Bench & Bar September/October 2025

ENDNOTES 1 The Legal Food Frenzy is now a decade old. It is a partnership between Feeding Kentucky and the Kentucky Attorney General’s office. The Frenzy is a friendly competition between law firms, law schools, and corporate legal de partments where respective teams raise money, which is all donated to food banks within the competitors’ Supreme Court District. The Fren zy will be held in March 2026 and is a two-week campaign. Registration will open in early 2026. It’s never too early to begin planning how you and your team can help fight hunger in Ken tucky – please sign-up and join us when the time comes! 2 U@18 is a program where YLD members and/ or local lawyers visit local high schools and teach a lesson about legal rights and responsi bilities after someone turns 18 years old. Would you like to help organize a program at your local school? If so, please email Education Outreach Committee Co-Chairs, Ryan Mosley (ryand mosley@gmail.com) or Luke Wetton (lwetton@ kerricklaw.com). 3 The Road Less Travelled is a program that the YLD does at all three of our Commonwealth’s law schools that highlighted alternative career paths and J.D.-advantage jobs that students may seek out. For readers who are not in private practice and want to speak on a panel, please contact Law School Outreach Co-Chairs, Kelsey Bryant (Kelsey_Bryant@ca6.uscourts. gov) or Brittany Riley (brittany@londonlawky. com). 4 Are you a section leader and would like the op portunity to assist with hosting an event featur ing your section? Please let me know. *Credit to Executive Committee Member, Dean Carlin Conway, for coming up with the name. 5 While there is no longer a Shaker communi ty in Kentucky, my colleague and friend, Seth Church, informs me that there is an active Shaker community in Maine. 6 See ft. n. 1-4, supra . Additionally, if you haven’t joined the YLD or want to become more in volved, there’s no better time than the present! You can learn more about the YLD and its var ious programs at: https://kybar.org/About-Us/ About-the-Kentucky-Bar-Association/Get-In volved/Young-Lawyers-Division

Berry, from his poem, Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front : Ask the questions that have no answers. Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias. Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant, when they have rotted into the mold. Call that profit. Prophesy such returns. Put your faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years. Throughout our YLD and Board of Gover nors meetings, I looked around at mentors, colleagues, and friends who were taking time away from their families, practices, and jobs to be stewards for our Bar. In the simple confines of the West Family Wash House, which was erected in 1842, I thought about the Shaker community that initially fled persecution, came to America, and eventually embarked on a journey from the coast to the unknown where they settled the beautiful landscape of central Kentucky and established their community at what came to be known as Pleasant Hill. Maybe it’s a stretch, but like the Shakers, the YLD Executive Committee (and the Board of Governors) travelling across of our Com monwealth – from Pikeville to Paducah – because they share a common purpose: to create a better Bar and enrich the lives of attorneys across our Commonwealth. No matter the journey, distance, or roads you take to the destination, his tory shows us what we can build by sharing a purpose. The Shakers don’t exist today 5 , their imprint is left on the acres their feet touched throughout Mercer County – and the countless miles they walked to get there. They shared a pur pose that connected them. So to, the YLD Executive Committee and you, the individual members of our Divi sion, have the common purpose to be the best lawyers and people you can be. As I mentioned above, I have lots of ideas this year – from continuing and expand ing our existing events, to developing new that you will not live to harvest. Say that the leaves are harvested

programing to the general desire to “spread the good news” about every thing the YLD is doing and can do to support young lawyers. But I need your help, reader. What does the YLD do well? What can the YLD do better? What can you do to support the YLD? 6 How can the YLD meet you where you are in your lives and practice and support that? A purpose is great and it can feed a person. But a shared purpose is the cash crop – it is the crop that we put the work into by taking soil samples, studying data on tem peratures, position of the sun, before we even begin to till the earth and plant those seeds. Please join me this year (and beyond) in studying the soil, planting the right seeds, and making our goal to have and plan a harvest that becomes more bountiful each year – which will support young lawyers who we have yet to – or may never – meet. I hope to hear from many of you through out the year. So please, say hello at Kentucky Law Updates (“KLUs”), attend YLD social events (and be sure to like, share, and sub scribe to our various social media platforms to stay informed). Send me an email to tell me your thoughts, ideas, and dreams for our YLD (kyle.bunnell@dinsmore.com) – or better yet, pick up the phone and call me at (859) 425-1045 to tell me those things. We can only have a share purpose when everyone is at the table – and there are plenty of open seats. Let’s decide what things we want to build on this year and what things we want to challenge our selves with to make our Young Lawyers Division for our current and future mem bers better. Maybe we won’t see that crop harvested, but we will still have disturbed the ground and planted that seed. Maybe we will be lucky enough to water it. I look forward to being of service to you throughout this year.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

KYLE R. BUNNELL is the chair of the Young Lawyers Division of the KBA and a member of the KBA’s Publications Committee.

He is an attorney at Dinsmore & Shohl LLP in Lexington where he focuses his practice on commercial litigation, as well as bad faith insurance, equine law, and product liability. In addition to his bar service, he is also active in the community. He serves as a board member of the University of Ken tucky College of Law Alumni Association, Children’s Law Center, and Lawyers Mutual Insurance of Kentucky (LMICK).

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