Blogs

Annual Meeting kicks-off with a look at opiate litigation and hot legal topics

By NJSBA Staff posted 05-16-2018 05:15 PM

  

Thousands of lawyers, judges, law clerks came to Atlantic City for the NJSBA's Annual Meeting and Convention. The three-day event is the largest annual gathering of the legal community. The day featured a Board of Trustees meeting, awards ceremony, a discussion on the scourge of opiates.

RFK JR. TELLS OF 'LESSONS LEARNED' FROM HIS FAMILY
 
In a keynote address that included history lessons, family stories and adventures in civil disobedience, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reflected on a lifetime growing up as part of his famous family at the Wednesday morning opening business session of the New Jersey State Bar Association Annual Meeting and Convention.  

Kennedy, an environmental attorney, author and activist told the gathering that he wrote his most recent book, “American Values: Lessons I Learned From My Family,” for two audiences: the countless people who have been asking him for decades what it was like to grow up a Kennedy in the 1960s; and his own children and the 105 cousins who are the great-grandchildren of Joseph and Rose Kennedy. 

“I wanted to write a reminder of how our family legacy fits into the American experience,” he said.

He told stories of family parties with guest lists that included Supreme Court justices, Jonathan Winters and the first man to climb Mount Everest. He talked about the relationship between his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, and Soviet leader Nikita Kruschev; the Kennedy family-funded Kenyan airlift, which brought 200 Kenyans to America to study (including the father of future President Barack Obama); and seeing the diverse cross-section of America that came out to mourn his father as the family traveled to Washington D.C. after his assassination.

He ended with an appeal to the crowd to fight the “corrosive forces eating away at our democratic institution.” It’s easy to appeal to people’s fears and differences, he noted. “What my father and my uncle tried to do is more difficult,” he said. “To ask people to do something heroic with their lives and to transcend self-interest.”

PANEL EXAMINES ROOTS, SOLUTIONS TO AMERICA’S OPIOID EPIDEMIC
 
The United States is in the middle of the worst drug epidemic in its history and the solution needs to be a coordinated approach that incorporates prevention, treatment and law enforcement, said a panel of experts assembled for the session “Inside the Opium (Legal) Wars.” Incoming NJSBA President John E. Keefe moderated the session.
 
Andrew Kolodny, Co-Director of Opioid Policy Research at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University, reviewed the history of opioid addiction related deaths, noting how the numbers have steadily risen since 1996. “This is not an epidemic of abuse, it’s an epidemic of addiction,” Kolodny said. “There is no other country on earth that prescribes opioids as much as we do.”
 
Ellen Relkin, who is on the executive committee of mass tort lawyers in Federal Multi-District Litigation over opioids, outlined a number of cases under way in New Jersey and across the country against manufacturers, distributers, and in some cases, retailers, of opioids. They are, she said, “compelling” cases and some of the most complicated cases she’s come across during her career focused on medical device and pharmaceutical product liability. “It’s a huge team working to get these cases ready.” 
 
New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal, who created an office within the Office of the Attorney General devoted to fighting the opioid addiction crisis in February, noted over 2,000 opioid-related overdose deaths in 2016, the most recent year for which data is available. “This is the issue shaping our world,” he said. “This is an epidemic that touches nearly everyone.”
 
Grewal urged attendees to visit the state website njcares.gov, which features a repository of data and public information on opioid addiction in New Jersey. He also talked about “Operation Helping Hand,” where law enforcement has teamed with health professionals to get users options for treatment.

BRAMNICK SAYS IF YOU WANT PEOPLE TO LIKE YOU, JUST LISTEN

Assemblyman Jon Bramnick uses his experience building a law firm, in the Legislature and also as a stand-up comic to be successful. In the seminar, “Why People and Jurors Don’t Like You,” he said the vast majority of the time, people find out about you because someone said something nice about you. When he hires attorneys at his firm, he seeks candidates who are smart and nice. 
"Hire giving, generous people, and you greatly reduce your risk of burnout," he said. And the best tip of all: Just listen. 
 
TIPS FOR WOMEN ATTORNEYS SEEKING LEADERSHIP ROLES 

Honesty, reliability and integrity are keys to building a professional reputation that will get a woman launched into a leadership position, a panel of some of the state's top women attorneys said. 
 
"Remember your reputation is built, starting from the first day of practicing to the last day of practice and remember it can get messed up at any time," said panelist and NJSBA Trustee Christine A. Amalfe. 
 
A few other tips from the panel included: Update social media profiles with new skills and accomplishments as they happen; think strategically and take credit where it is deserved; seek out mentors at different career stages who will teach you and will promote you; and learn to accept praise.
 
"Do a good job and keep in touch with the people you did a good job with or for," offered Grace Park, the former Union County Prosecutor who is now with PSEG. 
 
BOARD OF TRUSTEES OFFERS GREETINGS, EXTENDS FOND FAREWELL

The NJSBA’s Board of Trustees convened for a business meeting at the start of the convention to bode farewell to outgoing trustees and welcome its newest members.
 
It also featured a farewell to Thomas H. Prol, who served as president 2016-2017.
 
“He exemplifies courage… He has made a positive impact on the law and our communities,” said NJSBA 2017-2018 President Robert B. Hille.
 
Prol called the NJSBA his professional home.
 
“We’ve got a great, awesome organization,” Prol said. “Our fingerprints are all over the law books as you look through the history of New Jersey… to compel us toward that more perfect union the constitution commands of us.”

The new trustees are:

  • David Edelberg, who is the Bergen County trustee;
  • Justin R. White, who is the Cumberland County trustee;
  • William C. Popjoy III, who is the Gloucester County trustee;
  • James M. Newman, who is the Monmouth County trustee;
  • Richard F. Klineburger III, who is the Salem County trustee;
  • Roger Lai, who is an at-large trustee;
  • Dana Van Leuven, who is a Young Lawyers Division trustee; and
  • Former NJSBA President Susan A. Feeney, who is the New Jersey State Bar Foundation’s trustee.
GENERAL COUNCIL 

General Council convened a meeting at the Atlantic City gathering to consider resolutions and discuss the impact of immigration changes.

Bar leaders learned that one out of every 10 clients has an immigration issue and may not even know it, as such issues permeate all practice areas and impact business clients, as well as individuals. 
 
HELPING HANDS 

Even before the Annual Meeting started, the association's Diversity Committee and Leadership Academy each held community service events on Tuesday in Atlantic City. 
 
The Leadership Academy prepared and served food and sorted donations at the Atlantic City Rescue Mission. A community service project was part of the year-long curriculum for the fellows. 
 
Members of the Diversity Committee spent the evening at the Boys and Girls Club of Atlantic County discussing the constitution and its role in today's society. The attorney volunteers and students debated the merits of free speech case that involved a member of the military.   

Permalink