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As our Association enjoys its 16th year serving the needs of the in-house counsel community, we are building on a proud history of listening, learning and sharing with our members. Our success emanates from the energetic support contributed by our in-house counsel volunteers, the intellectual and financial support of our sponsors and partners, and the excellent work of CCCA’s eleven chapters across the country.
On August 17th, I accepted the role of CCCA President, after years of serving at various levels within the association. Now, I would like to devote my year as your president to making the Association even stronger. I want to hear what you have to say, help to enhance membership growth, and do everything I can to make it easier for you to network with corporate counsel and other contacts in Canada and beyond. Here are the things I hope to achieve:
Listening
CCCA volunteers play an enormous role in bringing real issues to the table. Today our volunteers include: an excellent board of 22 members; the chairs and members of 9 standing committees, each focused on a key program or objective; the co-chairs for each of our 2005 national conferences, and their organizing committees. These volunteers experience the challenges of in-house counsel responsibilities in their own practices, and do a terrific job of helping us identify and shape the issues that matter and what the Association can provide.
We also rely on surveys to tap the ideas and needs of members. In 2004, we polled attendees at CCCA’s National Spring Conference in Halifax and Annual Meeting in Winnipeg about the effectiveness of the events and what we could do better. The feedback was very positive. We also launched our first online questionnaire to determine what members would most like to see added to our website. Access to information such as templates, benchmarks, precedents, and examples ranked top on the list.
This year, CCCA carried out a comprehensive online survey of our in-house counsel members to glean information about their needs and preferences, and gather valuable feedback on a wide range of CCCA programs so that we can plan ahead to respond effectively to your needs. In partnership with Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP, the Association also conducted the first of what will be a major annual survey of the profession, In-House Corporate Counsel Barometer. The results were presented at the CCCA National Spring Conference in Toronto and are available to members on our website.
Learning
In 2005, our National Spring Conference in Toronto and the Annual Meeting in Vancouver have included the most substantive line up of seminars and workshops to date. We are also expanding our stand-alone CLE programs; increasing our support for programs and events offered by our chapters, and with your help, will endeavour to build the content of our Virtual Library. Whether you are an in-house counsel or a member in private practice, we invite you to submit relevant documents that can accelerate our knowledge and experience for review by the CCCA website committee, and to participate in, suggest or lead educational programs in your areas of interest.
The Association will also continue to pursue the accreditation process we started in 2004, with the Law Society of Upper Canada (Ontario) granting approval for seminars at both of CCCA’s national conferences.
Sharing
Being able to contact a fellow member who may be able to give you a quick answer or direct you to the local resources you need, give you advice about the local business climate or suggest cost-effective resources to support your bottom line, is a real advantage.
During my 18 years working at BP Canada Energy Company, I have seen the responsibilities and issues for in-house counsel expand and become more complex, and observed how lawyers throughout the organization have required ever-increasing skills and knowledge to get things done – particularly when dealing with issues in other jurisdictions or across the globe.
Because of this, I look forward to helping CCCA build new international alliances with sister organizations in other countries, and making sure our members get full benefit from the strategic alliances already in place, with ACC (USA), ACLA (Australia), ANADE (Mexico), CLANZ (New Zealand) and HKCCA (Hong Kong).
I also invite members to join our committees, share your ideas about topics and speakers for our conferences and submit materials for our website. In fact, if any of you are budding journalists, by all means step up and present your proposals for columns and articles featuring issues from the inside counsel point of view, to be published online or in print!
The Canadian Corporate Counsel Association is at an exciting time in its development. So I want to urge those of you who are not yet members to join us – and experience all the benefits available.
And to our active members who truly make CCCA the great organization that it is, I want you to know that the board and executive recognize your value, want to serve you, and are here for you if we can be helpful in any way.
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