Kathryn Grant Madigan's Blog

Late last week I had the pleasure of participating in an excellent Podcast called Lawyer 2 Lawyer, along with Jean Berman, who directs the International Senior Lawyers Project. The hosts are J. Craig Williams from Southern California and Bob Ambrogi from Massachusetts. This Podcast is taped weekly for the purpose of discussing current events in the legal community and is heard as far away as China and Australia.

The topics -- age discrimination in the profession, law firm mandatory retirement policies, and how senior and retired lawyers can benefit from providing pro bono and community service as part of their "second season of service". We also touched on ways we can all age more consciously and successfully.

As you know from past entries on this blog, our own former President Mark Alcott led the discussion at the ABA annual meeting a few weeks ago on the issue of Age Discrimination and Mandatory Retirement. The resolution that won national approval, which recommends that firms eliminate retirement policies based solely upon age-based criteria, was the result of the work of our Special Committee on “Gray” Lawyers created by Mark last year.

This Podcast gave me the opportunity to not only tout the work of our Special Committee but our plan to recognize -- in an honor roll -- those firms which do not have age-based retirement policies. We also explored our newly expanded Empire State Counsel program, our Pro Bono program, the ABA Second Season of Service and, of course, this new blog site.

I applaud the important work of the International Senior Lawyers Project and the many global opportunities for pro bono and public service.

If you want to have a listen just click here. I think you will find the discussion of interest.

I recently testified at a hearing conducted by the Special Commission on the Future of the Courts on the issue of reforming the Town and Village Court System in New York State. It was my pleasure to participate on behalf of NYSBA and provide an overview of the Report of our Special Task Force on the Town and Village Justice Courts, which will be vetted by our Association Committees and Sections and then formally considered by our Executive Committee in November.

Among other things, I assured the panel that the Association is committed to exploring ways in which we can ensure that the current system operates at maximum efficiency, noting that we all share a common goal – public confidence in our courts and that public confidence starts in the ‘courts closest to the people’ -- our town and village justice courts.

If you would like to see the full text of that testimony please click here and feel free to let me know your thoughts on this issue.