COMMITTEE SPOTLIGHT

HBA Speakers Bureau Celebrates 50 Years

By PAUL HEYBURN

This year the Houston Bar Association’s Speakers Bureau celebrates 50 years of service to Houston and surrounding areas. Form-ed in 1953, the Speakers Bureau has furnished thousands of speakers to various civic clubs, parent/teacher associations, schools and nursing homes, as well as any other group who wants to learn more about the judiciary, the Houston Bar Association or any number of legal topics. All presentations by the Houston Speakers Bureau are free and are presented by volunteer lawyers. From its beginning of giving just a handful of presentations per year, the Speakers Bureau now provides over 100 presentations each year and has grown from approximately ten attorneys in 1953 to over 100 in 2003.
Upon its creation, the Houston Bar Association initially emphasized services for its members. However, when Herman Pressler became president in 1950, he changed the focus of the HBA to add public relations and community service as goals.1 To promote public relations, Presseler appointed W.S. Jacobs, Jr. and Norman J. Bering as chairs of the Public Relations Committee.2 To advance their mandate, Jacobs and Bering created five committees, including the Speakers Bureau.3 In the early years, the Speakers Bureau presented to civic, fraternal and religious organizations and primarily focused on promulgating information related to the Houston Bar Association, both its merits and its problems. Early committee members often showed a film entitled “With the Benefits of Counsel” to educate the public on how and when to hire a lawyer, as well as how to get the most out of the lawyer that you hire.
The Speakers Bureau currently has volunteers available to speak on numerous legal topics, to any organization or group. As a result of the variety of requests for speakers, volunteer’s backgrounds are as diverse as the membership in the Houston Bar Association. They include solo practitioners and members of the city’s largest law firms, as well as governmental attorneys and judges from all types of courts in Harris County. Most volunteers give at least one speech a year, while some speak as many as three times a year. The most requested topics for speeches include law as a career, landlord/tenant law, elder law and family law.
The organizations that have requested speakers extol the importance of the Speakers Bureau. For example, Conception Miranda, at the Texas Women’s Shelter, has used the Speakers Bureau to help women address serious issues such as child custody rights and domestic violence. Miranda explains that her constituency often does not have the financial resources to hire an attorney and that, in many circumstances, the HBA Speakers Bureau is her client’s only access to legal advice. The Speakers Bureau also has changed lives in other ways. Beverly Litton, a counselor for Spring Branch ISD, uses the Speakers Bureau for career days for her students. Litton says that a number of students have chosen law-related areas of study as a result of Speakers Bureau presentations.
The attorneys that volunteer agree that their involvement in many instances extends beyond the dispensing of legal information. For example, Todd Frankfort, who practices real estate law, has not only given speeches to landlords on how to handle problem tenants, but also has spoken to grade school children on the subject of ethics. Laura Jennett, who has spoken to seniors groups on probate issues, often finds her groups are intimidated by lawyers and takes it upon herself to make them feel comfortable in discussing legal problems with lawyers. Jack Zimmerman, who has a criminal defense practice, is often paired with an attorney from the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, to give speeches to high school students. He firmly believes that by educating young adults on criminal law, ruined lives may be prevented.
From its modest beginnings, the Speakers Bureau has become one of the most active committees in the Houston Bar. In 2002-2003 alone, the Speakers Bureau provided 130 speakers who gave over 520 hours of lectures. The Speakers Bureau also has expanded to cable television. Each year the Speakers Bureau produces shows through Houston Media Source that discuss areas of law important to the community, such as child support, Children’s Protective Services and the process of reporting abuse, mediation and alternative dispute resolution, elder law, family law, immigration, and consumer law. Looking forward to the next 50 years, the Speakers Bureau will continue providing free lecturers to any group and will undoubtedly evolve with the technology to fulfill its goal of educating the public on legal matters.

For more information about the HBA Speakers Bureau, contact Tracy Kettle at 713-759-1133 or tracyk@hba.org.


Endnotes
1. Eric L. Frederickson, A Commitment to Public Service – The History of The Houston Bar Association, p. 93 (1992) 2. See Id. at p. 93 3. See Id.

Paul Heyburn practices with the firm of Mehaffy & Weber, P.C. and is a member of The Houston Lawyer editorial board.

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