IndyBar: 50-Year and 25-Year Practitioners: Come Help IndyBar Celebrate!

By Hon. Cynthia J. Ayers, Marion Superior Court and John C. Trimble, Lewis Wagner LLP
 

Trimble

Ayers

Every year, the Indianapolis Bar Association has the privilege to honor our members who have hit the 25- and 50-year marks in their career. This year is no exception, and we have had the fun task of helping organize and host the celebration.

Please plan to join us! This year’s shindig will be at the Woodstock Country Club on Thursday, May 10, from 5 to 7 p.m. We will have food and drink and each honoree will receive a mention and a gift.

We encourage firms to rally around their honorees and join them for the celebration. We also hope that our honorees will bring their families, their legal assistants and anyone else who has made it possible for them to persevere for so long.

For the 50-year honorees, we are collecting stories and memories, so if you have a particularly good one, please send it our way.

As we consider the significance of these long careers, it is worth remembering what was happening in 1968 when the 50-year members began practice. The Vietnam War was still raging. The Civil Rights Movement was gaining steam. Sadly, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated that year. Lawyers in 1968 had no fax, no computer, no internet, no cellphones, no cable TV and no e-filing. Typewriters were still in use.

Twenty-five years later in 1993, when our 25-year members began practice, the Cold War was ending. The Berlin Wall was coming down. The internet had recently been launched. Cellphones were primitive and were still called “car” phones. The fax machine had been introduced. The first World Trade Center bombing occurred. Super Nintendo was launched and “Jurassic Park” was the most popular movie of the year. E-filing was not even a dream.

 Fast forward to today. Our profession bears little resemblance to what it looked like 50 years ago or even 25 years ago. The fax machine is now obsolete. Most young lawyers have not seen or even heard of typewriters, and the technology we began with is now on the scrap heap. Nevertheless, these 50- and 25-year practitioners have changed with the times. Even the 50-year members are likely to walk in with a smartphone in their pockets.

This event is truly a showcase for our association of some of our finest lawyers. We hope that you will mark your calendar and come greet them, congratulate them and applaud them. The more the merrier!

#WillYouBeThere?

Visit indybar.org/events for registration and a list of this year’s honorees!•

Marion County Superior Court Judge Cynthia Ayers and Lewis Wagner partner John Trimble are past presidents of the Indianapolis Bar Association.