Search

Pride, unity emphasized at 2016 MBA Annual Dinner

Issue May/June 2016 By Joe Kourieh

Camaraderie was the word at the 2016 Massachusetts Bar Association Annual Dinner, held on Thursday, April 28, at the Westin Hotel in South Boston's Seaport District, when more than 1,000 members of the legal community from across the commonwealth convened in Boston to celebrate their profession among peers and friends.

They were joined by famed Bostonian author Dennis Lehane, whose keynote address took the audience on a humorous trip through a Boston upbringing, illustrating the capital city's influence on his development as a storyteller.

MBA President Robert W. Harnais in his opening remarks reminded his colleagues that their profession, driven by the love of justice, needs to be protected.

"My first goal this year was to steer our profession back toward civility and camaraderie. We need to return to a profession rather than a business," he said. "Now, MBA members are leading by example. Not only are we making a difference with each other, we're increasing the respect of our profession. And that's what it deserves.

"As lawyers we have an incredible power, but a much bigger responsibility," he added. "Going out and getting your diploma, passing the bar, making money -- that's what's expected of lawyers. But going out and making a difference -- that's what's respected of lawyers."

Night of awards

Harnais eagerly ushered in the event's award ceremony, during which a litany of MBA members and allies, both established and up-and-coming, were recognized for their outstanding achievements throughout the preceding year.

First up were the MBA President's Award winners: Boston Municipal Court (BMC) Clerk-Magistrate Daniel J. Hogan and attorney George G. Hardiman. The President's Award honors attorneys for their significant contribution to the work of the MBA, to the preservation of MBA values, to the success of MBA initiatives, and to the promotion of the MBA leadership role within the legal community of Massachusetts.

Harnais then presented Senate President Stanley C. Rosenberg (D-Amherst) with the Legislator of the Year honors. Harnais called Rosenberg a public servant with "simply too many accomplishments to mention," among them a key role in the creation of the bipartisan Criminal Justice Commission, influential advocacy for attorney-conducted voir dire in Massachusetts and spearheading the enlistment of the Council on State Governments' Justice Center to assess the overall integrity of the Bay State's criminal justice system.

Rosenberg, in contrast, described himself as "a humble legislator from Western Massachusetts" with the simple goal of bringing society's concerns within the doors of the State House to further the cause of criminal justice reform in tandem with his colleagues.

"We are going to see a lot of change," Rosenberg said, "in order to help you and your clients get a better situation and better opportunity for fair and responsive justice in the commonwealth. … In accepting this award, I do so with respect and admiration for the work that you do, on behalf of all of us in the legislature."

Following Rosenberg's acceptance address, nine additional awards were distributed, including the Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Scholarship to Boston College Law School student Lauren N. Schaal, and the Access to Justice Awards. (See related stories, this issue.)

Captivating storyteller

The night was punctuated by Lehane's address, in which he extolled the virtues of his city as a cultural haven with "a very interesting relationship with the truth."

Lehane, the son of Irish immigrants whose primary pastime was storytelling, described how his family and their friends would gather on a weekly basis and tell stories of their antics, almost always set back home on the farms of Ireland. The catch, however, was that, as the storytellers' cache of anecdotes ran dry, the same stories would be recirculated, but with ever-evolving plotlines. Not only this, but bad stories - those that didn't captivate both the heart and the imagination -- would be shouted down.

"Fiction is the lie that tells the truth," Lehane said of the realization he came to over the course of his education in the literary arts, after reflecting for years on the bizarre nature of his relatives' nebulous yarn-spinning. "What they were doing was searching out some type of emotional truth. And that emotional truth is the emotional truth that all immigrants search out."

Nod to civility

Lehane gave his encouragement to those faithfully serving the profession of law, acting as the guardians of the truth.

"I love what you're doing," he said. "I love the outreach, I love the civic pride. I love that you care a little bit more about the bottom line.

"We stand on the rule of law," Lehane said after his address, noting the importance of law in his own books, such as "Mystic River" and "Shutter Island." "There's a reason for law, whether you like it or not. We need the law - it's what makes us civilized."

"Lawyers are always in adversarial situations," Harnais said, standing beside Lehane amid the crowd following the ceremony. "We argue all the time in court. But out of court we shouldn't. … Tonight we bring lawyers together and we all enjoy each others' company. We bring the camaraderie back to the profession as it should be."

Also present following the dinner was MBA Past President Marsha V. Kazarosian, who said that the main function of the Annual Dinner is to "bring everyone together.

"It really does," she said. "We work so hard, and this is a fun night for everybody."

Kazarosian described how the trend of the law profession from a business back to a profession is "going in the right direction.

"Bob [Harnais] and all the officers worked hard for it, and it's only going to help everyone going forward," she said.

Of the event, she said, "You keep this in your mind -- it's hard to be uncivil to someone you've just seen at an event and shared a story or dinner with. This goes a long way."

Joe Kourieh is an associate editor at The Warren Group, publisher of Massachusetts Lawyers Journal.