for N.C. bar
By Anna Marie Kukec
The North Carolina Bar Association was blessed with sun and 70-degree temperatures on Feb. 10 for its outdoor dedication of a historical marker honoring the bar’s first meeting in what is now the Labor Building in downtown Raleigh.About 350 lawyers, including the North Carolina Supreme Court justices wearing their black robes, swelled the street on which the bar association was organized on a cold and blustery day exactly 100 years ago.
"This is a proud-to-be-a-lawyer day," says Executive Director Allan Head of Cary.
It was also a day for the staff and volunteers to be proud. This marker ceremony and oath rededication, as well as other activities held during the bar’s year of celebration, involved dozens of bar staff who balanced their regular work with additional centennial duties.
"There is no such thing as going beyond the call of duty during a centennial year. A once-in-a-lifetime event calls for a once-in-a-lifetime effort," says Communications Director W. Clifton Barnes of Cary.
Bar staff and volunteers began arriving early that morning at the corners of Edenton and Salisbury streets in Raleigh to ensure that every detail was completed before the marker was unveiled. The police had just closed the streets to traffic, and crews had set up a platform stage. Then trucks arrived with plants to decorate the platform, sound technicians wired a podium with microphones, and bar officials finalized minute details.
In attending to one of those details, Barnes climbed a ladder and meticulously adjusted the bar’s blue banner that covered the marker until its unveiling. He then crossed over gold ropes, which he bought after days of searching for just the right match to the banner’s fringe.
"We draped and redraped the banner, and practiced and practiced the actual unveiling to make sure it went smoothly," says Barnes, who worked with the bar’s centennial subcommittee and the state Department of Archives to obtain the marker for the bar at no cost. Neighboring markers include those for the Dental Society, Medical Society and Pharmaceutical Association.
Then A. Cathleen Larsson, assistant director of communications-external, welcomed WRAL-TV, The Judicial Times, North Carolina Lawyers Weekly and other reporters. At first, she was concerned that the bar event would be overshadowed by a State Highway Patrol press conference regarding seat-belt legislation that had been unexpectedly scheduled at the same time. Despite the competition for publicity, about a dozen reporters from the electronic and print media eventually circled the platform.
While Barnes and his staff attended to the outside event, another program was taking place inside the Old House Chambers in the State Capitol Building across the street. Lt. Gov. Dennis Wicker presented a gubernatorial proclamation honoring the bar, and a theatrical reenactment of historic North Carolina cases was performed. When those programs finished, the crowd streamed outside and filed along the platform by the Labor Building. Bar President Larry Sitton of Greensboro delivered a brief historical perspective about the bar. Chief Justice Burley Mitchell then led attendees in reciting the Lawyer’s Oath to rededicate them to the profession.
When the marker was unveiled, the crowd applauded. Afterward, everyone walked down the block to the North Carolina Museum of History for a reception and ribbon-cutting ceremony to open an exhibit about the bar’s century of accomplishment.
The major accomplishment of the day, however, was public recognition of the bar and its members, which was later featured on three television newscasts, one radio station and in a local magazine. The event created a positive public image for lawyers and demonstrated the endurance of the law over the century and the power of teamwork.
Early planning
While the idea for the marker ceremony and oath rededication began to take shape in 1997, serious planning started in July 1998 with a subcommittee of three volunteer lawyers and two bar staff members. The marker subcommittee focused on numerous details, such as tracking down descendents of founding bar members and inviting them to the event; working with the Raleigh City Council and Raleigh Police Department to close streets to traffic; and creating the marker in cooperation with the state Department of Archives and the Department of Transportation.
"At first we needed to develop a consensus on what the event was to be. Then we wanted to blend the past with hopes for the future. That’s why we did the oath as a recommitment and a look toward the future," says to subcommittee Chair Marilyn Forbes of Raleigh.
More than two years ago, bar leaders began planning the centennial events and raised about $370,000 to underwrite those costs. Legal publishers, insurance companies, banks and vendors helped to support the bar’s efforts to create a memorable year.
These memories began in January 1999 with a Centennial Celebration Gala Kickoff that attracted about 500 attendees. Since the marker dedication in February, the bar continued the centennial theme at its annual meeting in June in Asheville. Meeting registrants will receive a complimentary copy of a new educational video, "A History of the North Carolina Bar Association 1899-1999."
The centennial theme is also incorporated into a statewide Red Cross blood drive planned for July and the statewide Dispute Resolution Month in October. As a grand finale, the bar will sponsor the Centennial Symposium at Camp Seafarer in Arapahoe, N.C., on Oct. 1-3. About 300 are expected to participate in this renaissance weekend to discuss balancing law and life, lawyers in politics, access to justice and other topics.
These events will culminate hundreds of hours of work from about 250 volunteers and bar employees. A Centennial Celebration Committee led about 10 different subcommittees that planned the marker dedication and other events, according to Thomas Hull of Cary, the bar’s director of development who coordinated the staff centennial efforts.
They developed fund-raising methods to support the activities; kept lists of contacts and attendees; obtained and disseminated materials to promote the events, and arranged for space, materials and handled other details. Besides communicating with peers to maintain productivity, these committee members reached out to bar members, judges, government, community leaders and the public.
"The real challenge is to do all of these extra centennial things above and beyond your everyday services to your members," says Hull, adding that continuing legal education seminars and other regular bar services remained on schedule. Planning was done in militia fashion, ensuring accountability and rigorous schedules.
The celebrations are being enjoyed by various age groups. "This has become a multi-generational celebration. The older members relish the chance to celebrate this centennial and to show what longevity means. The younger people have responded to our history and the stories on heroism in our profession," says says Nancy Black Norelli of Charlotte, co-chair of the Centennial Celebration Committee.
Next year, the bar will release a report detailing all of the activities, budgets and results of its centennial event as a guide for other bar associations planning similar events.
"While you always make a good effort and want a good product, you have to demand an A+ product from yourself and others during such an important time in the life of the bar," says Barnes.
(Also see "State, local bars celebrate anniversaries," Bar Leader, May 1998, p. 9.)
