BAEC Bulletin | March/April 2022 | 9
FROM THE ERIE COUNTY BAR FOUNDATION
We Are Better Together Last fall, the Bar Association and the Foundation teamed up on two projects important to our profession: jointly funding the creation of our Member Assistance Program to assist all members of the Bar Association in need of counselling and other help, and also making available green bracelets for attorneys to remind all that the mental health of our profession matters. Each bracelet is imprinted with the phrase, “Better Together,” a message to all of us that we are a professional community with a responsibility to ourselves and each other, ensuring that our profession properly serves its clients and the community as whole. None of this would have been possible without the commitment of Bar Association President Hugh Russ and the Board of Directors. Recently, Hugh and I had a luncheon meeting where began another joint project. During that conversation, it was apparent that each of our organizations brought different resources to the project that we were considering. As I jotted down some notes after the meeting, I reflected on numerous instances where I witnessed attorneys helping each other--sometimes with the practice and sometimes with others outside of it. It brought home to me that my career as an attorney was shaped by many lawyers, some in my firms, but many times, with others outside it who took the time to provide advice and guidance not just on what I should do, but how I should conduct myself in the practice. Several helped me personally. Over the last few months, there have been numerous occasions where I have witnessed attorneys helping each other, once again, not only in the practice of law, but in their lives. Whether any of them were wearing our “Better Together” bracelet, is a question that needs no answer. Those attorneys were living out the true nature of our professional community. In some of these instances, help involved the Erie County Bar Foundation. Those are the opportunities for which the Foundation exists, and we welcome the opportunity to provide financial and other assistance to those in need. While some ask for our help on their own, those who direct their colleagues to us perform a vital service to those individuals and the profession. Their concern matters. As this issue goes to press, the days are longer, the weather is (mostly) milder and the warmer days of spring are on the horizon. Based on references in my last letter, some of you may expect me to suggest we usher it in with “Spring” from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, a worthy choice indeed. However, I have another suggestion. The third and fourth movements of Antonin Dvorak’s New World
MICHAEL F. PERLEY President Erie County Bar Foundation
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