David W. Hood, President 2015-2016
Welcome to this edition of the NCADA's monthly publication, The Resource! In my last message, I argued for the proposition that Membership is a Wonderful Thing. And, well, it is.
Now let me propose another thought - Involvement is a Wonderful Thing. Membership in the North Carolina Association of Defense Attorneys is great, of course, but in order to truly utilize this opportunity both to enhance your practice and improve as a lawyer, I encourage you to get up off that bench and get into the game!
How should you start? I think a great beginning would be to check out our spiffy new website at www.ncada.org. If you are relatively new to the organization, it should help you get acclimated to our organization, our leadership, and our programming. There are forums available for discussion of current topics of relevance to our eight Practice Groups and other committees. You can read content from past issues of The Resource.
Once you get your feet wet, try to determine which part of our mission seems most relevant either to your current practice or what you want your practice to become. If you would like to become more involved in, say, the Commercial Litigation Practice Group, then contact the current Chair Greg Holland and volunteer to help him with planning CLE material, or writing for The Resource, or begin a discussion thread on the Commercial forum on the website. If, on the other hand, you would like to offer your brief-writing services for our Amicus program, contact Committee Chair George Simpson about what opportunities may exist in that area. If you want to help promote diversity in our organization, then contact our Diversity Committee Chair Viral Mehta and see how you can contribute.
There are a multitude of possibilities open to you. Your first step, though, it to make the decision to step out of those shadows of non-involved membership. Put yourself into the sunlight of vibrant, active participation in this talented group we call the NCADA. If you want to discuss more generally how we can best benefit from your awesomeness, then by all means contact our Executive Director Lynette Pitt, or you can take your chances with an email to me, your current President, at dhood@phd-law.com.
Without your help, we cannot become all we could be. Come on, do it. You know you want to.
