Bar Crawl – 10/26/12

Bar Crawl highlights bar association news around the state. Indiana Lawyer strives to include bar association news and trends in its regular stories, and we would like to include more news from specialty and county bars. If you’d like to submit an update about your bar association or a photo from an event your bar association has hosted, or if you have questions about having your bar association news included in the newspaper, please send it to Marilyn Odendahl at [email protected], along with contact information for any follow-up questions at least two weeks prior to the issue date.

MCBA looking for officersto serve association

The Marion County Bar Association is taking nominations for executive officers.

Members may nominate themselves or another person for the positions of president, president elect, vice president, recording secretary, corresponding secretary and treasurer as well as for the 17 board of director seats. Nominators are asked to include the email address and telephone number of the person nominated.

Nominations are due by 5 p.m. Nov. 7 and should be emailed to Sandy Bryant at [email protected], Pamela Taylor-Grant at [email protected] and TaKeena Thompson at [email protected]. The emails should include a description of the nominee’s background and positions held in any other organizations.

All nominees must make a brief presentation at MCBA’s general meeting on Nov. 14. The election will be Dec. 7.

Only those members who have paid their association dues for 2012 are eligible to vote, and nominees must pay dues for 2013 by the December election.

State bar gives thumbs upto judges seeking retention

Members of the Indiana State Bar Association have overwhelmingly approved the retention of the two Indiana Supreme Court justices on the ballot this November.

In the ISBA’s 2012 Judicial Retention Poll, members voted to retain Justices Robert Rucker and Steven David. Of the ballots cast, Rucker received “yes” votes from 87.8 percent of those responding and David received 81 percent.

ISBA members also approved retention of the four Indiana Court of Appeals judges on the ballot in the Nov. 6 election. Judge John Baker got “yes” votes from 83.6 percent of respondents; Judge Nancy Vaidik, 86.4 percent; Judge Paul Mathias, 88.9 percent; Judge Michael P. Barnes, 87.3 percent.

ISBA members were electronically surveyed four times from Sept. 17 through Oct. 12. Nearly 1,400 cast ballots of the 9,342 polled.

Evansville bar splits onjudicial recommendations

Members of the Evansville Bar Association have recommended five of the candidates running for judicial office in Vanderburgh County but voted against recommending two other candidates.

Of the 396 ballots that were distributed to Vanderburgh County resident EBA members, 186 responded.

A majority of the respondents recommended Superior Court Judges David D. Kiely, Robert (Jeff) Tornatta, Wayne S. Trockman, Mary Margaret (Maggie) Lloyd and Brett J. Neimeier for judicial office. They did not recommend Keith M. Wallace and Barry Blackard, who are not sitting judges.

EBA members rated the judges in such areas as legal experience, temperament for judicial office and ability to be impartial and objective.

Pair of Lake County judgesget bar recommendation

Lake County Bar Association members have recommended the two Superior judges up for retention this year be retained.

Responding to a survey by the LCBA, the attorneys rated Judge Salvador Vasquez of the civil division as well qualified and Judge Jesse M. Villalpando of the criminal division as qualified.

The survey asked attorneys to rate judges in the areas of competence, temperament and character. Open to 979 lawyers in Lake County, the survey garnered 265 responses.•