NEO ACC's Summer Social- A Time For Reflection

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Larry Salibra

It is special pleasure to attend the summer social event of the Northeastern Ohio Chapter. It is a rare opportunity when I get to visit with ACC colleagues of the past that no other opportunity would present.

There is some good news for the Chapter this year; its membership is at an all time high. There could be two explanations. First, it might be that the economy is not as bad here as one might have expected. The other is that in-house attorneys might be realizing the value of networking that ACC provides in tough times. Whichever explanation is the case, the membership level is good news.
The success of this chapter is in many respects a better indication of the value of ACC than the national chapter. The reason is that it had to rise again from the ashes no less than three times before it became a permanent establishment. This in large part was due to the lack of support among senior in-house counsel for the organization. My sense was that Northeast Ohio was one of the hardest locations for ACC to gain a foothold because senior in-house counsel viewed it with suspicion at best and outright antagonism at worse.

Why so? Because the in-house bar had established a traditional relationship to outside attorneys and the ABA, both of whom felt threatened by ACC (formerly ACCA), and viewed it as a bunch of wild eyed rebels who did not understand their place and role in the profession. For those of you to whom this sounds like fiction, you are beginning to understand the debt you owe to the Bob Banks, Carl Liggio and their colleagues who saw in-house as a position in the profession deserving its own distinct recognition and unique services.

I was the first president of the chapter, which lasted only one president beyond me before community support dried up. I resuscitated it a second time, only to have the organizational structure under its new president evaporate. Finally, along came Rick Green, an energetic fellow who along with a dedicated cadre of colleagues such as Cindy Binns created the chapter that exists today and appears to be thriving in the worst economic crisis in our lifetimes.

 

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A Tribute to Bob Banks

Posted on January 5, 2009 by Larry Salibra

A short time ago, I blogged about the importance of building a life line before you needed it. In that blog I described the value of the connections you would make with your ACC colleagues as an end in itself. Fred Krebs recently helped me reconnect with Bob Banks, former General Counsel of Zerox, and the father of ACC.

ACC was formed by a number of energetic and farsighted in-house lawyers. But among this group of talented lawyers one stood out.  For those of us who were around at ACC’s beginning, it was clear that Bob was the spark that created this organization.

I came to know Bob through a reference of a lawyer at the Ohio Lawyer’s Disciplinary Commission. I had been referred to the Commission by the then Chief Judge of the Ohio Supreme Court to whom I had written questioning Ohio’s policy of not permitting one to count time spent in Ohio as an in-house lawyer towards reciprocity admission, while the same time could be counted for reciprocity admission in New York. The Judge, apparently unaware of the rule permitting in-house attorneys to practice in Ohio without being formally admitted, concluded that I was practicing in Ohio without a license and referred me the disciplinary commission.

Chief Judge Celebrezze (as distinguished from Anthony Celebrezze of the Sixth Circuit) was widely reported as using the disciplinary commission as a means of dealing with any controversy concerning his role in office, and there was quite a bit. The lawyer at the commission was understanding and disturbed by the misuse of the office and referred me to Bob Banks, who was reported according to him, as beginning an organization that might just address admission issues for in-house counsel and lawyers generally.

After talking with Bob on the phone I met him for the first time, and I have still have a vivid memory of the meeting, at the Corporate Counsel Institute at Northwestern University Law School. ACC, then ACCA, was an idea coming to life.

I renewed my correspondence with Bob a few days ago (thanks to Fred Krebs sending me a current e-mail address) and have begun once again to share ideas on current issues in the profession. It made me recall the hope and spirit of confronting challenges that infused ACC’s creation.

Bob and his colleagues who founded ACC gave us a great gift—an organization that permits us to change and improve ourselves and our profession in way that none of us could do without it. This Holiday Season we need to remember these founders who built an organization whose creation was not without opposition and controversy. And we should remember that we can best honor their effort by using the organization to its potential.
 

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