The Bar Association of the Future: Seth Chavez

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By Seth Chavez

Believe it or not, I think a part of my job is to build the bar association of the future. With the future coming so quickly, this feels obvious and inevitable. Here, I’m committed to being a type of futurist (that is as odd to write as it is to think).

Consuming bar association leadership content (nationally) for nearly two decades, including everything from national conferences to coffee meetings, has me thinking we still haven’t figured it out. Though voluntary bar association membership (generally) has been struggling with what I will call “market penetration” for at least the past 15-20 years, there are certainly bright spots and countless indicators of what bar associations need to do to remain relevant in the 21st century.

Certainly, the days of “being a member” for the sake of being a member are over, or at least almost over. What is a bar association executive director to do? I certainly can’t be sure, but I do know that plowing into the 21st century requires a finger on the pulse of as many elements of the profession as possible, not just in California or in a particular region of California, but nationally. Also, it’s not just the profession, but things that are adjacent to the profession, such as technology, social issues, education, and so on.

Let’s say I manage to have a type of “big picture” sense of the future of voluntary bar associations. Here, creating the bar association of the future isn’t a “point A” to “point B” project. Creating the bar association of the future is more like a “point A” to “point C” project, where “point B” could be anything or any number of things. Managing “point B” in this scenario is why I sincerely appreciate the Trustees and the Officers of the SFVBA in the past several months for supporting the SFVBA’s efforts to move toward “point C.

Building the bar association of the future takes things that aren’t particularly hard-wired into the legal profession. Blazing trails, half-baked ideas, emerging technology, and sounding young aren’t things that are embedded into the ethos of the profession. (I’m sorry for using “ethos.” I don’t like it either. It’s sort of empty and a bit of a cheat so far as words go, but the Managing Editor needs this article pronto.) What is more embedded into the profession is, “this is how things are done,” “that has no precedent,” and a general agreeableness to how things have been and are, things that I try to talk myself out of all the time.

Wrapping things up here, as an executive director of a large regional “full service” bar association, trying to build the bar association of the future is edgy and is hard work. It’s much easier to just check the regular boxes, produce reports, and wait for the next board meeting. It’s edgy because the future is edgy. No less, I’m here for it and as a former executive director once told me when I wasn’t an executive director, “I’m okay with it, but if it goes sideways, it’s on you.” So, I will be here trying to build the bar association of the future, and I know it is on me.

P.S. I like saying “full-service” because at the SFVBA we will bend over backwards, and regularly do, to serve members in any way a bar association can. Did I tell you about the time I drove to a member’s office to help him complete the forms to renew his State Bar membership? He was having computer issues. Please don’t call me to do that (though I might say “yes” if you do).