| Release: | Immediate |
| Media contact: | Stephanie Ortbals-Tibbs |
| Phone: | 202/662-1091 |
| E-mail: | ortbals-tibbs@staff.abanet.org |
DENVER LAWYER KAREN J. MATHIS IS NEW PRESIDENT OF AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION
HONOLULU, Aug. 8, 2006 — Denver lawyer Karen J. Mathis became president of the American Bar Association today. She is the first lawyer from Colorado to head the nation’s largest association of lawyers.
Mathis is a business, commercial and estate planning lawyer with McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter, a law firm based in Morristown, N.J.
During speeches Monday, Mathis said she would work to inspire baby boom lawyers to do meaningful volunteer service as they enter active retirement, and focus on helping America’s at-risk youth.
“America’s youth is our most important asset—our future is in their hands. Yet many young people face problems that are getting wider, deeper, and more complex,” noted Mathis.
Mathis said the crisis facing many young people had led her to center her year on Youth at Risk, a national service project “aimed at the most troubled young people in our country, who risk being caught up in the juvenile and criminal justice systems. They are foster kids, truants, gang members, and just plain kids who have lost their way.”
Mathis also tied her program for youth to her efforts to help a large generation of lawyers transition to retirement.
“The greatest challenge facing the profession and the Association in the coming years is the movement of the Baby Boom generation into active retirement,” Mathis said. “An unprecedented number of lawyers is going to leave the full-time practice of law in the next 10 years.”
“Roll up your sleeves and work with a kid in your community,” she urged members of the American Bar Association House of Delegates.
Mathis also said she would work to promote the rule of law internationally during her one-year term.
Mathis earned her law degree from the University of Colorado School of Law in 1975 and her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Denver in 1972.
An active member of the ABA for almost 30 years, Mathis served as the association's second highest elected officer, chair of its House of Delegates, from August 2000 until August 2002. She is the third woman to serve as an ABA president.
Mathis has also been active in the Denver Bar Association and Colorado Bar Association for many years. She has held offices in the Young Lawyers Section of both bar associations, and served as vice president of the CBA from 1992-1993.
Mathis has long been an advocate for our nation’s youth, serving on the Colorado Commission on Child Care and as a member of the Mile Hi Council of Girl Scouts.
With more than 410,000 members, the American Bar Association is the largest voluntary professional membership organization in the world. As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law in a democratic society.
