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31 Trends 1 (1999-2000)

handle is hein.journals/trends31 and id is 1 raw text is: Balancing and Interrelating for Excellence BY PARTHENIA B. EVANS Lawyers need balanced lives to achieve sustained excellence in their law practices. Similarly, the .dSection needs balance in order to serve its members at a standard of excellence. Coupled with balance in both settings is the need to interrelate resources with goals to achieve the excellence sought. How we achieve balance in our lives is largely determined by our talents, gifts, and time manage- ment. Many articles have been written about lawyers leading balanced lives and various bar organizations have examined the issue of balance, even in its essence as a quality-of-life issue. It is doubtful that anyone would argue with a hypothesis or a conclu- sion that balanced living contributes and perhaps even predestines professional success. Elements of balance from our lives outside the office, courtroom, or negotiation room must and do penetrate to those law practice settings to contribute to the balance needed for excellence. Lawyers are problem solvers. Our stock-in-trade is a fluid and interrelated application of knowledge, strategy, know-how, negotiation skills, people skills, and good old-fashioned common sense. The combinations and permutations of these that we need to achieve success in any setting or matter are deter- mined and driven by other elements of the balance: health, focus, creativity, family values, spiritual foun- dation, and a passion for the substance of our prac- tices. Try to identify any instance in which a problem has been solved or resolved by lawyering when these elements of the balance have not had an impact- positive or negative. Section members as a group of lawyers use the elements of balance in our practices in an infinite variety of ways. The one element that we hold in common at a strong level and that has an obvious impact on our ability to achieve excellence is a pas- sion for the substance of the area of law that we have chosen to practice. It is also the self-organizing ele- ment that causes the Section to exist. We are continu- ally refreshing and renewing that passion, and we achieve excellence as problem solvers when we suc- ceed, when we have the opportunity to learn, when we network with other lawyers in our practice areas, when we interact and have an impact on the policy or substance behind the law, and when we make a con-. tribution to better our profession. The Section's chal- lenge then is to balance and interrelate to serve its members in all of these areas and ensure that the val- ues are available on a just-in-time basis. Part henia B. Evans, is chair of the Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources and a part- ner at Stinton, Mag & Fizzell, P.C., in Kansas City Missouri. The Section has established high standards of excellence for delivering information, establishing networking settings, providing policy impact fora, and giving opportunities to us to better our profession. Our balancing act as a Section is a tough one because the resource components we have to juggle to deliver member-identified values at a standard of excellence are monetary and staff allocations and member volun- teer time. Fortunately, these resources are available in reachable proportions to deliver the values we want. We are very fortunate to have a staff of six skilled pro- fessionals who work with the Section leadership to devise and revise tools to deliver member values. Our fiscal resources are adequate and we operate at a high level of fiscal integrity. The most delightful and important resource is the more than 450 lawyers who take time fiom their practices, families, and communi- ties to serve as leaders in the Section. According to various Section member surveys, above anything else we want information relevant to the substance of our practice areas and to the practice of law itself. Our resources to achieve excellence in the delivery of information are diverse and efficient. The Section web site, committee web sites, listservs, committee newsletters, books, the Section newslet- ter, Natural Resources and Environment magazine, The Year in Review, The Environmental Lawyer, white papers, the Section Fall Meeting, teleconfer- ences, brown bag lunches, anct other programs all are available and regularly used to deliver the critical information members want. In 1999/2000, our (Continued on page 6) 0 Printed on recycled paper September/October 1999 Volume 31, Number 1

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