Message from the Chair, Karl J. Ege

Maintaining Relevance

For a membership organization to thrive and grow, particularly in dynamic times, it must remain relevant to the day-to-day challenges faced by its members. The ABA Section of Business Law is keenly focused not only on maintaining relevance to you as a business lawyer but also enhancing the value you receive as a member.

In January 2008, the Section's leadership engaged in a strategic planning exercise, the third in a series of such exercises conducted by the Section since 1994. At this year's session, a cross-section of members and Section leaders examined the changing nature of business law and the manner in which these changes impact our members and our mission. The end product was a strategic plan (click here to review the executive summary) that will guide the Section's priorities in the coming years.

One of the key issues identified in the plan is the need for the Section to continue to evolve in form and substance as the practices of our members respond to the rapidly changing legal, economic and social dynamics that characterize the modern practice of business law. The Section has formed a Council-level planning committee that will focus on identifying developing areas of business law and legal practice and recommending those changes in committee, subcommittee and organizational structures that are necessary to best address these changes.

The new Council Planning Committee will be implementing another important recommendation from the strategic planning session, the development of an annual "business plan" for the Section. We are, after all, the American Bar Association Section of Business Law, and it therefore seems appropriate that the Section be managed and operated in a "business-like" fashion. Notwithstanding the relatively short time between the approval of the strategic plan by the Section Council at the Spring Meeting in Dallas in April, a core group of Council members and the Section Officers developed a Section Business Plan for the coming year. That Plan, which was adopted by the Section Council at the ABA Annual Meeting in August and is available for your review on the Section's Web site, provides goals and performance benchmarks which will guide the Section officers as we manage your Section in the coming months. I will provide members with periodic reports throughout the year on our progress toward achieving the goals set forth in the Section's Business Plan.

A key initiative which was identified in our strategic planning exercise, incorporated in our strategic plan and fleshed out in this year's Business Plan was developing a comprehensive management plan for the vast volume of intellectual capital produced by the Section, its committees and its members. As recommended by the Business Plan, a new officer-level position of Content Officer has been created and a Content Committee has been established with the task of organizing the Section's content and determining the best way to deliver it to our 60,000 members in a variety of media, whether through print, electronic, streaming video, audio, or internet-based applications. The Section's leadership intends to provide easy and cost-effective access to the intellectual capital produced each year by the Section, especially to the vast majority of our members who are unable to attend our meetings. The Content Committee is a key element in achieving that goal. I am pleased to announce that Scott Ludwig of Birmingham, Alabama, former Chair of the Section's Publications Board, has agreed to serve as our first Content Officer, subject to final approval of this new officer position by the ABA Board of Governors.

The Council, Committee Chairs and Section Officers will all join me in the coming year to meet our goal of maintaining the Section as a nimble, agile and opportunistic organization, at all times focusing on the need to remain "relevant" to its members in a dramatically changing legal and business environment. I have inherited the leadership of a Section that is as dynamic and relevant today as at any time during its nearly 70-year existence. I am indebted to our former Chair, Charlie McCallum for his foresight in expanding our horizons to the global marketplace. It is his legacy to the Section and we, the current leadership, intend to carry that vision further as we position the Section of Business Law as the recognized and respected resource for business lawyers worldwide.