Bar Association Tweets Are Inspiring, Restore Your Faith In Lawyers

Want to rekindle that belief with which you entered law school?

That being that lawyers can change things for the better – even if it’s one person at a time. That lawyers provide access to justice to those most in need.

Create a Twitter list of bar association Twitter accounts. Heck, subscribe to mine.

Skim through the tweets in the list a few times a week, maybe every day.

You’ll see:

• • An Afghanistan veteran returning to the States to go to law school so as to serve others – and move to a small city to be close to a VA hospital to help vets and their families on all aspects of the law.
  • A law student who thought it unconscionable to graduate from law school without first heading to the border to work with immigrants so that he could see suffering first hand and to learn how lawyers could help.
  • Lawyers working pro bono year round with local and state agencies to prepare for the annual hurricanes, and the havoc and legal problems they bring.
  • A lawyer who uncovered that DuPont was mass poisoning people and who represented thousands, putting himself and his family on the line in doin so.
  • The State Bar of New York and its president working with various sectors to see what could legally be done to save local journalism.
  • Bar associations from cities and states using #GivingTuesday to raise money for causes focused on helping others.
  • Legal services organization addressing over 500,000 client interactions in ten years.
  • Volunteer lawyers tasked with meeting the legal-services needs of thousands of unaccompanied migrant children.
  • Thirty veterans, one for every day of November, now serving as lawyers across one of the largest states in the country.
  • A lawyer in small city in North Dakota, a state where three-fourths of the state’s counties have fewer than 10 attorneys each, and three have none, who appreciates that people in rural areas have legal issues and finds it rewarding to be there for those folks.

These are from just the last few days.

It’s not just bar association articles being tweeted. Bar professionals are finding inspiring articles in newspapers across their states and sharing the stories.

Sure, there’s CLE program and recognition announcements in the tweets of which you may not find of interest. But there’s enough to inspire even the most hardened soul.

Truth be told, I created this Twitter list a while back so I could use it to nurture relationships with bar associations and their teams.

Only recently have I been looking at the list’s tweets and sharing those things I found of interest and giving shout-outs where shout-outs are due.

The legal industry news I often see is related to tech and innovation, which can of course help access to legal services, reinventing the business of law and the marketing of legal services, often by larger firms.

All good, but different than what I thought the law and lawyers were all about when growing up – and practicing in a rural area of the country for seventeen years.

The bar association tweets are inspiring in many ways, at the same time the tweets enable me to get to know bar associations and their dedicated teams across common ground.

For bar associations, and particularly those running the social media accounts, keep sharing the good stuff. It’s important.