CBA Record May-June 2020

Y O U N G L A W Y E R S J O U R N A L The Year in Review By Octavio Duran, YLS Chair

CBA YOUNG LAWYERS SECTION

Chair Octavio Duran Duran Law Offices

our bar year the way we envisioned. I did not foresee hosting our Annual Meeting by pre-recording it and mailing awards to the recipients. But folks out there are dealing with much worse circumstances, so I realize that my events and desires for the YLS take a much-needed back-seat to a pandemic, the likes of which we have never seen. I join you in thanking our first respond- ers and essential workers on the front lines. I encourage you to contact peers for advice and for consultation. A friend runs an immigration firm and has had to lay off his entire staff. When I jumped on a call to refer him a case, he expressed his frustrations in the delay of getting his SBA loan. Clearly, the focus of our conversation had shifted, and we ended up strategizing online marketing efforts in Spanish. This is an example of the sort of pleasant sur- prises that you may find in reaching out to friends and colleagues. You can shift and re-focus your marketing efforts. If you were behind, like I was, in updating your website or executing marketing campaigns, this is a good time work on tools to build up your practice. Nonetheless, I do want to talk about the Section’s many accomplishments during the 2019-2020 bar year. The YLS executed some wonderful events and service projects that helped our community as well as our members. We fundraised and gave to charity on multiple fronts. We hosted our first-ever All Bar Community Service Day, working with presidents of various affin- ity bars in packing lunches for homeless shelters. We hosted Gatsby’s Speakeasy, our annual casino night fundraiser, with over $25,000 going to The Chicago Bar Foundation. We mentored and tutored students from various law schools throughout the Chicagoland area and Chicago Public Schools. We also helped Illinois citizens

First Vice-Chair Jeffrey Moskowitz J. Moskowitz Law LLC Second Vice-Chair Tracy Brammeier Clifford Law Offices P.C. Member Service Manager Chastidy Burns Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender Public Service Manager Lara Wagner The Law Offices of Lara Wagner LLC Project Officer John Risvold The Collins Law Firm PC

I nwant to highlight many of the Young Lawyers Section’s accomplishments and experiences in my last column as Chair. I also have many people to thank, so I will do that as well. But first, I want to address the Covid-19 situation. We have all heard many descriptions, comments, and predictions. I will try not to be repetitive here, but I want to express my feelings and provide some points to consider. The YLS started the 2019-2020 bar year with very lofty goals, and I knew we had the officers and leadership to accomplish them. We were cruising through the bar year, knocking many of our events and projects way out of the park. We planned to end the bar year with former YLS Chair, Paul Ochmanek, sponsoring the YLS social in April. We wanted to launch various substantive events such as “How to Ask the Right Questions” when asking for referrals. We planned to dedicate the month of May to membership appreciation, so we invited our YLS alumni to join us for a social. We planned to pair alumni with current YLS members in a competitive ping pong tournament, with the winning team taking home $1 million! OK, that money award was probably closer to $100, but we were still going to have a lot of fun. None of us planned for or expected the changes that Covid-19 has brought. Self- ishly, I am very sad that we could not finish

Project Officer Kenneth Matuszewski Patent Attorney

Secretary/Treasurer Kate Schnake Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP

Co-Editor in Chief YLS Journal Daniel J. Berkowitz Illinois Attorney General’s Office Co-Editor in Chief YLS Journal Kruti Patel Wintersteen Law Group

Assistant Editor Kaitlin King Hart David Carson LLP

YLS Director Jennifer Byrne

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