JANUARY 2025 | 63 THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL The Oklahoma Bar Foundation has conducted a survey to better identify and quantify legal needs here in Oklahoma. That survey should be released this year and will hopefully trigger conversations about possible solutions. Our Membership Engagement Committee is working on updates to brochures covering a variety of topics that are focused on the needs of the underserved, such as pro se representation, domestic law and landlord/tenant law, for example. Do we, as an association, need to begin encouraging children at the middle school level to focus on becoming attorneys in their hometowns? Do we need to reach out to local governments of underserved counties and try to collaborate on bringing more lawyers to these areas? What are your suggestions and thoughts regarding this very real issue? Please participate in conversations with your Board of Governors and each other and provide those practical suggestions to me. As the first lawyer on either side of my family, I take very seriously the honor and responsibility of serving as president of the association for 2025. Executive Director Janet Johnson and our staff are doing an outstanding job of helping me plan and coordinate activities and events for the association in 2025. I am hopeful 2025 will be a year without epic problems to distract us from the areas in which we have chosen to be involved and to serve. I look forward to working with you in our joint goal of preserving the rule of law and educating all who will listen regarding the importance of the rule of law. For your past and current plans of service, I thank you! If you are looking for new areas of service, please reach out to me, and we will find an area(s) for which your gifts and talents are a fit! From the President (continued from page 4) I look forward to working with you in our joint goal of preserving the rule of law and educating all who will listen regarding the importance of the rule of law.
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