two hour time period. The questions can be on almost any legal topic although the majority of them are in the areas of family law and consumer law.

If the attorney cannot answer the question, then a referral is made to the State Bar’s Lawyer Referral Service. The caller will receive the names of two lawyers in their area who handles that type of case. They can talk with the lawyer for up to thirty minutes and the charge is only $10. At the end of thirty minutes they decide if they wish to hire the attorney and the attorney decides if they want to handle the case.

Incidentally, during the 1999 Annual Meeting in Morgantown, the Lawyer Information Service was operating all day on Law Day - May 1. From 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., lawyers answered the toll-free telephone lines.

We currently have approximately 140 lawyers who participate in the Lawyer Referral Service. The cost is only $25 a year with the attorney being required to have professional liability insurance coverage.

Most of the lawyers who participate in the Lawyer Information Service are from the Charleston area. However, by forwarding the calls to law offices around the state, there has been participation by attorneys in Beckley, Huntington, Clarksburg, Wheeling, Morgantown and Martinsburg.

The members of the Lawyer Information and Referral Service Committee are: Erin Brewster, Ann Haight, Bill Harvit, David Keenan, Carl Levander, Steve McGowan, Richard Robb, Dan Schuda, Lonnie Simmons and Tom Trent.

Finally, I must admit to you that the attorneys on both the Elections Committee and the Lawyer Information and Referral Service Committee do receive compensation for the outstanding work that they provide for the State Bar. They are paid for their services by having pizza and softdrinks provided to them. So far, the record for most pieces of pizza eaten is fourteen and it is held by Dan Schuda! (I am only kidding - don’t get mad at me, Dan. Actually, Lonnie Simmons is the real Pizza King!)