CCBA Minutes
September 10, 2020
- Approve minutes
- Minutes approved by all
- Minutes will be put up on the website, Maggie will look into what we can do on the website, and try to update the board members
- Chair Update
- Beth Novotny getting more involved in county bars, meetings every other week.
- Odyssey is a big issue
- How to get jury trials back, 6 member juries as opposed to 12
- Petition to stall further roll outs of Odyssey, unclear how successful it will be
- Will notify CCBA members of updates on this
- COVID emergency committee – Dave Gurtman was on this, now it meets once per month
- Beth N. stepping down as president, we will see if these committees continue to meet as often with new VBA president
- Treasurer’s Report
- Dues Status
- Alec sent around report to all
- Some dues came in recently
- Dues Status
- Surplus of savings in the accounts due to not having an in person annual meeting
- New dues notices should be sent out in November, usually goes out with first Save the Date for the holiday party
- Big ticket items each year are annual meeting and holiday party
- PO Box
- Paid for. Alec will be getting the key and popcorn tin. Alec will also be authorized signer on the bank accounts.
- Any outstanding keys? Mick will see if Dave G. still has one
- Bench/Bar Brown Bag
- Topics and Scheduling
- We should still do Zoom CLEs – reach out to Judge Hoar for a Civil Bench bar – Maggie will reach out to Judge Hoar about this, encourage it to be for CLE credit, best practices
- Perhaps we can organize an Odyssey training offered through us for CLE credit – Erin will reach out to Pat Gabel about this
- Topics and Scheduling
- Andrew will reach out to a federal judge for a bench bar – could even be Federal Practices under COVID. Now the federal judges are used to using new technology for hearings.
- We should add to this list and brainstorm other ideas for trainings, mixers, ways to connect
- Erin will follow up with Jim Spink on a mediation training
- Mental health/Attorney wellness could be combined with an ethics CLE – Mike Kennedy could speak to this new requirement
- Kendall will talk to Mike K. to see if he would be willing to do this later in the fall.
- Planning for holiday party
- What could the options be for this? Zoom cocktail hour?
- Could shift the focus toward being more of a fundraiser for the Chittenden Food Shelf, start earlier in the season, challenge the group to beat last year’s amount and double it? CCBA matches up to a certain amount of donations?
- Still do Zoom but have break out rooms is also an idea to facilitate smaller conversations
- Agreed to all consider options and revisit when we meet again in early October
- New member mixer – probably not in 2020?
- Same challenges as holiday party
- Can reach out to new members that we know of, no bar exam so no pass list to reach out to
- Should send welcome email to new members that have contacted CCBA affirmatively
- Erin will write the welcome email
- Reach out to bigger firms to see if they have new associates we can contact
- List-serve and pro-bono promotions
- How to use the CCBA list serv, we have turned down firm marketing and political emails
- Used for bar events and pro bono opportunities and CLEs for our bar or related bar associations
- Keep listserv for CCBA members and not include paralegals, members are free to forward on CLE/training emails to paralegals.
- We can consider a separate paralegal membership, should check the by-laws to see if members need to be attorney only. Erin will review this.
- Electronic bulletin board/job postings can possibly go on the website instead of the email list – Maggie will look at this and report back at next mtg in October
- VBA charges for job postings, maybe we don’t want to take away from this job site.
- Meeting Schedule
- Next one for October 8 at 8:30, Erin will send a Zoom link.
- Any other business – none, meeting adjourned.