REGULARS

Of Briefs and Barriers: Obstacles to Participation of Legal Professionals with Disabilities and What Can Be Done to Eliminate the Obstacles;

Staying Out of the Legal Doghouse - The Ins and Outs of Avoiding Attorney Discipline;

Domestic Partners and the Legal Employer: The Benefits of AB 25.

Access and Fairness in the Courts;

The Whole Lawyer: Managing Stress and Achieving Balanced Lives; and

Elder Law: The Graying of America Can Mean the Growth of a Law Practice.

Participants will have an opportunity to provide input and recommend strategies on improving access to the profession and increasing the participation and retention of diverse attorneys in California.

A bar leadership forum will offer training to interested local and specialty bar leaders and executives on topics ranging from the roles of the board of governors and the executive director, to financial management, to how to effectively build and sustain media relations.

"One of the tenets of the State Bar's mission is to assure that all of its members have the opportunity to advance in the legal profession," said bar President Karen Nobumoto, who has stressed diversity in the legal profession since her election to the bar board nearly four years ago.

"This meeting will be the beginning of an ongoing dialogue on the bar's role in improving access and fairness in the profession. It's important that members recognize that their participation is essential to this dialogue and in shaping the ways in which the bar addresses access issues in California."

Both Moreno and Archer have been active in bar association activities. Moreno, who in October was sworn in as only the third Latino member of the state Supreme Court, is a past president of the Mexican American Bar Association.

Archer has been active in the State Bar of Michigan and National Bar Association and is currently a member of the Board of Governors of the ABA. He is running for the ABA presidency and, if elected, will be its first minority president.

A trial lawyer in private practice and an adjunct law professor before being appointed an associate justice of the Michigan Supreme Court in 1985, Archer was elected mayor of Detroit in 1994.

The meeting is organized by the bar's Office of Legal Services, Access and Fairness Programs in collaboration with the Access and Fairness Committees of the State Bar, the Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services and the California Young Lawyers Association.

It is funded by voluntary member dues designated to promote the elimination of bias in the profession and outreach to local bar associations.

For additional information about the meeting, including MCLE course offerings and registration materials, visit the State Bar's web site, www.calbar.org, contact the Office of Legal Services, 415/538-2143, or e-mail Betty.Barker@calsb.org.