FROM THE EDITOR

By RYAN J. MAIERSON Baker Botts L.L.P.

The Success of the HBA 

Although it falls in the middle of the calendar year, the July/August issue of The Houston Lawyer marks a time of change. It is at this time each year that a new Houston Bar Association president takes office, and along with him or her comes a new cast of HBA committee and section chairs. Today the HBA boasts over 11,000 members, many of whom participate actively in one or more of the HBA’s 25 sections and 37 committees. We are a dynamic, diverse and dedicated lot.
Membership in a local bar association is not required of any lawyer; it is not a condition to maintaining a law license or a prerequisite to practicing before any court. So why do people not
only join the HBA, but immerse themselves so deeply in it? The reason is that the HBA is,
ultimately, a service organization—a vehicle through which Houston lawyers serve each other, their profession and their community. And as attorneys, we are not—or at least we should not be—merely businesspeople whose business happens to be the practice of law. Rather, at their best, attorneys are what Yale Law School Dean Anthony Kronman has called “lawyer-statesmen”: individuals who demonstrate a public-spirited devotion to their profession and exercise good judgment in all things.
The HBA thrives in its service mission because so many Houston lawyers fulfill the ideal of lawyer as civic-minded public servant. As Dean Kronman notes, the lawyer-statesman must do good not in a generally admirable way that people in other walks of life may do; rather, there is a special connection between the practice of law and the virtue of statesmanship. By serving a range of interests—the client's, the law's, society's—HBA members prove that they regard the practice of law not just as their job but as a vehicle for building and using the practical wisdom, the prudent judgment that has given lawyers a unique place in American society. While Dean Kronman laments the collapse of the lawyer-statesman ideal generally, I believe the steadfast, unswerving devotion of Houston Bar Association members to serving this organization and its mission provides powerful proof that their are many lawyer-statesmen and -stateswomen among us. From providing free legal services to persons with HIV/AIDS through the AIDS Outreach Program to answering legal questions from the public through the LegalLine, from speaking to inmates about legal rights and responsibilities through the Inmate Changes Program to teaching students about the judicial process through the Juvenile Justice Mock Trial Program, HBA members dedicate themselves to the public good, and they repeatedly achieve success at bettering our profession and our community.
I look forward to serving as the editor of The Houston Lawyer this year under the presidency of Mike Connelly, a true lawyer-statesman. It is our goal that this publication will provide you not only with articles to help you improve your law practice, but also with information about the lawyers with whom we work and the community that we serve. As always, we welcome your articles, your comments and your insight.

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