IndyBar: Duncan Installed as 2024 President

On Jan. 25, the Indianapolis Bar Association celebrated the installation of its 145th president, David J. Duncan. The following is the address he gave to the nearly 200 members, family and friends in attendance.

Good morning. My name is Dave Duncan, and I am honored to serve as your IndyBar president for 2024.

I would like to thank my wife, Sarah, and children, Adeline and Grant, who are with us here today. The joy you give me every day is the best part of my life, and I could not do what I do without your unconditional love and support. Thank you.

I would also like to thank my brother, Greg Duncan, and Judge Heather Welch for introducing me and administering the oath for me this morning. Thank you both for agreeing to do this again. I know if feels like déjà vu, but I promise the second time’s a charm. I would also like to congratulate Judge Welch on her impending retirement. You’ve had a very successful career, and I hope you have a well-deserved retirement.

Finally, I would like to thank the returning and new members of the IndyBar Board of Directors and those who have volunteered to serve as a vice president or chair of a section or division. Your leadership is critically important to our success this coming year and I look forward to serving with you.

I am in-house counsel at Scannell Properties, a real estate development company focusing on industrial warehouse development. I’ve been with Scannell for just over eight years now. I would like to recognize the members of the Scannell legal team here with us today. Our team is a small in-house law firm consisting of six attorneys, six paralegals and two legal assistants. You guys are the best at what you do, and I love working with each of you.

I could not be more honored than to serve as the president of IndyBar. I have been involved in IndyBar since graduating law school in 2004. My mentors at the first law firm I worked at, Lante Earnest and Greg Hahn, asked me to attend a few IndyBar events when I was a law clerk, and I’ve been a bar junkie ever since.

I’ve always been what I consider a reluctant leader. It is hard for me to imagine myself as a leader because I just don’t think I’m as dedicated as Rebecca Geyer, as funny as James Bell, as well spoken as Jim Voyles, as passionate as Jimmie McMillian or as charismatic as Tom Bernard. So, it’s always been a challenge for me to believe that others would pay attention and follow my lead. In thinking about my year ahead, and discussing it with Julie, something Julie said resonated with me and brought things into focus.

The path that brought me to serve as your IndyBar president makes me uniquely representative of the experiences of a significant cross-section of IndyBar membership.

I graduated from law school in 2004, so I’m going on 20 years of practice.

I practiced law at Tabbert Hahn Earnest & Weddle for the first 6 years of my career. Tabbert Hahn was a small-to-medium-sized law firm consisting of 15-25 attorneys during my time there. I was the only transaction associate at Tabbert Hahn, which meant that anything not involving litigation landed on my desk. This exposed me to a wide array of unique and novel legal issues involving Indiana law. Beyond basic real estate and business transactions, I had the opportunity to become an expert on Indian burial mounds, boat pier disputes and Indiana gaming licensure.

At the time, I was naive enough to believe that I would practice at Tabbert Hahn my entire legal career, and that was my goal. In 2010, Tabbert Hahn merged into Bose McKinney & Evans, and I practiced at Bose McKinney for the next six years. Early in my career, I believed I would never want to work at a large law firm. This was due mostly to seeing the demands on my older brother, Greg, in practicing at Bingham McHale. As it turns out, working for a larger firm was one of the best things that could have happened to me at that point in my career.

I am a graduate of the IndyBar Bar Leader Series – Class VI. My experience in the Bar Leader Series was instrumental as a springboard to my leadership not only in IndyBar but in other roles in the community outside the practice of law.

In 2010, I joined the Indianapolis Bar Foundation Board and started working my way up the ranks in leadership. I chaired the Golf Committee, putting on the Lawyer Links for a few years, volunteered on the Gala Committee and served as treasurer of the foundation. In 2014, I served as the president of the IndyBar Foundation, the youngest ever to serve as president up to that point, but I think Adam Christensen has me beat on that now.

In 2015, I left Bose McKinney and went in-house with Scannell Properties to help grow the legal group.

My experiences as an attorney in Indianapolis have been representative of a good cross-section of the approximately 15,500 attorneys practicing in Indiana.

• Roughly half (8,000) of those attorneys practice in Marion County and the donut counties.

• Approximately 4,100 Indiana attorneys are members of IndyBar.

• 41% of IndyBar members have 10-plus years of practice.

• 30% of IndyBar members are in small-to-medium-sized firms.

• 18% of IndyBar members are in large law firms.

• 11% of IndyBar members are in-house counsel.

• Over 450 IndyBar members have participated in the Bar Leader Series in 20 years

• Four of the past six past IndyBar presidents have been graduates of the Bar Leader Series.

In summary, I estimate that my experience correlates with at least two-thirds of the attorneys practicing in central Indiana, and I think that makes me uniquely situated to represent your interest as IndyBar works to address the challenges and opportunities facing our practice.

IndyBar and the practice of law have changed significantly in the 20 some years that I’ve been around. This is not surprising, as we all know change is inevitable. A common refrain of every generation is that it seems like that pace of change continues to accelerate, and our generation is certainly no exception. We’ve lived through the proliferation of the personal computer and the internet, the efficiencies brought about by email and the agony of being connected 24/7/365, a once-in-a-lifetime global financial calamity, a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic, and numerous events of political and social unrest. Still, we all know that more change is yet to come. How is AI going to affect the practice of law and the legal needs of our clients and community? Will lawyers ever return to the office? If not, how will the next generation of lawyers learn all the lessons most of us learned from being in the office and available for those random assignments and interactions that only come about in person? How can we help our law firms protect themselves against the growing risk of sophisticated cybersecurity threats? What are we going to do to address the lawyer shortage facing our legal community in Indiana?

It’s not the change that has defined IndyBar, but how IndyBar has adapted and evolved that has made our association recognized on a national level as one of the best bar associations. I’ve been to nearly a dozen national bar conferences during my leadership. For those who are not aware, the Indianapolis Bar Association, and Julie Armstrong in particular, are celebrated by other leaders across the country as one of the most innovative and successful bar associations.

The IndyBar staff is the best bar staff in the country. The level of service provided to our members and the number of events held annually with the size of staff that we have is truly remarkable. I would like us all to recognize Julie and her team with a round of applause.

As good as this team is, they cannot do it alone. The biggest part of what makes IndyBar successful is each of you, its members.

What can you do to become more involved with IndyBar? That’s ultimately up to you. I suggest that you take an entrepreneurial approach to picking opportunities that you are interested in — opportunities that will advance your development as an attorney and enhance your practice in our legal community. Based on my 20 years of experience, I can offer the following advice:

• Show up. Being present is 50% of active participation. The other 50% is what you make of it, and much like everything else in life, you’ll get out of it what you put in.

• Invite others to attend. There is nothing more effective to get others involved than a personal ask. I would not be here today if Greg Hahn and Lante Earnest had not invited me to attend my first IndyBar meeting.

• Introduce yourself to new attendees at IndyBar events. Remember how you felt when you first started attending events and did not know many people. Try to help others get through those same feelings of discomfort so they come back and eventually become active members.

• Do something outside your comfort zone. Plan or present a CLE, take a leadership position in a section or division, or if you have any musical abilities, sign up to perform at IndyBar’s Got Talent, scheduled for Feb. 10 at the Vogue Theater in Broad Ripple.

• And whatever you do, do not say no to Julie Armstrong. If Julie is asking you to do something, I promise there is a good reason, and it will always lead to opportunities to work on interesting projects or issues for the betterment of our IndyBar.

2024 is going to be a great year. I look forward to serving with each of you in helping to shape IndyBar to better serve your individual needs.•