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| Editor. Ted A. Donner |
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New Directions for the DCBA Brief
Welcome to Volume 23 of the DCBA Brief. Since Mike Davis ended his remarkably successful tenure as Editor-in-Chief in July - as you may have noticed already - we’ve made quite a few changes around here. We’ve redesigned the look and feel of the magazine and added a new logo to the cover. We’ve added a host of new features and enlisted the involvement of dozens of new contributors. The goal is a magazine that will continue to provide its readers with legal analysis and updates but also provide more insight into what the DCBA community is all about.
The people primarily responsible for this effort, who have volunteered their time to try and make this experiment work, include a number of stalwart regulars from the DCBA Brief’s history (we’re glad to welcome Tim Newitt and Tom Else back to the group) as well as a number of new faces, including Shawn S. Kasserman, Jeffrey J. Kroll, Melissa Mistretta, and Daniel Walker Jr. With these additions to the bullpen, we have what we believe is an amazing group of capable people working with the Publication Board this year and an equally amazing group of people charged with the thankless job of keeping it all organized. Our thanks in advance to Eric Waltmire who, in preparation for his stint as next year’s Editor-in-Chief, is this year’s Associate Editor and will be overseeing the lead articles, this issue’s Articles Editor, Joe Emmerth, Melissa Piwowar, this year’s Assistant Editor, who is editing the monthly case law updates that appear in the magazine as Sidebars. John Pcolinski, who should know better after twice serving as Editor-in-Chief, has taken on the auspicious job of News Editor. We’re also grateful to Kristen Scribner for her extraordinary help in creating the new designs for this magazine and Robert E. Potter III, the photographer whose cover images you’ll be seeing more of these next many months. Thanks, finally, to Jacki Hamler and Leslie Monahan at the DCBA and to Mary Anne McManus who has a difficult task ahead of her, trying to get all this new content into 48 pages each month.
We hope to publish a magazine which honors the goals and ideals of the DCBA, including this organization’s commitment to education, community, and service. So, in addition to the new content you’ll find each month, we’ve also scheduled three Special Editions for the coming year. Our January edition will be published just before the DCBA Mega Meeting and will include an expansive preview of that event along with coverage on the importance of continuing legal education. Former DCBA President, Tom Else, who we are grateful to have back with the magazine, is serving as the lead editor for that issue. Then (shortly after our regular schedule is interrupted by this year’s DCBA Grief), our May edition will feature Law Day and the myriad ways that lawyers can and should give back to the community. Art Rummler (yes, of the Judge’s Nite Band) is editing that issue. Then, finally in July, we’ll close out the year with an issue dedicated to the history of the courthouse at 505 County Farm Road. It was 20 years ago this next July that the DuPage Judicial Center opened its doors and we’re celebrating that occasion with a few trips down memory lane. Leading the charge in putting that issue together is DCBA mainstay and former President, Jim McCluskey.
We may someday count the current DCBA President, Steven Ruffalo, among our rank as well. But, for now, we’re grateful for the role he’s played in helping us shape this new publication. Steve has been touting the importance of revitalizing the DCBA Brief since well over a year ago. He’s helped make some of these new directions possible and he’s been encouraging and supportive at every step along the way. At virtually every bar event at which he’s spoken since the installation, he’s promised a new, more community focused magazine is on its way. As editor, I’m hopeful that, with this edition, we are at least starting to deliver on that promise. Please let us know what you think.
Ted A. Donner is an AV-rated attorney with Donner & Company Law Offices LLC and an adjunct professor with Loyola University Chicago School of Law. He is the author of two national treatises for Thomson-West including Jury Selection: Strategy & Science and the Attorney’s Practice Guide to Negotiation. He was the Editor-in-Chief of the DCBA Brief for 2007-08 and served as Associate Editor in 2006-07 and 2009-10.
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