New ABA President-Elect Bellows Calls for Cooperative Efforts on Legal Issues
Video from ABA Media Relations.
In her first official address to the House of Delegates as ABA president elect, Laurel G. Bellows, spoke to the strength of the organization during the Great Recession and the important lobbying role of the ABA’s policy-making body on lawmakers.
Bellows will automatically become president next August at the ABA Annual Meeting in Chicago, her hometown.
“Wow! It is totally just, wow,” Bellows said, as she took the podium thanking all of the people who supported her. “If you see a turtle on top of a flagpole, you know she didn’t get there by herself,” she said.
Bellows emphasized the importance for members of the ABA to cooperate in addressing issues facing the legal profession. “Together, we’ve changed policies, we’ve changed attitudes, we’ve changed lives,” she said. “We have so much we’re going to do, and we’re going to do it together.”
Improving the legal education system, maintaining an independent judiciary, and federal legislation to ensure national security were among the issues she discussed.
Bellows, a principal in the Bellows Law Group, is past chair of the House of Delegates. She currently is vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Membership. She also is past president of the Chicago Bar Association and the National Conference of Bar Presidents.
