Message from the President, November 2021

At our membership meeting this week, we were privileged to present the GBA Distinguished Service Award (our highest honor) to Alan Duncan. Congratulations again Alan – you really deserve it. We were very happy to welcome Governor Cooper who presented the award. That may be the highest ranking official to attend a GBA meeting and it was great to have him. Thanks again to Judge Patrice Hinnant for arranging the Governor’s attendance. It’s great to have connections and we appreciate Judge Hinnant using them in service to GBA.

We also had a great speaker at the meeting, Todd Navin, the CFO of Haeco. It was interesting to get a look at a big corporate presence here in Greensboro (and some cool airplane pictures) that most of us don’t ever think about.  So we had a lot packed into a 45 minute Zoom meeting.

Next month we have our election meeting. We’ll be hosting Senator Jon Hardister and Senator Ashton Clemmons. It should be a good update on what’s going on at the legislature.

The November meeting will be a joint meeting of the GBA and the 24th Judicial District Bar so the 24th can elect State Bar Councilors. The slots are currently held by Judge Patrice Hinnant and Steve Robertson. Nominations are open now through the meeting so feel free to submit any nominations (including yourself) for these important positions. All members of each Bar are invited to attend the meeting but only members of the 24th may vote in the virtual election.

November is our last membership meeting of 2021. We made the decision to do the meetings virtually this year so we’ll need to decide if our 2022 meetings can be live. I want live meetings for networking purposes but, of course, we have to keep everyone safe too. We’ll keep the membership posted on progress there.

I also want to give another plug to the “Barristers and Baristas” program the membership committee is sponsoring. For you experienced attorneys, it’s a great opportunity to meet some newer Bar members and for you newer members, a chance to get some (hopefully) good advice on your practice from a seasoned (I’m trying avoid saying “older”) colleague. We’ll even reimburse you for the coffee. Anyway, please sign up for this great program.

Desmond Sheridan
GBA President, 2021-2022