Friends and Fellow Lawyers:
“A lawyer, as a member of the legal profession, is a representative of clients, an officer of the legal system, and a public citizen having special responsibility for the quality of justice.” – Preamble: Wisconsin Rules of Professional Conduct
Ralph Cagle, U.W. 1974, is of counsel to Hurley, Burish & Stanton, S.C., Madison, practicing principally in professional responsibility law and serving as a mediator. He is also an emeritus clinical professor at the U.W. Law School.
This opening line from the Rules of Professional Conduct describes three aspects of our professional lives. But being a lawyer is more multidimensional than that.
Lawyers’ lives involve at least five overlapping roles. We live as 1) client representatives; 2) work and income generators; 3) public citizens; 4) promoters of justice; and 5) human beings.
Lawyers have been the center of my professional life and objects of my interest and affection for 40 years. They are my clients, my students and coteachers, my colleagues, my mentors and mentees, and my enduring friends.
Starting out as State Bar president, I know that our association’s success is measured by how well we help our members realize the fullness of each of these life roles.
The Bar’s responsibility to each of you is to provide stellar and relevant education and training that equips you to best serve your clients and empowers you to successfully plan and manage your practices, including the practices of our public and in-house lawyers. We must encourage, assist, and honor how you serve and lead in your respective communities and pass on your skills and passion for service to our next generations of lawyers. As a profession, we must defend and advance the integrity, independence, accessibility, and fundamental fairness of our legal institutions. All this is best accomplished when our members find deep satisfaction and happiness in the important measures of their professional and personal lives.
I will work hard, do my best, be available, and always listen.
We have a great capacity as an organization to do all this exceptionally well with:
an exceptional and experienced professional staff;
smart and committed governors who you elected to lead our Bar on your behalf; and
a cadre of volunteer members who work with our staff to develop and sustain member service programs.
So, you, the member-owners, have every reason to expect great service from the State Bar.
See you next month. In the meantime, I welcome your thoughts.
P.S. I always had a deal with my kids. If I made a promise, I had to keep it. I got a little wiggle room for “I hope we can” or “I’ll try,” but a promise was always a promise.
My kids trained me to caution about making promises, so my only promise to you is that I will work hard, do my best, be available, and always listen. I also promise to write this column each month. I don’t promise literary splendor or life-altering insights, but I will try to be readable, hopefully interesting and maybe, from time to time, a little thought provoking.
