My Dear Colleagues in the DC Chapter,

I thank you for this opportunity to address you one last time before my tour of service as your President ends.

First let me extend a most warm and heartfelt gratitude to you for your support during the 2008-2009 year of my service to the Federal Bar Association and you. It has been my honor and privilege to serve as your President.

On behalf of the Federal Bar Association, in general, and especially the District of Columbia Chapter of the FBA, it is my further great privilege to extend congratulations and well wishes to each and every one of you for our successful year and to our Board of Directors for their leadership and support. We have endeavored this year to restructure ourselves so as to better help all of you to fulfill achievement of your professional ambitions, the realization of your personal dreams and the recognition amongst the Bench and Bar that is due to the merits of your respective practices.

This year, we have had much success in the sponsoring and conducting of the Tom C. Clark Award given to Jacob Stillman of the Securities and Exchange Commission for truly stellar service as a government lawyer. In further support of our Federal Court, we did the Levenson Symposium which featured various judges of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia further educating us on the professional expectations of us as we perform our litigation responsibilities before them. We also started the Membership Committee and the Professional Development and Service Section of our Chapter to better serve your interests and needs.

The Federal Bar Association is a national organization of lawyers who practice before the various Federal Courts across the country as well as the many federal agencies and boards that span our government. We are devoted to the advocacy of the interests of our Federal Court system and federal practice in general. We invite you to join with us or as you desire amongst any other bar associations and organizations with like interest in advocating not only for justice for your clients, but for the fulfillment of the courts’ many needs in its efforts to render justice for all.

It is with this mission in mind that I now make my last entreaty to you. I ask you to reflect upon the fact that as practicing attorneys before all of our Federal Courts and Federal Agencies, you have certain fiduciary responsibilities in helping to ensure that it renders justice for all. To that end, I strongly encourage you to share and donate your previous time, overtaxed energy and good intelligence and great legal talents in satisfying the needs of the Court. Your talents and conscience are solely needed by this court in meeting the many demands for its services in the interest of justice.

To mention a few:

(1) The court needs for you to become active in its pro bono case load. Yes, representing those indigent pro se complainants who desperately need your help greatly assists the court with its large caseload. Your help in these cases in turn frees up valuable and all too scarce court resources needed by your paying clients and you.

(2) You are needed to be advocates for more and better court resources. It is most important for the Congress to hear all of us as we advocate for just increases in pay for our already underpaid and overworked beleaguered judges and, equally important, for our overworked and limited court personnel and staff and for those Marshalls that are here protecting us.

(3) You are needed to set examples of civility and professionalism that you may wish for other lawyers to show you. Experience has shown that if you treat people the way you wish for your clients and you to be treated your good reputation will be heralded throughout the judicial and agency halls here. Conversely, if you badly mistreat colleagues, court personnel and others then your reputation will travel fast and to your detriment.

In closing, on behalf of the FBA, I wish you every success in your respective practices before the Court and the realization of your professional dreams, ambitions and goals. With utmost respect and best wishes for long life, good health and professional success,

I am,

Respectfully yours,
Ronald C. Crump,
President, D.C. Chapter, FBA