As I begin my year as chair of the Senior Lawyers Section Council, my goal is to search out ways to add value to the membership of senior lawyers in the ISBA. If you are receiving this newsletter, you are indeed a senior lawyer. You have attained the age of 55 or have been a member of the ISBA for 25 years. We are made up of actively practicing lawyers, “of counsel” lawyers, lawyers who are limiting their practice, lawyers who are contemplating retirement and retired lawyers. We belong to a group who remembers dictating directly to a secretary and not a machine. We remember crossing our fingers as we placed an original document between plastic sheets to thread through a copier hoping the copier would not destroy the original document. We remember holding up correspondence to the light to check how many typing errors had been made to the letter. We remember spending much too much time trying to figure out an alternative word that would fit in the space where the wrong word was whited out so that the whole letter would not have to be retyped. We have new issues and new challenges. The Senior Lawyers Section Council is uniquely suited to help. Below are several ways we intend to add value to your ISBA membership.

The value we think we add to your membership begins with our CLE presentations, the most recent of which was on October 12, 2012 and covered areas of specific interest to the senior lawyer: how to maximize returns on social security benefits, the common mistakes of retirement planning, the necessary income and assets for a successful retirement plan, how to prepare for financial hardship in the event of a medical calamity and what’s needed for the succession planning of a law firm. We are looking into presenting hands-on computer courses for seniors who need very basic instruction. These will take place at computer labs, so the learning will be done by actually doing. We are in contact with the Young Lawyers to see what they would like to learn from those of us with senior status.

This newsletter adds value to your membership. We intend to publish three newsletters a year with articles of interest to seniors, from technology to substantive matters to plain helpful information.

We have begun a senior lawyers discussion group for all seniors to post questions, give advice or simply communicate with like-minded folk. To become a member of our online discussion group, simply go to the Discussions Group page on the ISBA Web site (http://www.isba.org/discussions), and click the link at the top of the page to join the Senior Lawyers Discussion Group. The article in this newsletter concerning all the discounts available to seniors was first posted on our online discussion group.

The most value comes from being an active member of the Senior Lawyers Section Council. You can share your thoughts on our online discussion group, write articles for our newsletter or be a presenter at one of our CLE offerings. The value is what you make of it. We are the place for sharing your years of wisdom with your fellow attorneys. Welcome aboard, enjoy the ride. ■