NATLE FYI

Good Afternoon and Happy Friday!

While last week was all about the Budget, this week was more about last calls.  The Nominations for this Committee are due today, so a last call went out yesterday to round up any stragglers.  The nominees go to the Nominating Committee to determine the final slate on May 23rd.  We may have a contested position this year.

The other “last call” is to the fence-sitters who want to get in on the early-bird rate on the Annual Meeting registration.  We’re at 58 right now, so if you talk with a member, please encourage them to sign up.  The real-time roster is available on the event registration page.

That’s the NATLE Weekly Wrap.  Have a great weekend!

P.S. in case you’re still here…Some of you know that ten years ago I moved back into the house I grew up in.  I really wanted to observe “no mow May” for whatever the benefit…something about the environment and pollinators, but my house is on the road that everyone uses on their way into the neighborhood.  My mother loved her flower gardens and adding color and texture to the mix.  Bike riders and pedestrians would always toss complements her way whenever she was out weeding, and they still do when I can find the time to get out and maintain everything from the azaleas to the tulips.  So, when it gets back to me that the neighbors have been asking each other if I’m OK because the lawn is beginning to look a little shaggy, I know it’s time to fire up the lawn mower.  Sorry pollinators.

Good Afternoon and Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Not too different from Shark Week, it has been Budget Week in my world…time for preparing the FY24 budget.  Maybe the comparison is a stretch, but the “da dum da dum” music plays in my head as I sweat out the details and pray that I don’t miss something obvious that may be lurking in the wings.  I’m always thankful for extra eyes as the draft goes through the Finance and Executive Committees before it is presented for approval (or not) at the Membership Business Meeting in July.  The final draft will be included in the packet distributed prior to the Meeting.

We’ve added a Break sponsor to the Annual Meeting program on Saturday.  Moranco provides insurance coverage for associations and law firms, and has been working with NATLE members for years.  Our other meal and/or event sponsors are:
     TrialSmith / Counsel Financial / Skribe.ai – Working Lunch (Saturday) and Social Event (Sunday)
     Ringler Associates – Membership Luncheon (Sunday)
     SBA Funding – Mimosa Break (Sunday)
     AAJ – Executive Committee Recognition Reception (Sunday)
The most up-to-date program brochure (new info is added almost daily) is available on NATLE’s registration page.

That’s the NATLE Weekly Wrap.  Have a great weekend!

P.S. in case you’re still here…I inadvertently started a territorial kerfuffle this week.  It’s nothing I can’t handle as the warring parties are less than pint-sized.  Each spring, regular visitors let me know when they’re back in town with a perky song that actually probably translates to, “Yo, Lady, where’s my house?”  At least one pair of house wrens consistently set up shop in the bird boxes that my stepfather built years ago and I faithfully (or perhaps, obediently) hang up as soon as I hear the call.  I was proactive this year and, during an unusually warm spell a few weeks back, hung them without waiting for the call.  I have two monitors on my desk set about 10 inches apart – this gives me a clear sightline to a beech tree with one of the boxes.  While I watched a chickadee check out the accommodations, I thought, “Uh oh, this could be a problem.”  Sure enough, the wrens are back in town and aren’t happy with the interlopers.  Though, not quite as violent as the Jets vs the Sharks (ooh, see what I did there…coming back to the beginning of this email was totally unintentional), they still faced off and the wrens took the W.

P.P.S. Yes, “actually probably” is acceptable at least in Vermont where you’ll also hear similarly odd language as, “Well, I guess maybe” as words of agreement.

Good Afternoon and Happy Friday!

I’ve received a request for a staff salary survey, so that will begin through an anonymous survey to the EDs.

Document uploads to our Association Management section of the Member Resources database are coming in at a pace that won’t exactly crash the system.  So far, only a handful of TLAs have participated, so we are going to try another approach – break down the effort by categories.  Watch your inbox for an email from Alison Dodge (Strategic Planning Team 3.1) about uploading CLE-related documents until mid-May, with other suggested categories to follow each week or so leading up to the Annual Meeting.  I realize that not giving any direction can lead to a mind-melting sense of “where do I even start?”.

The Social Event during the NATLE Annual Meeting will be on Sunday evening between the reception to recognize NATLE’s new executive committee and AAJ’s New Lawyers Division Party.  Details are in the works, so watch for fresh e-blasts with more info.  The most up-to-date brochure for the program is available on NATLE’s registration page. 

That’s the NATLE Weekly Wrap.  Have a great weekend!

P.S. in case you’re still here…I won’t be commissioning a requiem to honor the last 13 months, but I am happy to report that the closing for Dad’s house in NH was on Monday.  That page has finally turned, but the rest of the chapter continues while I part ways (none too fast) with the occasional item from my garage and basement thanks to craigslist.  I’ve already got word out to the ‘hood that we’ll have a neighborhood-wide garage sale on Memorial Day weekend.  I’m in charge of scheduling the good weather (no biggy) and posting a sign at the bottom of the street.

Good Afternoon and Happy Earth Day Eve!

I met with our new Justice Partner, Skribe.ai, and they gave me a demo of their product.  My first impression was “it’s about time”.  It’s a real-time video (or audio) deposition and transcription platform that allows attorneys to create exhibits through really easy video clipping by highlighting the relevant text in the transcription.  A url for the clip makes them easy to share, with no login, registration, etc.  If you have a member who’s tech savvy and might make use of this service while they’re in “alpha” testing (honestly, I’ve only heard of beta, so that shows you how much I know), let me know and I can connect the dots.  I opened my trap and said “it’d be great to have a few testimonials” for their demo with us in Philadelphia. 

I’ll be sending out reminders today and next week about EC nominations, Annual Meeting registration (the Planning Committee is just finalizing a few panels), and the Association Management documents upload contest.  Great news for TLA Staff attending the Annual Meeting – Anne Doohan (AAJ) has approved their badges for the Opening Reception.  If the codes are consistent with last year, there will be an “OP” on the front.

NATLE’s registration page is open, as is AAJ’s registration page.  Our meetings will be held at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown. 

That’s the NATLE Weekly Wrap.  Have a great weekend!

P.S. in case you’re still here…Earth Day is a worldwide event, but Green Up Day is a Vermont original.  The first Green Up Vermont Day was on a Saturday in April 1970 when they closed the highways for three hours so volunteers could pick up litter.  A total of 70,000 Vermonters cleaned up the roadsides throughout the state and, because 90% of what was collected was beer bottles, the legislature passed our “Bottle Bill” in 1972.  It migrated to the first Saturday in May and it feels good to get out and keep Vermont green.  (I do shake my head, though, at the slobs who toss trash out of their vehicles.  You know what they say about karma, though, so they’ll get theirs!)

Good Afternoon and Happy Friday!

First things first, this isn’t new, but I’m a big fan of Katie Porter and her sit down with Stephen Colbert this week had me smiling and laughing for over 8 minutes.  It’s well worth the looksee.

Registration is strong for the NATLE Annual Meeting.  Because we have several first-timers signed up, I’m encouraging registrants to make sure they have a headshot uploaded to their myNATLE page.  I took the suggestion from Juliette Bleecker (thank you!) to make a directory of attendees at the Winter Meeting, but I’ll have my act together in time to produce it be-FORE the Annual Meeting.  If you haven't uploaded a headshot, please do so we can have a proper directory without the generic silhouette heads.  NATLE’s registration page is open, as is AAJ’s registration page.  Our meetings will be held at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown. 

The Scholarship Committee met this week to discuss the applications for the Tommy Townsend Memorial Scholarship and this year’s awardee is Julianna Koob, Executive Director of the New Mexico Trial Lawyers Association.

Look for an email next week with a short survey designed by Connie’s crew that’s working on the Advocacy portal of the Member Resource Center.  The survey’s purpose is to understand the resources, ie. AAJ talking points, documents, etc., that were pivotal to any legislative wins this past session.

That’s the NATLE Weekly Wrap.  Have a great weekend!

P.S. in case you’re still here…one thing I’m NOT a fan of is U-Haul.  If you’ve been a steady reader of these postscripts, you know I’ve helped my dad move up to Vermont from New Hampshire and close out his house over the past year.  Every other weekend, I’d make the 5-hour round trip to pack boxes and load up my car, and I’ve twice rented a U-Haul van to bring back bigger items that, along with those boxes, now occupy half my garage (and most of my basement).  The closing on the sale of the house is in just over a week and there are two pieces left that I’d hoped to sell before this point – large canoes on their own trailers.  These aren’t the kind you throw up on a roof rack, especially not the 24’ Gaspé Atlantic Salmon fishing canoe.  Anyway, back to U-Haul and why they’ve lost my business.  I’d called them two weeks ago to set up a tow hitch installation on my car for this past Tuesday, but when I stopped in to drop off my car, the employee said I wasn’t in the schedule.  Worse yet, despite the fact that my quote was in the system, they hadn't ordered the parts and it would be a week before they’d arrive.  My neighbor, who had come to give me a ride home, is no gentle giant, but rather a 6’4” 400-pound Bahamian and he’s very protective of his family and close friends.  After an initial, flat-out “No” from the manager to any suggestion of how to make this right for my time-sensitive situation, Darrin’s “logic” had the manager offering to drive down in his personal truck to retrieve a canoe.  Smart men don’t mess with Darrin.  Instead, rather than get into any weird potential liability scenarios, we walked out and I’m going with Plan B – I’ll make two round-trip bombs down to NH next week with my new hitch from Yipes Stripes, to be installed on Monday.  There’s light at the end of this tunnel.

Good Afternoon and Happy Friday!

The NATLE Annual Meeting registration page is open, as is AAJ’s registration page.  Our meetings will be held at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown.  The Tommy Townsend Memorial Scholarship applications are available and will be accepted until the end of today.  If you know of someone who is on the fence because of cost, please let them know about the scholarship.  The brochure should be ready for upload next week once we confirm the speakers.

Continuing the thread of rejuvenating the Member Resource Center, Connie’s team, working on the Advocacy portal, met this week to dig into the goal’s scope and approaches to elicit the primary needs from TLAs.  Balancing accessibility with the necessity for national monitoring, timely strategies, and accurate data, appears to be a crucial focus.

The Nominating Committee has been set up to review nominations from the membership for positions on this Executive Committee.  All seats are open except for the President’s into which the President-Elect moves automatically.  Reminders will go out weekly to the membership before the May 12^th deadline.

We will pause our 4^th Monday Zoom Series this month to avoid a conflict with AAJ’s COP meeting.  Look for an announcement to this effect along with a teaser for May’s Series topic, cyber security and the basics of protecting your data and system from intrusion.

That’s the NATLE Weekly Wrap.  Have a great weekend!

P.S. in case you’re still here…it’s National Coffee Cake Day.  I’m not one to pass up a soft warm cake, but I haven’t had much time for baking this past year.  That’s probably a good thing since no longer working in an office means I can’t foist the baked bounty off on my co-workers.  This time of year, I’m more of a hot crossed bun girl than matzah or brik.  My mother would buy the buns from a local bakery and I’ve never been tempted to make them myself.  Yeast was an ingredient not easily found in my childhood home, so that set me up to be rather scared of it.  I can trace that feeling back to seventh grade when my home ec teacher told us that yeast is alive and needs the water to be in the Goldilocks zone (not too hot or too cold) or it will DIE.  That’s not reassuring to a pet-less child who hadn’t yet experienced that kind of loss.  Is it any wonder that I’m terrified of the thought of being responsible for a creature who can’t tell me where it hurts?

Good Morning and Happy Friday!

The first announcement and document upload request for the rejuvenated Member Resource Center has launched.  It’s exciting to see this member-facing initiative come out of our Strategic Plan!  Congrats to Alison Dodge and her team!

Nominations to the Executive Committee are open and the first request is going out today.

If you weren’t able to attend our 4^th Monday Zoom Series on Monday, or want a refresh, the recording is available here; Password is V=GAZ9qM.  Mark Powers of Atticus provided multiple tips and tools to help get a handle on managing your time, email, and tasks throughout the day and week.  Atticus’ target audience is law firms, but the tools are easily adapted to all professions to form “good habit” practices to maintain control of your workload.

Our new Justice Partner, Four Pillars Research, has shared their logo and information for our website.  Skribe’s logo will be applied as of May 1^st.

The NATLE Annual Meeting registration page is open, but AAJ’s registration page is available with this link, but not yet through their website.  Our meetings will be held at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown.  The Tommy Townsend Memorial Scholarship applications are available and will be accepted until April 7^th.

That’s the NATLE Weekly Wrap...whew.  Have a great weekend!

P.S. in case you’re still here…it has been years since I attended a high school play.  Friends with kids don’t always tell their kid-free friends about these events, but I think it’s fun (and reassuring) to see the creativity and poise in some of today’s young people.  I won’t say they’re all Broadway-bound, but they have a good time.  So, tonight’s agenda includes the Mean Girls musical at one of my trivia pal’s daughter’s school.  I somehow missed the 2004 movie, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to keep up.  After that, there’s a bluegrass band that plays every Friday night at a bar near my friend’s house.  We’ll all have our sleeping bags to stay the night, but I won’t have time for a lazy Saturday morning – I need to be back in town for an exercise class at 10:30.  That’s almost too much excitement in way less than 24 hours for this girl.

Good Morning and Happy Friday!

This Committee met on Tuesday and covered a lot of ground.  The minutes have been drafted and will be sent out next week.  The next meeting is May 16 at 2pmET/1pmCT/12pmMT/11amPT.

We have a speaker for our 4th Monday Zoom Series right around the corner on March 27^th.  Mark Powers of Atticus Advantage will facilitate a time management tune up, discuss how we can get more accomplished, and still finish the day on time.

I sent the Affinity & Justice Partner Program agreement to our new Silver Partner, Four Pillars Research, for their review and signature.  They look forward to being with us in Philadelphia.

An announcement went out to the membership about the Annual Convention schedule shift and that we’ll be starting Saturday morning.  The AAJ registration page is not yet open, but the NATLE Annual Meeting registration page is now open.  Our meetings will be held at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown.  The Tommy Townsend Memorial Scholarship applications are available and will be accepted until April 7^th.

That’s the NATLE Weekly Wrap.  Have a great weekend!

P.S. in case you’re still here…one of the items that made the move up from my father’s home in NH in the original moving truckload is a Vespa scooter.  It’s practically new with only a few thousand miles on it, if that (I can’t really tell since the battery is dead so the odometer is dark), and even though he was never going to ride it again, he held onto it.  I used to have a motorcycle, but rarely rode, mostly because none of my friends had bikes.  I thought about keeping the Vespa, but when I sat on it to move it out of the way in the storage unit last weekend, my feet don’t reach the ground…and, that’s a problem.  My dilemma is, do I go through the expense of modifying it or trade it for a smaller model?

Good Morning and Happy St Patty's Day!

I met with Mark Powers of Atticus Advantage on Tuesday afternoon with the intention of discussing our Justice Partner program.  Instead, I came away with the impression that he’d be more valuable as an educational resource.  Skip this if you’re already familiar with their offerings from their past relationship with NATLE, but they specialize in helping attorneys (and their firms) realize their full potential.  That comes from time and email management skills, effective handling of staffing issues, and the tools to reduce operational headaches and increase efficiencies.  He’s happy to address TLA audiences and is more than willing to begin [re]establishing the relationship with NATLE through workshops geared toward association management issues as bite-sized virtual programs via our 4^th Monday Zoom Series or with more in-depth in-person topics, like executive thinking and business basics.

Speaking of Justice Partners, I’ve reached out to our current D&O agent, Moranco National, as well as a firm that specializes in focus groups…I’m waiting to learn if they have more than their one not-so-centrally-located site.  I’d like to think our educational programs won’t get to the point of being break-even, but I’d like to shore up our other non-dues revenue streams in the meantime.  As we heard in the presentations in Seattle and Phoenix, your members who work with trial and law office-related vendors can be your best marketing reps by encouraging those vendors to become the TLA’s business partners.  If you have an exhibitor or business partner that would benefit by partnering with NATLE and our collective reach, please point them in my direction and start the conversation with an intro email!

The Executive Committee meets next Tuesday, March 21.  These folks are your representatives, so please reach out to any one of them (or me!) if you have an idea or concern as it relates to NATLE and it will be discussed under the New Business agenda item.

I don’t have any new news from AAJ regarding their Annual Convention schedule.  We do know that the site for our NATLE Annual Meeting is the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, but please hold off on making travel arrangements until AAJ’s convention schedule is posted…I’ve been told there will be a few adjustments.

That’s the NATLE Weekly Wrap.  Have a great weekend and don’t drink too many green beverages tonight!

P.S. in case you’re still here…I don’t know about you, but this has felt like an exceptionally long week.  The 12” of snow that fell at my house on Tuesday – and gave me a serious case of perma-grin – seems like ages ago.  I thought Dad and I might go XC skiing this weekend, but rain is in the forecast today, so even if it doesn’t completely decimate the base, the snow that’s left will be icy at best.  I might instead spend an hour on Sunday at the storage unit constructing the shelving for Dad’s six canoes that he hasn’t yet brought himself to sell.  I need to move more of his stuff out of my garage so I can stop shimmying around my dirty, salty car like I’m walking on the skinny ledge of a 12-story building.  I just need to scrounge up a friend to help with the lifting…especially for the top shelf of the 3-high stack.

Good Afternoon and Happy Friday!

The Executive Committee has approved the agreement with TrialSmith that comes with a substantial sponsorship for NATLE and for your TLAs.  If you are looking for a new website host and/or AMS, let me put you in touch with TrialSmith and MemberCentral.

This felt like a week full of meetings and of setting up future meetings!  I talked with Amy Caldwell (VT) about her ideas for educational topics, Meghan Shott (NJ) about their Business Partners program, Maresa connected me with a vendor who may be a potential new partner, and I joined a few Strategic Planning Teams that are making progress on their goals  The Strategic Planning Team (Valerie, Alison, Barbara) will get together after this Committee’s meeting on March 21, the ED Performance Review Committee meets in a few weeks, the Annual Meeting Planning Committee will meet next week to fill out the program with topics and speakers.

Late breaking news from AAJ has our NATLE Annual Meeting in July at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown.  AAJ will have its registration page ready next week.  Please hold off on making travel arrangements until their convention schedule is posted…I’ve been told there will be a few adjustments.

That’s the NATLE Weekly Wrap.  Have a great weekend!

P.S. in case you’re still here…most Tuesday nights you’ll find me playing trivia with friends at a local Mexican restaurant.  There are three of us in our core team and we have backgrounds in banking, business, and medicine, and we each bring our own strengths (and weaknesses).  We start off strong – and even win – in the miscellaneous and literature rounds, but our edge tends to fade in the movie and music rounds.  I consider myself to be pretty well read, but as an NPR devotee, I sit quietly and sip my margarita when it comes to naming the song title and artist.  I remember playing tapes on my boom box, circa 1978, prompting my grandfather to shake his head in bewilderment and say that he couldn’t understand the words.  Pfft, now I find myself saying that with what “the kids are listening to today”!