The New Scribes Officers and Board

Scribes -- The American Society of Legal Writers -- held its annual meeting last Friday at the Union League Club in Chicago.  As far as we know, it was the largest Scribes luncheon that the organization ever held.  The speaker was Judge Diane Wood of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.  Book and brief-writing awards were presented, and a special lifetime achievement award was given to U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul Stevens (who accepted in a video presentation).

At the end of the meeting, the Scribes business meeting was held and the following officers and directors were elected.

The new Scribes President is Darby Dickerson, author of the ALWD Citation Manual and Dean at Texas Tech University School of Law in Lubbock. (Dean Dickerson is on the left in the photo on the right.)  

Dean Steve Smith of California Western School of Law in San Diego, who finished his term as President, is now the immediate Past President of Scribes.

The previous Treasurer, Judge Michael B. Hyman, was elected as Vice President of Scribes.  (Judge Hyman is also a past president of the Chicago Bar Association.)

Mark Wojcik (hey, that's me!), a Professor at The John Marshall Law School in Chicago and a current board member of Scribes, was elected as Treasurer of Scribes.

The current secretary, John R. Wierzbicki of Thomson Reuters, was elected for another term as Secretary of Scribes.

Three board members were re-elected to three-year terms ending in 2015.  They are:

• Beth D. Cohen.  She is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Director of the Legal Research and Writing Program at Western New England University School of Law in Springfield, Massachusetts)
• Charles Dewey Cole, Jr., He is a distinguished trial and appellate lawyer in New York.
• Christopher G. Wren.  He is an Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Appeals Unit at the Wisconsin Department of Justice.  

Raymond P. Ward was elected to fill out my unexpired board term (which runs until August 2014) as a board member at large.

Other members serving on the Scribes Board include Bryan A. Garner (editor of Black's Law Dictionary), Judge Mark Painter, Ann Taylor Schwing of California, Professor Richard Wydick (author of Plain English for Lawyers)

The Executive Director of Scribes is Norman Plate of the Thomas M. Cooley Law School, an institution that has been a longstanding supporter of Scribes.

 The photo above is of me, Joe Kimble (who serves as Editor of the Scribes Journal), and Chris Wren.  We'll have some photos from the event soon. Mark E. Wojcik (the new Treasurer of Scribes!)