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Vol. 73, No. 8, August 2000 |
Inside the Bar
Using Your State Bar Center
by George Brown, State
Bar executive director
One year ago this month the new State Bar Center opened its
doors. Several years of planning and a year of construction resulted
in a building that better serves you, the member, in so many
ways.
 Most importantly, you are actually using the building
to help you in your business. In the last year, more members have used
the State Bar Center than ever before. The Bar Center has hosted multi-day
arbitrations, where the lawyers are from Madison and the arbitrator
is from Milwaukee. Lawyers from as far away as Wausau have held depositions
in the Bar Center conference rooms. Members from other cities who are
visiting clients in the area have stopped in to use the phones and work
spaces between meetings. And government lawyers and the State of Wisconsin
have held contract negotiations in the Bar Center.
These are only some of the stories from members I know who
have stopped in to say hello or from members I had a chance to
meet for the first time. In the last year (figures for the 11
months from August 1999 through June 2000 available at the time
of this writing), 1,316 meetings have been held at the Bar Center.
That is 449 more meetings than were held in the entire previous
year at the old Bar Center. The number of meetings by members
who are not at the Bar Center for a committee, section, division,
or CLE meeting has nearly doubled, from 73 in the last year at
the old Bar Center to 143 in the first 11 months at the new Bar
Center. The trend line shows that, except for two of the first
three months at the new Bar Center, member usage has increased
every month over the same month last year - in several cases
by a factor of four. These numbers do not include the increased
usage for CLE seminars, including the 40 hands-on technology
seminars held this spring in the technology training center that
provided intensive training in Internet research to more than
300 State Bar members and their staffs.
All of this points out one simple fact. The new State Bar
Center is truly a members' building. Lawyers from across
the state are meeting at the Bar Center to do business. The members
I have talked with are impressed and proud of their building.
The next time you need a place to hold a client meeting in
Madison, call the Bar Center at (800) 444-9404, ext. 6169, to
reserve a conference room. It's easy to get to. For directions,
please see the site map online.
But call ahead as soon as you can. We've already had several
days when every conference room has been booked with meetings
and CLE seminars. And when you are in the building, stop in to
say "hi." If you're an old friend, I'd enjoy
seeing you again. If we don't know each other, I'd
like to meet you. And it would be my pleasure to show you around
your building.
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