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