Bracewell’s Steve Benesh, the current president of the State Bar of Texas, recently discussed with Texas Lawyer his goals for this year as leader of the state bar.
Touring the state to introduce himself to regional bar associations, Benesh said, “Now that I am president, I want to meet lawyers where they are and the largest gathering of them is at events they hold locally.”
While speaking to lawyers, Benesh explained that he wants them to know that regardless of their practice or who they are or where they live, “their voice and participation in the self-governing, volunteer-driven organization we are, is just as important as anyone else’s.”
Benesh also as laid out several priority projects he wants implemented or advanced during his year in the office, include standardizing e-filing of court documents across all of the district clerk offices in the state’s 254 counties.
“I didn’t create my platform until two months after I announced as a candidate because I wanted to develop it based on what people out there and all over the state could tell me what they were tossing and turning about. A lot of what I did was a listening tour on their concerns, very often based on location and practice,” Benesh said.
One issue that kept coming up was the problem of docket management for lawyers who had to step away from their practice because of illness or because they needed to get into a rehabilitation program for substance abuse, he said.
What Benesh also heard accentuated what he knew from personal experience as a colleague of other lawyers that had gone through the Texas Lawyers’ Assistance Program. Benesh followed through on these conversations by going to TLAP’s leadership team to ask what was on their wish list of initiatives relating to substance abuse and mental health.
“I have friends who tell me they’re alive today and healthy because either they or someone on their behalf placed a call or reached out to TLAP,” Benesh said.
