The Advocate - May 2012 - Idaho State Bar - Idaho.gov

10 The Advocate • May 2012
Pre s i d e n t ’s Me s s a g e
Pr o f e s s i o n a l i s M a n d Civility, th a n k go o d n e s s We li v e in id a h o
Reed W. Larsen
President, Idaho State Bar
Board of Commissioners
I recently attended the Western States
Bar Conference, which was held in Las
Vegas. The Western States Bar Conference
rotates between a site on the mainland
and Hawaii every other year. So you
would think that with a three-year term as
a Bar Commissioner, I would have made
it to Hawaii at least once. Well, the answer
is no. I didn’t make it there. As usual my
poor planning prevented that trip last year,
so I was rewarded with a trip to Vegas.
Still, it is not bad duty for farm boy/ lawyer
from Southern Idaho. Thank you for
letting me go to learn what is going with
our Western neighbors’ bar associations.
It was really an enlightening experience.
The topic for the seminar was professionalism
and civility.
This topic
was both timely
and instructive.
I wanted to
share some of the
thoughts with you
while it was fresh
on my mind. Every
time I am in
one of these settings,
I scratch my
head at some of
the things that I
Reed W. Larsen
hear and say a silent “thank you” prayer
that I live in Idaho. We may have tough
weather, sparse population, and less opportunity
to earn “big bucks,” but our
quality of life and practice appears to be
better. I hope we can keep it that way.
A message that encompasses all generations
is that civility matters and it affects
our job satisfaction. Interestingly,
while civility matters to all generations,
we define civility differently from generation
to generation. That thought had never
struck me. I just assumed that civility was
uniformly accepted as what I perceived it
to be. I also thought that all civility centered
on the “Golden Rule.” Well as it
turns out, the “Golden Rule” applies well
to The Greatest Generation and to The
Baby Boomer, but some in Generation X
and Generation Y don’t even know what
the Golden Rule is, let alone have a feel-
Interestingly, while civility matters
to all generations, we define civility
differently from generation
to generation.
ing that it should somehow govern their
acts of civility in the professional work
place. That does not mean that those two
generations think that civility is unimportant
or that they don’t abide by the Golden
Rule.
I believe that we are civil to one another
when another’s claim to comfort
and happiness is as important as our own.
While that summarizes the Golden Rule,
it is through our relationships that the rule
has meaning. That is why professionalism
and civility go hand-in-hand with job
satisfaction. This is something I have to
repeat to myself every day and throughout
the day. If I want to have a professional
and civil practice, I have to try to be a professional
and civil lawyer. Wow, is that
hard.
As I write this on a Saturday morning,
my partner, Gary Cooper, is where he is
most every Saturday morning, at his desk
working to serve his clients. Gary is the
hardest working lawyer I have ever met.
He is the most prepared lawyer I know.
He has received the Bar’s award for Professionalism
in our district. And I could
never have been a Bar Commissioner
without his support. I can’t tell him thanks
enough for his sacrifice and example. I
have known and practiced with Gary for
27 years now; I know he is predictable and
absolutely dependable. He is professional
beyond question. (He is not perfect, none
of us are. That is not the point). A lawyer
could never have a better partner and I am
so grateful for his help and influence.
Let me tell you one story that exemplifies
Gary Cooper’s professionalism. As
many of you may know, Gary Cooper is
one of the best trial lawyers in this state.
Some time back on a Saturday he was pre-
paring for trial. I looked at the printer at
our office and I saw the Plaintiff’s jury instruction,
and exhibit list being printed off.
Gary was representing the Defendant in
this car accident. I took them off the printer,
back to Gary’s office and said, “Here
are the jury instructions and exhibits for
the plaintiff’s case. Why are we printing
them out and who prepared them?”
Gary just grabbed them and said that
Plaintiffs’ counsel, who was inexperienced
and understaffed, could not really
figure out how to do them so he did them.
As you might guess, my jaw hit the floor.
He said it was just easier to do it that way.
I had never heard of opposing counsel
completing such a task for the opposition.
I was truly amazed that he would do
such a thing. Until this article, I doubt that
anyone else beside Gary, opposing counsel
and myself knew that he had done so
much work for trial preparation for the
opposing side. That is professionalism.
Did Gary’s story have a happy ending?
It depends. The young inexperienced
lawyer got a verdict that was greater than
Gary’s offer of judgment, which rarely
happens to Gary. Gary never said a word.
That fact impressed me more than anything
else. I believe that is a definition of
professionalism at work.
How does this apply to us? The Bar is
made up of the last of the Greatest Generation,
(those who fought in World War
II). Those numbers are dwindling every
day. They set great examples for us. They
accomplished so much. The Baby Boomers,
which right now are the majority of
the Bar, have turned out much better than
anyone would have thought in the 1960s
and the 1970s when our hair was too
long; our music too loud; and our views