Columbus Bar Association President’s Report | June

Rob Erney: Hi, everyone and welcome to my June 2021 podcast. A lot of bar associations across this great nation were negatively impacted by the pandemic. I’m here today to report to you that the Columbus Bar Association is not one of them. When I became president in June 2020, I was concerned about membership, membership retention, membership engagement, our financial future, and all of those fears were unfounded. This past year has been an outstanding year for the Columbus Bar Association. We have held our ground on membership, we have increased our membership engagement, and we have done very well on our membership retention.

Financially, we have done well because of our membership base, and because we have developed other forms of revenue. For example, we hired Kelly Marshall, and I’m in Kelly’s studio today. He runs our CBA production services, and what a great asset and benefit he has been. Also, our insurance program, and our bonds, and our notary services have been great alternative forms of revenue. So the CBA is strong today coming out of this pandemic and well positioned to move into 2021.

We will be returning to in-person activities here very soon, and we’re all looking forward to that. I would really like to thank our staff and, particularly, our Executive Director, Jill, for her great leadership during this pandemic. I also wanna thank our board, which has been so innovative and so supportive to come up with great ideas during this pandemic. I would also like to thank my wife, Maureen, and our family for all the support they have given me this past year. Finally, I would like to thank Rachel, my paralegal, and Mary, my daughter, who is my associate, for keeping our business going while I’ve been so busy during this past year. I have never felt more optimistic about our future than I feel today. We have three great leaders emerging to continue leading this fantastic organization: Charles Schneider, Dave Thomas, and Chris Vonau will all be outstanding presidents.

Finally, I would like to thank you, our members, for giving me the chance to serve as your President. It really and truly has been special to me in so many ways, so thank you. I wanna let you know that I’m very proud of this legal community and how it responded during this pandemic. You have been a great inspiration to all of us here at the Bar Association and also to our community at large. We make better lawyers. That’s what we do, that’s why we’re here, and that’s who we are. I’m Rob Erney, CBA President, number 130. Signing off.

Consider watching the video podcast for this President’s Report on The Columbus Bar Associations Website.