COMMITTEE SPOTLIGHT

The Houston Lawyer:
Keeping HBA Members Up to Date on Law, Legal Community

By Hannah Sibiski

The Houston Lawyer Editorial Board is a working board whose 28 members solicit, write, and review articles and columns. Now a four-color, full-size magazine, The Houston Lawyer began in November 1963 as a 26-page digest printed on 6 X 9-inch paper with a yellow cover. Whether covered in yellow paper or a glossy professional design, the heart of the magazine has remained very much the same. The Houston Lawyer is a journal by Houston lawyers for Houston lawyers, that chronicles legal developments that affect the practice of law in Houston.

From its beginning in 1963, The Houston Lawyer has been committed to reporting on HBA members’ service to the profession and to the community, as well as to substantive legal analysis and reflections on the legal climate. One of the first stories to run in the early 1960s concerned the Dallas Bar Association president’s meeting with Lee Harvey Oswald to determine if he needed legal counsel. Many articles published that decade concerned the Houston Legal Foundation, which was the forerunner of Lone Star Legal Aid. When the Houston Bar Association was criticized by the public and the press for the Foundation’s role in a desegregation lawsuit against a Houston school district, the HBA president published a message in The Houston Lawyer in which he called for “a return to reason, rationality and the rule of law.”

In the 1970s, The Houston Lawyer responded to the Watergate scandal with reports on the efforts of the HBA, the State Bar of Texas, and the American Bar Association to investigate illegal and unprofessional conduct among lawyers and to impose higher ethical standards on members. In the 1980s, TheHouston Lawyer refocused on substantive legal articles written by Houston attorneys and incorporated substantive columns such as Legislative updates, book reviews, and opinion pieces.

In the 1990s, community service and legal and public education took a more prominent role in the work of Houston Bar Association members and, correspondingly, in The Houston Lawyer articles. Many pieces reflected the work-life-service balance that attorneys were struggling to achieve.

In the 2000s, The Houston Lawyer’s reporting on substantive legal issues, HBA member service efforts, and legal and public education has garnered attention and accolades. For a number of years, The Houston Lawyer has won the State Bar of Texas’s award for best publication, and many individual articles have received recognition. In June, the Veterans’ Issue, guest edited by Robert Painter, won first place in the Public Relations Magazine Category in the Lone Star Press Awards, a statewide award program that recognizes outstanding efforts in print and electronic communication, hosted by the Houston Press Club.

Quantum SUR, the publisher of The Houston Lawyer, works closely with HBA staff. Quantum sells advertising, provides art direction and layout, and facilitates the printing by Earth Color Houston, while the editorial board and staff are responsible for all editorial content. The editor in chief has overall responsibility for the magazine, while associate editors are responsible for editing final content and for columns such as Legal Trends, Media Reviews, Committee Spotlight and Off the Record. Each member of the board has to meet certain writing/editing requirements in order to maintain a place on the editorial board.

The Houston Lawyer thus continues to excel at serving Houston lawyers, while, like the HBA members who work to produce it every two months, also serving the greater Houston community.

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