Vol. 76, No. 7, July
2003
Bar's History on Exhibit
Panels commemorating the Bar's first 125 years
are on exhibit through 2003 in the Bar Center rotunda.
by George C. Brown,
State Bar executive director
You will find the State Bar Center
rotunda a little crowded. Until the end of December, 12 nine-foot-tall
panels celebrating the State Bar's 125-year history will fill the main
reception area with colorful images and explanations of important events
and people from throughout the Bar's first century and a quarter.
Each panel represents an important theme in the history and
development of the organized bar in Wisconsin. As you enter the Bar
Center from the parking lot and look to your left, you are greeted by a
life-size photograph of Chief Justice Edward Ryan underscored with his
seminal statement for the founding of a statewide association of lawyers
in 1878, "The bar, as a body, can only have the influence which properly
belongs to it, on professional subjects, through an organization by
which it can speak with one voice." Lower on the introductory panel, is
an enlarged copy of the signatures of the founding members at that first
meeting on Jan. 9, 1878, names also famous in Wisconsin history, such as
Orsamus Cole, A.A. Jackson, Samuel Hastings, Burr Jones, and Moses
Strong, who served as president for the Bar's first 15 years.
Additional panels highlight organized bar activities first enumerated
by Chief Justice Ryan in his 1878 founding speech that continue to be
important today: improving admission standards, enhancing competence,
establishing high standards of conduct, and shaping the law through
legislation. Other panels commemorate aspects of the practice and the
organized bar that have developed since Ryan's initial speech, including
improving the business of the practice of law, creating the mandatory
bar, increasing the bar association's effectiveness, and serving the
public.
Attendees of this year's annual convention will recognize these
panels, which were displayed at the convention center. As part of the
yearlong celebration of the Bar's first 125 years, this museum-quality
exhibit also displays the talents of State Bar staff. Communications
director Joyce Hastings, Wisconsin Lawyer associate editor
Karlé Lester, and senior graphic designer Tod Florey concepted,
wrote, and designed the panels based upon their research and that of
public affairs director Dan Rossmiller, marketing manager Scott
Robillard, and designer Jean Anderson.
On your left as you exit the Bar Center toward the main parking lot,
you will notice the display's final panel. Titled "Facing Forward," the
panel repeats Justice Ryan's founding statement above a statement by
2002-03 State Bar President Patricia Ballman about the organized Bar's
importance today. The irony, of course, is that Justice Ryan, who twice
opposed the admission of women to practice before the supreme court, now
flanks the entrance to the building of the association he helped found
along with the association's third woman president.
Wisconsin
Lawyer