ITLA memberships promote community, growth

When she’s in a bind, Wabash attorney Emily Guenin-Hodson knows she can rely on her fellow Indiana Trial Lawyers Association members to be at her side in an instant.

“I have never had an experience where I called up an ITLA member that they didn’t drop everything to help me and point me in the right direction,” said Guenin-Hodson, ITLA president-elect and chair of the membership committee. “There is a really good sense of being willing to share information and provide guidance.”

Being present and providing needed services is vitally important in a community of lawyers, she noted.

Even though the ITLA mainly benefits attorneys in trial work, Guenin-Hodson said that the association also wants to help fill needs for attorneys practicing in other areas they might not be receiving.

“We found that one of those needs is the ability to connect with others and to get outside experiences and help,” she said. “A lot of our members are in firms that may have two or three other attorneys or a handful of people that handle their work.”

Harkening to her own experience, Guenin-Hodson said practicing with her father in Wabash means that easily connecting with or attending more centrally-located membership events can be challenging at times. However, she said she knows that she can call on other attorneys in the ITLA and tap into their shared wealth of experiences and knowledge.

A resource that has proven invaluable to her, Guenin-Hodson said, is the ITLA’s Listservs, which allows attorneys to network with colleagues via email or through the IndianaTrialLawyers.org site. List members can send messages via email and can also post messages online. The complete message archive, as well as including attachments, is available for searching and browsing.

Improvements in technology in recent years has also served members well, Guenin-Hodson said, catering to those who live in the far reaches of the state.

“Our membership is statewide and we have people practicing in almost every county,” she said. “Being part of ITLA allows me to contact other members in those counties and get their experiences in practicing in that court and in front of that judge, (so I can) give my client the best possible representation.”

Other avenues of benefit to members include the ITLA Amicus Committee and its various magazine publications which keep members updated on legal trends and case law updates.

A mentorship program for young members is also in the works, Guenin-Hodson said.

John McLaughlin, an Indianapolis personal injury lawyer with Parr Richey Frandsen Patterson Kruse LLP, has been a member of the ITLA for roughly a decade and is a regular member of the board of directors. McLaughlin said the opportunity for leadership roles and speaking engagements with his ITLA peers has been great for him as a member.

“It doesn’t matter what age level you are, to me it feels like an honor and it’s exciting to present to your peers,” McLaughlin said. “But most importantly, when you become a member you are by default getting this vast network of knowledge because its members are willing to share.”

He pointed to the Listservs as a sounding board for ITLA members, noting that if a question is asked about a procedure, case, fact pattern – you name it – instant responses will come flooding with great advice.

Without the many benefits of being a member to a lawyer association, McLaughlin said that certainly someone could be a wonderful attorney, but would miss out on opportunities to grow as a practitioner.

“To me, it just gives me a level of comfort that I am in the know and I know what’s going on in the practice area that I work in,” he said. “I’d feel left out and on the outside looking in if I wasn’t a member.”•