We hope you’ll join us for another exciting, inspirational and enriching year with the Central Ohio Association for Justice. Our solidarity and service as trial attorneys will flourish this year. We will continue to improve our practices, share our knowledge, and enjoy collegiality among the many legal disciplines we serve, including personal injury, domestic relations, criminal defense, worker’s compensation, employment and probate law.

In particular, your COAJ Board seeks to achieve three goals for you this year.

First, we will create an exciting, useful membership experience for you with these benefits, among many others:

1. Great speakers and collegiality. In addition to speakers who will offer knowledge and skills relevant to your practice areas, we will also bring speakers from diverse backgrounds and disciplines, including persuasion and communications experts, professional development and business leaders, law school professors and legal education authorities, and even performers from the entertainment industry to complement our serious purposes with a little levity. A healthy mixture of levity, good-natured collegiality, and serious professional purpose will guide all our dinner and luncheon meetings together.

2. Sharing knowledge and CLE. We will offer economical CLE opportunities to share the knowledge among our membership, including the annual ethics and membership seminars during the year. Also throughout the year, our committees will continue to bring you critical news and developments from your practice areas, including regular reports and articles in our evolving on-line publication, the COAJ Communicator. I invite you to visit the Communicator now at www.coaj.org.

3. Helpful COAJ web site. Speaking of which, we will continue to expand our web site by, among other improvements, adding an interactive “members page” containing links and resources for regular use in your practice. We will update you via the web site on our pro bono project, our efforts to educate the community, and our continuing mission to improve our judicial system.

Second, we will continue to serve our larger legal community by improving the judicial system. Here, we will strengthen our ties with the local bench by enjoying the regular company of our state and federal judges at our meetings. We will invite members of the judiciary as our special guests at each meeting, taking these opportunities to recognize their accomplishments and service. We will also continue to offer our pivotal support for the opening of new Franklin County Court of Common Pleas and the Commercial Courts project, among other fine work with our courts.

Third, we will remain loyal to our mission to educate the public by frequently speaking with local high schools, businesses, and other organizations about the superb work you do to protect individual rights, open courts, and the rule of law. Our educational mission will also reach further into our local law schools where we will seek to bridge the gap between legal education and practice by attracting student members and recently admitted attorneys to our growing roster. We hope also to enhance educational opportunities for law students by creating a COAJ scholarship to reward accomplishments consistent with our mission.

The Board and I invite you to join us for another great COAJ year, a year in which we’ll achieve the goals I’ve outline above, and a year in which we can cultivate our long tradition of solidarity to one another and service to our honored profession.

I also personally invite you to call me at 224-7711 or email me at mlewis@kitricklaw.com to talk more about COAJ and your membership with us. Please also visit our web site at www.coaj.org for more information about our vital organization.

Thank you, and we at COAJ look forward to serving you in ways that will bring greater enjoyment, meaning, and success to your practice of law.

Yours in fellowship,

Mark Lewis, President COAJ