BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Judge Hassan Ali El-Amin
President
Tiffany Alston
Treasurer
Traci C. Scudder
Recording Secretary
Letoria G. Knight
Corresponding Secretary
Sharon Christmas DeBerry
President-Elect
Abigale Bruce Watson
Immediate Past President
Holly Reed
Executive Officer
Michael Pearson
Executive Officer

 


COMMITTED TO THE PRINCIPLES OF LEGAL EXCELLENCE, COMMUNITY SERVICE, AND INCREASED MINORITY PARTICIPATION IN THE PRACTICE OF LAW

THE PRESIDENT'S PAGE

We're Due for a Dues Increase

At its March 2008 meeting, the Board of Directors voted unanimously to recommend an increase in JFB's annual dues, beginning January 2009. As proposed, the dues will increase in each category: Active and associate membership annual dues will increase from $50 to $100 for attorneys admitted to the Bar for more than 5 years, and from $25 to $50 for attorneys admitted for less than 5 years. Student member dues will increase from $10 to $20. Dues for the first year after bar admission will continue to be waived. For a long time we seem to have prided ourselves in having the lowest dues of any of the major bar associations. Not to worry: even with this proposed 100% increase JFB will still be the “best bargain” among the local bar associations. And this is the first dues increase in recent memory (20 years?). Obviously, the dollar has declined in relative value since 1988. More importantly, our expanded meeting format and the wide variety of programs we host and produce throughout the year require a boost in our treasury. We seem to average about 120 dues paying members yearly. At $50 apiece, that gives us a base income of approximately only $6,000. About half of this money trickles in during the last half of the year; although dues is payable on or before January 1, many members wait until the fall, around election or Banquet time, to ante up. We need approximately $6,000 alone to launch the Web-based Bourne Pages directory I have proposed. Our 120 fully paid active and associate members will give us a base income of $12,000, which will allow us to maintain the current level of activities and initiate the much-needed Bourne Pages so that the public can bet ter patronize our private practitioners. “How have we been functioning with such a small budget?” you wonder. Our fundraisers, such as the Scholarship Golf Tournament and the Annual Banquet, especially the Banquet—which has typically netted us between $5,000 and $15,000—account for the bulk of our income. But producing the Banquet now costs about $50,000, and we need about $7,500 seed money for that and for the Golf Tournament. So it is that the main item on the May 15, 2008 General Membership Meeting Agenda is the long-overdue Dues Increase. Please don’t miss this meeting. It will be hosted by Toll Brothers in their luxurious model home at 8100 Kittama Drive, Clinton MD, with complimentary food, beer and wine. Spouses and/or significant others are welcome. (They can tour the house while we take care of business in the lower level.) A splendid time should be had by one and all!

I look forward to seeing you there.

Hon. Hassan Ali El-Amin
President
J. Franklyn Bourne Bar Association

May Newsletter
CLICK HERE

President's Message
CLICK HERE

Preparing for Judicial Nominations
CLICK HERE

Howard Bar Mentors
CLICK HERE

JFB/PGCBA Scholarship Golf Classic
CLICK HERE


With
Howard U. Sch. of Law
&
Black Women's Bar Association of Suburban Maryland