Leadership Vision for 2024-25 (State Bar of Texas Annual Meeting 2024)

Episode Notes

Transcript

Rocky Dhir:

Hello and welcome to another episode of the State Bar of Texas podcast. We are recording live from our state bar annual meeting in Dallas, Texas. This is your host Rocky Dhir. You guys are stuck with me, but you know who you’re not stuck with. Well, you are stuck with them. For the next year, we’ve got our incoming presidents of the State Bar of Texas and the Texas Young Lawyers Association. So first we’ve got Steve Benesh, our new president of the State Bar of Texas, and then we’ve got Hisham Masri, our Texas Young Lawyers Association President. These two guys are ready and ready to go. Welcome, gentlemen.

Steve Benesh:

Well, thank you very much for having us.

Hisham Masri:

We Appreciate it, Rocky.

Rocky Dhir:

No, absolutely. It’s a pleasure. Look, first question, I’m actually going to ask Hisham first question. Why do you guys say TYLA? Why not tyla? What I remember early on, I said Tyler and everybody got mad at me.

Hisham Masri:

That’s a good question. I don’t know that I have a great answer.

Rocky Dhir:

It’s okay. My whole life is built on that. I built an entire career such as it is,

Hisham Masri:

But the abbreviation and it simply sounds better. And the real reason is our executive director, Tracy Brown, prefers it. Well, then

Rocky Dhir:

There’s that. Okay.

Hisham Masri:

We do what Tracy Brown tells us.

Rocky Dhir:

Okay. I thought maybe because it sounds like a New Yorker saying, Tyler, Texas, where are you from? I’m from Tyler and maybe that was just part of it.

Hisham Masri:

There’s also a music artist by the name of Tyler. We don’t want any type of confusion now in the marketplace.

Rocky Dhir:

This is how old I am, Steve. I’m too old to know There’s a music artist named Tyler. Would that

Steve Benesh:

Be Bonnie Tyler?

Rocky Dhir:

Oh,

Hisham Masri:

There

Rocky Dhir:

We go. There we go. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Not just a boy from San

Steve Benesh:

Antonio.

Rocky Dhir:

Maybe I like that too. Yeah, I thought you just a boy from San Antonio. Look at you getting all New York on us. Alright, so Steve, look, first of all, congratulations. Thank you very much on ascending to the presidency. What do you have in store for us this year? What’s going to be the Steve Benish hallmark and the initiatives you’re going to be leading us? Of

Steve Benesh:

Course. Let me first apologize for the raspiness of my voice. Yeah, I’m going to alternate between the adolescent boy voice breaking and my late night, all the hits all the time.

Rocky Dhir:

It’s okay. We can call you Steve Bain.

Steve Benesh:

Hey, there we go. There we go.

Rocky Dhir:

I was born at the presidency molded by it.

Steve Benesh:

Well, I guess you wanted to talk a little bit about the things I hope to achieve. Some of the initiatives I hope to advance. One of them would be electronic filing and it is to standardize electronic filing across every county in Texas. It would be working with the court of Office of Court administration, the Texas District clerks, the Judicial Committee on Information Technology. Right now we have a patchwork quilt of differing protocols from county to county to county that can be exasperating for lawyers and their clients. And so standardizing that is a big one.

Rocky Dhir:

So this would be having one interface where people can go and pick which county they’re filing in effectively. Is that?

Steve Benesh:

Well, that’s part of it, but the other is that the filing protocol is identical from county to county to county so that you don’t, say you have a case that you don’t normally have cases in Hayes County, but you’ve got one in Hayes County and you got a deadline and you log on at 10 minutes till midnight and it’s totally different than what you’re familiar with. It would be akin to every county in the state having a different set of road signs and you’ve already run off the road and into the ditch before you figure out what they mean.

Rocky Dhir:

I do that without the road signs, but okay. It’s too soon, Steve. Too soon. Too

Steve Benesh:

Soon. Too soon. And then I guess another one is, as you know, we have the Texas Lawyers Assistance Program in the state that works with attorneys who are struggling with substance use or mental health issues. And it’s a wonderful program, the envy of such programs across the country. But one thing that we need to really focus on is a docket assistance program. And I like to work with TA to make that happen. And that would be a pool of volunteer lawyers who could step into someone’s practice and keep their clients informed, keep the cases afloat while lawyers step away to get the help they need for those issues. Most of the attorneys, the majority of the attorneys who availed themselves of TLAs services are solo and small firm lawyers. So they really have few opportunities, fewer colleagues of people who can shoulder their caseload while they step away to get the help they need. And having a pool of volunteer lawyers who can stand in the gap while they get the help they need would be a great thing. And so that’s a priority for me as well.

Rocky Dhir:

So that would probably entail then also giving them protections. The lawyers were stepping in so they don’t get sued from malpractice that they’re just maintaining the files.

Steve Benesh:

Well, that’s absolutely right. And thankfully we’ve got a past president Laura Gibson’s initiative of succession planning that helps us walk through the minefield of some of the malpractice issues. It is a template in some regards, so I’m thankful for that. And then beyond that, I want to continue President Tisdale’s initiative with regard to artificial intelligence that task force should complete its work during my term. And then we’ve got to figure out what facets of the use of AI and the legal practice constitute the practice of law and how do we regulate it. I think one thing a lot of people don’t realize is our own disciplinary rules rule 1.01 require attorneys in addition to remaining competent in the practice of law to become competent in all technologies that bear on the practice of law. And that’s ai. And so I think a lot of us are thinking, maybe if I don’t have to deal with it and I’ll be retired before it becomes necessary, but AI is here, we must incorporate it just because, not only because it makes sense to do so for our clients, but because the disciplinary rules really mandate it. And then finally, I’d like to improve the state bar’s website. It can be a little difficult to find information you’re looking for and I’d like to overhaul it. And among other things, have a database, an FAQ of frequently asked common questions by lawyers and by members of the general public that is searchable and is accessible from the state bar’s main page, a number of other things. But those are some of the major initiatives.

Rocky Dhir:

See, and for me, I always thought in my case, I thought AI meant any intelligence of any kind because I could use all the help I can get. But okay, now Hasham, how about you? What? What’s in store for the TYLA in the upcoming year of the Mussy presidency?

Hisham Masri:

So first and foremost, I work with Steve Benish and the state bar hand in hand on all of their initiatives. As a division of the state bar of Texas, we want to make sure that we’re fulfilling the mission of the state bar of Texas. And I think a big part of that is working with Steve and making sure that we are able to achieve all of his goals for the year. Sure. My focus for the year is really focused on community engagement first and foremost, and two, really the next generation of lawyers or inspiring the next generation of lawyers. And I’ll talk about both of those a little bit. Please. For the community engagement piece, I believe as representatives of the state bar and TYLA is that we should be everywhere for everyone. So a strong focus to visit all of our Texas law schools, visit all of our Texas Young lawyer affiliates, and then conduct roadshows throughout the state and places where they don’t have young lawyer affiliates so that we’re really out there for our membership and providing them with the benefits that the state bar already offers its members. So TYA has really a deep repository of projects available and we’re going to work on replicating those, making ’em easy for our local affiliates to use, and then continue to do some of the great programming we have like bar leaders so that we’re engaging with our members, listening to our members and really providing them with resources that they need. I’ve heard Steve say this many times, they’re the ones who elected us, and so I feel like we should be out there for them as well.

Rocky Dhir:

What about initiatives relating to say high school students or middle school students who might be interested in a career in law? Do we have something like that?

Hisham Masri:

Of course. So a big part of my story is I got inspired to be a lawyer because I volunteered in a teen court program in my city of Plano, and it’s a program that I participated in as a teenager, as a high schooler and something that inspired me to practice law. And so during my year, and I still do it today, I go back and I judge the program as a teen judge. And so I want to focus on doing that and creating a program that would teach cities how they can create their own teen court programs in their cities. And it’s something provided by statute in state of Texas so any municipality could create it. And the other part of it is twila’s signature project for the year is the law student hub, which is generously being granted through a Texas Bar Foundation grant that has two key pieces to it. The first one is how do you get to law school? And they’ll talk things about admissions, financial aid, what is law school really about? And the second part of it is how to help current law students be successful once they get there. But I think the first piece can be particularly helpful for high school and undergraduate students who want to attend law school.

Rocky Dhir:

I think we should also have a program about how to avoid law school. It probably a mental health piece that we could have for the schools. I was also in teen court and I went on and became a lawyer, which just shows I’m a slow learner. It takes a lot of hard knocks. Now, you were also talking about another piece of your initiative, which is really aimed at getting to the young, I guess, law students and young lawyers. What’s that going to look like?

Hisham Masri:

So for the law schools, what I’d really like to do is visit all of our Texas law schools, preferably once a semester or twice a year. And the goal is to share two Wiley projects that we have for current law students. We have a deep repository of projects that are focused on law students in particular, and to share some of those projects and some of the benefits the state bar provides. And then for example, last year we visited UNT College of Law and presented on Civility for All. And so that was a very instructional program about the civility to practice and important for law students like, Hey, you can be a zealous advocate and also be kind and a good lawyer at the same time.

Rocky Dhir:

Not be a jerk. Don’t be a jerk.

Hisham Masri:

You think that’d be easy,

Rocky Dhir:

But then look at us, look at the three of us just sitting around here. Okay, so here’s a question for both of you and Steve, maybe we’ll start with you on this one. Let’s talk about getting involved in theBar associations, whether they’re local, whether they’re at the state bar level. It’s got to be hard. You’re trying to balance, try and balance family. You’ve got your career, you’re trying to make money, and then your bar work can really suck the time away. Why did you guys get involved in bar work? What got you into it and how did you manage to balance all that against the other demands that come up in your 24 hours every day? So Steve, let’s start with

Steve Benesh:

You. Oh no, it’s a great question. One thing I wanted to do before I answer that is mirror what Hisham said just a moment ago, and that is I look forward to a close working relationship between the two of us. We have called ourselves since we were elected President, president-elect, Batman and Robin. And since

Rocky Dhir:

One of you is the Batman case,

Steve Benesh:

Sometimes I’m Batman and Hisham is Robin and sometimes he’s Batman and I’m Robin. But it’s a hand ending. I

Rocky Dhir:

Get a feeling I’m going to be the Joker. I don’t

Steve Benesh:

The B of everybody’s existence. You are definitely the joker, but it always has been a close relationship. For example, Hisham and I have been talking about coordinating our visits to the law schools to go together. And so that close working relationship between our two organizations has always been really the hallmark of the way the state bar works cooperatively with the young lawyer organizations around the state. For me, I started out, my first 12 years were in Houston before we moved to the Hill Country 24 years ago. And so it began in the Houston Young Lawyers, but it was really participatory there. The first positions of leadership or service were after I moved to Austin and it began in a section of the Austin bar where I was asked to be a vice chair in the next year, the chair of that section, and then the year after that at the request of the then Austin Bar president to run for an at large directorship. So it’s one step at a time. You got

Rocky Dhir:

Snookered.

Steve Benesh:

It reminds me, I’m kind of a Lord of the Rings wonk. And it reminds me when Bilbo Baggins tells Frodo Baggins, be careful when you put your path on the feet. I’m sorry, put your feet on the path. You may never know the feet is more probably for some of us, when you put your feet on the path, you never know where the road will take you. And so I never aspired to any position. Every single position I’ve ever held in the state bar was one where somebody came to me and said, would you please do this? Including my current one, guilt Works. I got approached two years ago at the annual meeting by somebody who came to me and said, would you let me put your name in the hat? I had said no twice before, but it just felt right this time. And I said, okay. It’s just having a heart for service and the inability to say no, unfortunately. And also being enthusiastic about and feeling good about service to our profession where I don’t get to bill a client and it doesn’t advance a client’s interests. It advances the interests of our profession. And I like that.

Rocky Dhir:

I’ve had a similar thing. I remember a few years ago somebody came and asked me if I wouldn’t mind if they put my name in the trash. Alright, now Hisham. What was your origin story to getting

Hisham Masri:

To this point? My start with TYLA and really the state bar of Texas is a little ironic in that I didn’t even know it existed and I’ll get there. I started with my bar service.

Rocky Dhir:

I paid annual dues and I didn’t know what it was for.

Hisham Masri:

I just paid money. It kind of is like that. I’m like, oh, it’s just the regulatory body pays for the license. And we moved on, but actually got started with my local affiliate, the DAYL that I Association of Young Lawyers and was very involved. And as a first generation lawyer who didn’t really know any lawyers as a son of immigrants, I just wanted to get involved. I felt like that was a community that I could find other like-minded individuals. And I think Bar Service tends to attract a lot of first generation lawyers. Fell in love with the committee work. We

Rocky Dhir:

Don’t know any better. Okay, that’s right. If you’ve got other lawyers in the family, just stay away from those people. They will suck you in.

Hisham Masri:

And so that’s where I got started. And then at one point a friend of mine told me, Hey, would you be interested in running for the a young lawyers division district representative position for North Texas, which has a seat on the DA OI board as a liaison. And what I didn’t know at the time also has a liaison seat to the TYLA board. So I get it’s an uncontested position, I get that position.

Rocky Dhir:

Nobody else wanted it.

Hisham Masri:

Clearly. I should have known at that time. And then I get emails from the current TYLA leadership like, Hey, we’re looking forward to seeing you, a new director’s orientation, and we look forward to seeing you at the annual meeting. And I’m like, what is the annual meeting?

Steve Benesh:

How often does it mean?

Rocky Dhir:

Right?

Hisham Masri:

And so I show up and fall in love with the organization. It is very similar to Steve. It’s usually you don’t want the guy who says, I want the job. So it was a lot of folks who believed in me and said, would you be interested in being in leadership? We see you as a leader and see a future with you in the state bar. So after now I’ve been on the TYLA board now for about five years. There have been a ton of different roles and I’ve loved my

Rocky Dhir:

Experience. So neither one of you did this for the money. I can’t believe that I’m having a hard time believing either one of you saying this.

Hisham Masri:

And I think that’s the other question you asked us is that how do you balance that pendulum between work life and state bar? And I don’t know that it is a balance ever on any of those categories. There are times where life is very busy. If you are getting married, having kids, your kids are hitting milestones, your life’s going to take up the majority of your time.,

Rocky Dhir:

Hisham doesn’t even know where his house is anymore. The family’s moved on.

Hisham Masri:

I’ve got a one in 3-year-old at home and they keep us plenty busy. I sure. And then the other part of it is there are times where work is very busy. You’ve got a motion for summary judgment. You have a trial arbitration coming up, and that’s going to take the majority of your time. And I view the same way with state bar. I think this is important and what we do and who we serve and why we do it are important. So you make the time for it. And I think we can make a difference in theBar.

Steve Benesh:

And I mirror what Hisham just said, and that is that for those of us who are married and have children and serve theBar, it’s a cooperative decision. My wife Jennifer and I always say our time is community property, which means we invest it. Each of us invest our time in.

Rocky Dhir:

You’ve communication your wife with the legalisms. Oh my God.

Steve Benesh:

Oh my God. I mean, but my wife was a bigger deal in theBar before I was, she just rolled off last year as the president of the American Lawyer’s Auxiliary, the spousal organization that’s affiliated with the A. Oh, so she’s

Rocky Dhir:

A lawyer too?

Steve Benesh:

No, the spousal.

Rocky Dhir:

Oh, the spousal auxiliary.

Steve Benesh:

She’s a Pharmacist. Oh, okay. But she is as invested in my service to the Bar as I am.

Rocky Dhir:

I like her better. I mean, I’ve met both of you. I

Steve Benesh:

Like her better too.

Rocky Dhir:

I do too. You married up.

Steve Benesh:

Everyone does. Everyone likes Her better.

Hisham Masri:

Always have that similarity. Most people prefer my wife as well.

Rocky Dhir:

That’s why you haven’t introduced me to her.

Hisham Masri:

I should

Rocky Dhir:

Say all. That’s why he hasn’t introduced me to her yet. He’s like, no, no, no. At least one person. There’s one person who thinks I’m better, who he doesn’t know better. So how do you balance all this, Steve?

Steve Benesh:

Well, by the combination of communication and negotiation, when I say and for the thing she’s involved in, she has so many irons in the fire as well. Some law related, some community and civic related. We say, Hey, this is this thing I’ve been asked to do. Here’s how often my time will be called upon. Here’s what it entails. What do you think? If it gets you

Rocky Dhir:

Out of the house, I’m all in.

Steve Benesh:

Well, we’re empty nesters. That’s not a problem. But truly, I’ve never done anything, nor has Jennifer ever done anything where the other one of us said, I don’t know. I don’t know about that. But no surprises and full disclosure and advance mutual consent. Like I say, our time is community property. Now

Rocky Dhir:

Let’s ask a question to each of you that in your roles as leaders, a lot of changes going on in the legal profession in the world. So Hasham, we’ll start with you on this one and then we’ll move to Steve. This will be our final question and then we’ll let you guys get on to leading theBar for the next year. But what do you think the future holds for the legal profession? What’s it going to look like, say 50 years from now, say 10 30, 50 years from now? What do you think is going to happen to this profession with everything that’s going on? So Hisham, we’ll start with you.

Hisham Masri:

Yeah, that’s difficult. And I think there’s a reason for that is that if we even look back 50 years looking at the profession in the seventies, it looks very different. I don’t know that anybody expected computers or technology to change the landscape. The one thing that has kind of remained is that lawyers are still advocating for their clients. And there is still comradery in the profession. And I think that those things will continue to happen. Maybe the way we do things day to day may change, but the relationships will continue to be important. And being connected and being engaged with the profession itself, I think is going to still stay important. But this is one of the oldest professions in the world. And I don’t know that the future of the profession in the next 50 years will really change that. I think maybe what we do change, but I think the people will stay the same. Hopefully I’ll be around, I’ll be going to the 50 year lawyer celebration at that point. But I think that the relationships are probably what stays the same.

Rocky Dhir:

Steve, what about you?

Steve Benesh:

Well, let’s put things in perspective. When I started practicing law 37 years ago, there was no internet. There were no PCs on attorney’s desktops. There were no tablets. There were no cell phones, there was no voicemail, there was no email. They were

Rocky Dhir:

Dictaphones.

Steve Benesh:

They were dictaphones. I still have mine, but as a relic now. But are we a different profession than we were back then? No. Because the tools, the technology we use are not what define us as we are as a profession. We are a profession opposed to a industry or as a business because of what we profess and what we profess is mutual respect, civility, and professionalism. And as long as we remain committed to that, the tools can change. What’s it going to look like in 50 years? Well, we’ve fallen in love with remote video technology, and that’s going to affect the way that we communicate with the court and with each other. And AI may fundamentally change the structure of law firms as work traditionally performed by attorneys is performed by a computer program. And that’s a whole nother discussion. But again, looking into the future, so long as we remain true to what we profess and professionalism and courtesy and civil discourse, we will remain the profession that attracted us to it in the first place.

Rocky Dhir:

And I’m sure in 50 years from now when they say, what are the tools of the profession, they’re going to have my picture. He is a tool of the profession. Well, that is all the time we have for this installment of the State Bar of Texas podcast. I want to thank our leaders for this year, Steve Benish and Hisham Masri. Thank you for having us. Yes, absolutely. Appreciate it. Thank you for your service to theBar. Of course. And of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t. Thank you, our listeners for tuning in. If you like what you heard, please rate and review us wherever you get your podcast. Until next time, I’m Rocky. Thanks for listening.

Continue Reading