Teresa A. Baker

Members of the Idaho State Bar have access to a variety of programs, resources, discounts, and services available that you may not know are available.  These resources can help improve your practice, your personal life, your leadership, and your community involvement.

Join a Practice Section

Probably the most helpful resource to practitioners in Idaho are the 23 Practice Sections.  The members of these Sections offer support for each other in a myriad of ways including educational opportunities through monthly CLE sessions and annual conferences.  Additionally, many of the Sections offer a Listserv to their members wherein your questions are answered almost immediately by those practicing in the same area of the law.  However, the most beneficial reason to join a Section is to become better acquainted with other bar members as this helps us all by keeping the practice of law in Idaho civil and professional.

Practice Sections

Become a member of the following practice sections by visiting the Idaho State Bar website.

• Agricultural Law
• Animal Law
• Appellate Practice
• Business & Corporate
• Child Protection
• Commercial Law & Bankruptcy
• Dispute Resolution
• Diversity
• Employment & Labor Law
• Environmental & Natural Resources Law
• Family Law
• Government & Public Sector Lawyers
• Health Law
• Idaho Legal History
• Indian Law
• Intellectual Property Law
• Litigation
• Professionalism & Ethics
• Real Property
• Taxation, Probate & Trust Law
• Water Law
• Workers’ Compensation
• Young Lawyers

Approved Benefits Providers

The Idaho State Bar works with various organizations to offer benefits that we think our members would utilize and assist them in their practice, their career, and for their clients.  Click on the “Approved Benefit Providers” tab on our website under Member Programs and Services to see the specific benefit offerings.

• ABA Publications
• ABA Retirement Funds Program
• ALPS Professional Liability Coverage
• ALPS Attorney Match
• Avis Car Rental
• Brooks Brothers
• Clio
• Identillect Technologies Email Security
• Indexed I/O
• La Porte & Associates Life Insurance
• LawPay Credit Card Processing
• LeanLaw
• localhospitality.com
• The ODP Corporation – formerly Office Depot
• Ohio National Life Disability Insurance
• Verizon Wireless

Fastcase

This unlimited online legal research library is available to all active and judicial members at no-cost and is available for all other members for just $30 a year.  The search engine includes two recently merged competitors and now offers even more legal resources including workflow, analytics, and legal research including citation analysis, appellate summaries, and information on case treatment. Fastcase updates its database daily.

Idaho Academy of Leadership for Lawyers (“IALL”)

Our interactive leadership training program is designed specifically for lawyers. Each class consists of a diverse group of 12-20 members of the Idaho State Bar.

The mission of IALL is to promote diversity and inspire the development of leadership within the legal profession. IALL will bring together lawyers from different practice areas with a variety of backgrounds from all across Idaho. IALL will build upon the participant’s leadership skills and promote leadership experiences by:

• Teaching accepted and recognized leadership skills and philosophies;
• Fostering professional relationships within the Idaho legal community and the greater community;
• Promoting professional obligations and community service;
• Raising awareness among lawyers of the broad range of issues and challenges facing leaders today; and
• Engaging in the community through each member’s legacy project as part of the IALL practicum.

Applications for the 2023-2024 Class are now available on our website.

Lawyer Assistance Program

A 100% confidential program, the Lawyer Assistance Program (“LAP”) supports lawyers and judges who are experiencing problems associated with alcohol, substance abuse, depression, anxiety, and/or mental health issues in a safe manner. The LAP has a committee member in each judicial district and a 24/7/365 hotline at (866) 460-9014.

Mentor Program

The Mentor Program assists new lawyers in the transition from law school to a successful law practice. The program pairs new lawyers with an experienced lawyer in their local community. Experienced lawyer mentors agree to respond to general questions from the new lawyers and to give suggestions and offer guidance where appropriate about the practical aspects of practicing law.  If you are interested in sharing your expertise with a newer member of the bar, please contact our program liaison Teresa Baker.

Attorney Well-Being Resources

Maintaining well-being is part of lawyers’ ethical duty of competence. It calls for healthy, positive choices to assure that lawyers can be their best for their clients, families, organizations, and communities.  Further, to be their best, lawyers depend on a large number of important contributors who are not lawyers. Therefore, well-being across the legal profession is an important goal.

The Idaho State Bar Task Force on Attorney Well-Being has provided many resources for all members of the legal community to maintain their well-being. This includes free on-demand CLEs on topics such as stress management and trauma-informed lawyering.  The website includes activities to stay strong physically, align your spirit, grow your mind and career while connecting with others, and improve your emotional well-being.  We invite you on this journey with us to live better lives!

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Laird B. Stone

These are my last comments as a Commissioner and current Bar President. They will not be as eloquent as President Washington’s or General MacArthur’s farewell addresses to Congress but may at least cause my fellow lawyers to ponder on my musings.

How many times in our life have we heard the phrase, “We are at a critical turning point in our national history?” Almost daily!

If you read the history of each of the 46 Presidencies, you will find that almost everything that we are saying and hearing about has occurred, in some fashion, in the past. The difference is the constant 24/7 cycle for “news.” (I put news in quotes, as a lot of what we get is not news but unsupportable gossip.)

However, just because we are repeating events does not mean that the response has always been the same. It repeats because of the nature of being human. The effect it has on us is up to each of us, individually, and then collectively as groups. Each time a response has been made, there are slight differences, which have improved the conditions in which we find ourselves. This is defined as progress.

We can all create a timeline of our families and list all of the things we have seen and the changes that have occurred in society during those lifetimes.^[i] What we don’t do is take the time to remember and reflect on those changes and the responsibility we have of ensuring that the knowledge and experience is passed on and that we move forward in a positive, non-destructive manner.

Another way to define this: “Today, as the world shifts to an increasingly interconnected knowledge economy, the intersecting forces of technological innovation, globalization, and demographic change create vast new challenges, opportunities, and uncertainties. In this great upheaval, the nation’s most enduring social institutions are at a crossroads.”^[ii]

While this quote is from authors discussing the changes in educational institutions, it is applicable to the legal profession, as well.

As a profession we should address:

How do we deliver legal education? How do we measure competency? How do we ensure continued competency? How do we govern, i.e. are we an individual bar or a national bar with regional governance? How do we provide legal assistance? How do we care for others in our profession? How do we diversify our membership? How do we address societal issues, both political and non-political?

These are all questions we, as lawyers, need to not only ask ourselves but also ask the groups to which we belong, both legal and non-legal. It is an obligation of our profession to confront these issues in an open dialogue and provide guidance in finding those solutions.

So, speak up for what you believe is right. Recognizing that the rights and privileges that we might obtain overlap with the rights and privileges of others, which is too often the forgotten piece when we ponder the “how” questions.

Moving back to the first “how,” are we at a turning point in our history? Yes, but we are also at a turning point in our profession, as defined by the questions raised earlier. In pondering those questions consider that the beauty of our profession is the power to do something for someone.  This is the Rule of Law in its simplest form. This “doing” is not just for others outside our profession but within the confines of our profession. This reality of “doing” is the method by which the answers to the “how” questions can be reached. It must be remembered that those answers will change over time.

Do I have the answer for any of them, which I should put forth? No, but I will be part of the discussion and do the best that I can to resolve those issues, to help our profession move forward as history evolves and addresses the societal questions, political and non-political. I am no learned scholar as some of my colleagues are. As Popeye said, “I am what I am,” a lawyer.  Paraphrasing Lincoln, “I do the best I can with what I have and will let others decide whether I made a difference.” (I can’t wait for the comments about quoting Popeye and Lincoln in the same paragraph.)

As I end my term as a Bar Commissioner in July, I want to thank the lawyers in the Third and Fifth Districts, as well as lawyers from around the State who have supported, in numerous ways, the protection of the Rule of Law and our profession so that we can truly do something for someone. It has been my honor and privilege to have served the Idaho State Bar and to have represented all of you.

Thank you.

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[i].  Trival Note – (The final beneficiary of a civil war pension, Irene Triplett, died in May of 2020.  Triplett had been born in 1930 to an 83 year old Union veteran.)  (A Man of Iron, the Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland by Troy Senik (9/2022).)

[ii].  (The Great Upheaval, Higher Education Past, Present, and Uncertain Future. Arthur Levine, Scott VanPelt – John Hopkins University Press (2021).)