FALLPresident's_Message
Greetings from 33,000 feet high as I look out at the beautiful Mount Rainier and reflect on my wonderful visit with WAELA (Washington Academy of Elder Law Attorneys). They are quite an engaged group of elder and special needs lawyers.
It was fun discussing their new and very progressive guardianship statute. They taught me so much more than I taught them, reminding me once again how valuable our state chapters are.
These are exciting times at NAELA, as we continue to work on our strategic planning, improving our website, and planning for next year’s quality education and federal and state advocacy goals. As part of our strategic planning, we are being intentional about relying on data from our members about what NAELA can do for their practices. As part of that data-based approach, we conducted a survey earlier this year, and I want to thank our members who spent their valuable time to fill out the survey. It has really informed our strategic discussions. I wanted to share some of the results of the survey and how those results have directed the strategic planning committee’s work.
There is much work for elder law and special needs attorneys to engage in. When we compare the populations of our states with the number of members in each state, it indicates that we can grow our practices. By way of example, in Tennessee there are 41 NAELA members and 1,143,000 people over the age of 65. Wow — that is a lot of opportunity. We want to help connect members for referral purpose to each other. Fifty-one percent who took the survey agreed that NAELA was a viable source of referrals, but we want that number to increase. We believe the improvements being made to our website will be a great first step. We also want to continue to provide helpful practice management education to our members, with 85% of those surveyed agreeing that NAELA offers unique resources for attorneys in elder law.
It was no surprise that chapters are a vital part of our organization. Members receive from their chapters a variety of benefits including 1) specialized advocacy not available through the state bar association, 2) the ability to learn state-specific law through NAELA’s chapter listserv or other resources, 3) presenting at local programs to build a referral network, and 4) a peer-to-peer network of local colleagues. We want to continue to strengthen the relationship between NAELA and our chapters. Our state advocacy ambassadors meet regularly to discuss the different issues each state is facing and how the chapters are advocating at the state level to resolve these issues. If you are interested in hearing more about the state ambassadors, please contact Judy Flynn or Carol Wessels, the chairs of the committee. You can email [email protected] and staff will forward your email.
Finally, some of the most exciting information that came out of the survey, especially for a volunteer member organization, was the signal that our members want to be involved. Many of those surveyed specified a desire to become more involved with NAELA advocacy, leadership, and making presentations. Please answer your phone when we call. We are going to have plenty of opportunity when we start implementing the strategic plan.
The future is bright for our amazing organization. I encourage everyone to think about how they might want to be involved and send me an email at [email protected]. I would love to hear from you.