|
A
Time to Take Stock
"The Bar's function
is to help lawyers do their job better, and the Bar president coordinates
that effort. That's really what I see as my job."
– Gerry
Mowris
|
 Page
2: Building on Past Efforts
Making Connections
The Bar's law-related education programs, the Public Trust and Confidence
action plan, and the Seize the Future project, might seem, on the surface,
to be separate concerns. But in fact these all link together, Mowris points
out. As just one example, lawyers' resistance to changing the way they practice
- such as clinging to the billable hour rather than unbundling legal services
- erodes public trust and confidence. People feel they can't go to a lawyer
for help without spending a small fortune. "All of this is interrelated,"
Mowris notes. "It all relates back to what lawyers do."
Another of Mowris's goals as president is to make more attorneys feel that
the Bar is their organization, including some who historically have felt
left on the fringes. "Some attorneys don't see the Bar as being pertinent
to their lives," he says. "I'd like to get their input to find out what
we could do to help them." He's already solicited that kind of information
from leaders of the State Bar's Government Lawyers Division, and he'll make
similar overtures to other Bar constituents, such as young lawyers, nonresident
lawyers, women attorneys, minority bar associations, and local bar groups.
Mowris also is hoping to forge other kinds of connections. The State
Bar currently partners with many outside entities to produce quality CLE
programs. Mowris wants to expand that kind of partnering. For instance,
currently the state Department of Justice runs its own training program
for prosecuting attorneys. In the future, the department could partner
with the State Bar to present educational seminars that could bring both
prosecutors and defense attorneys together. "I think it's healthy to get
a view of what it's like to be on the other side," Mowris says. "Both
groups can learn from each other."
He's speaking from personal experience, having himself been in both
camps during his legal career. He was a Dane County district attorney
for six years before switching to private practice criminal defense work
22 years ago. Mowris also served as a defense lawyer in the U.S. Army
Judge Advocates General (JAG) Division while he was a district attorney,
and while working as a criminal defense attorney in his private life,
he was a JAG prosecutor, altogether serving 21 years as a JAG lawyer.
"I know when I was a prosecutor, I learned a lot when I went to national
meetings where there were not only other prosecutors, but also defense
lawyers," Mowris says. "I think it helps the lawyers and it helps the
system for prosecutors and defense lawyers to get together once in a while.
We learn that we both have the same goal in mind, which is to make the
system work. So I'm a believer in the collaborative approach."
Mowris also has his eye on educational efforts of another sort, in this
case aimed at policymakers outside the legal profession whose decisions
often affect lawyers. The recent state budget is a case in point. Lack
of funding for court interpreters runs counter to the Bar's efforts to
enhance public trust and confidence in the justice system. A 5 percent
cut in the state public defender's budget has a similar impact, plus it
ultimately means higher costs if the public defender's office has to lay
off staff attorneys. The counties will end up paying court-appointed private
defense attorneys to do what public defenders could have done more efficiently,
and thus less expensively. Such decisions are "terrible for the system
in the long run," Mowris says. "We need to educate the Legislature and
the governor." He'll have a hand in doing so, just as he's done in the
past as an active member of the Bar's Criminal Law Section.
Page
4: Making Time 
|
