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Present: John Sheaffer, Angela Fonnesbeck, Russ Minas, Louise Knauer, Rick Hummel, Doug Adair, Steve Gunn, Helen Christian, Lisa Lokken, Al Pranno, Stewart Ralphs, Judge Lindberg, Stacey Schmidt (by telephone), and Adam Caldwell (by telephone).
Excused: Lauren Barros, Judge Jones, Christina Miller, Dena Sarandos, Commissioner Blomquist, Charlotte Meacham, John Moody, Judge Thomas, Marci Keck, and Kellie Williams.
Approval of Minutes: John welcomes everyone and invites comments on the minutes from October 8, 2008. Doug motioned to approve the minutes. Helen seconded and the motion passed with unanimous approval.
Subcommittee Reports:
Miscellaneous. John reported that our sponsored table at the Dialogue for Democracy was full, primarily with students and others. Our plea for volunteers at the law clinic in exchange for a free ticket and seat at the event was not particularly well received as only three people expressed an interest.
Monthly Seminars. Doug reported that the upcoming seminar on November 25,2008 will focus on recent developments in family law and the impact on this upcoming legislative session. Stewart will be the presenter. The next luncheons will take place on January 23,2009; February 27,2009; and April 24, 2009. Doug is trying to confIrming Valerie Hale and David Dodgion as speakers. Doug also reported that he is hoping to get the committee more involved when deciding on speakers, topics, and fees. On that note, Doug suggested that we look into what other sections are charging for the monthly seminars and consider raising the cost from $15.00 to $20.00 for those luncheons beginning in January. Louise moved that we raise the cost to $20.00 for our monthly luncheon seminars. Helen seconded. The motion passed.
Holiday Social. Helen reported that the Family Law Section Holiday Soci!:ll will be held at Cohne, Rappaport & Segal on Thursday, December 4, 2008. The committee has received bids on food and anticipates spending between $1200 -$1400, not including beverages. Kellie will be responsible for purchasing the wine and Christina will be responsible for the invitations.
Legislation Committee. Stewart reports that Senator McCoy is still working on the Violation of Protective Order statute; that the dating violence bill may die as there is currently no one willing to run the bill; Senator Hillyard wants to run a bill providing set calculations for alimony; there will be some tweaking of child support to accommodate ORS, Representative Fowlke needs to do some clean up on parent-time; there may be something stemming from Equality Utah to have more open relative adoptions; and the wrongful death statute may need to include language about a designee ifthere is no spouse. Stewart also reported that everything regarding our new proposed family law discovery rules has been submitted to AOC, and now we will just have to wait and see what happens next.
Scholarships. John reported that the scholarships are in place and that the board liaisons have been working with the school committees. BYU has apparently received a couple ofapplications. Al Pranno reports that the U has received only one applicant for the scholarship, but that it is someone with family law background and experience. We will probably need to fund those scholarships next month.
AnnualConvention.Steve reports that the annual convention will be July 16-18,2008 in Sun Valley, Idaho. We have been assigned two slots on Friday -10:00 a.m. and 11 :00 a.m. Steve asked for topics. Discussion followed. Topics suggested included: ORS collection of support -the whens, whys, hows, etc ... ; Comparison of Commissioners practice by district; a California attorney to discuss topics related to Utah practice -alimony calculations, etc...;same sex relationships and the law. It was also discussed that board probably did not want to propose a back to basics type presentation.
Spring Convention. Rick reported that Craig Petersen is willing to present on QDROs and the military.
Membership.John introduced Judge Denise Lindberg and welcomed her to the committee. Russ commented that John Moody indicated to him that he may have over extended himself and was not sure he would be able to continue to participate on this committee. John Moody was going to search for his own replacement.
John reported that we had an attorney present at the U for the meet a lawyer event. It was, unfortunately, held the same days as the new lawyers swearing in ceremony, but it was still a well attended event by new students.
Financials: John reported that our balance sheet shows approximately $14,000.00 but from that amount we need to fund the $6000 to "And Just for All," and the $3000 for the U ofU and BYU family law scholarships. The revenue issue still has not been resolved and John was going to continue to follow-up on that, but indicated that the bar has some type of reconciliation process they are going through and that hopefully will address our concerns. Also these financials are a month behind and do not reflect the $500 that funded for the "Dialogue on Democracy" sponsorship.
John reported that the AAML has in the past used our family law mailing list to advertise its December seminar. Bar policy requires some sort of splitting of revenues if bar lists are used. John does not think that we will need to address it this year, but that we will need to do so in the future and that a co-sponsorship may solve the problem. John tabled the issue to our January meeting. At the same time John thinks that we may want to create a policy on who will actually be able to use our mailing lists for what purposes as he has received several requests. John also indicated that we must be sensitive to not overuse the list as people can opt out.
Adjournment.There being no other business the meeting was adjourned until the December holiday social. The next regular meeting will be on January 14, 2009.
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