By Sara Witman
Research Librarian
Gordon, Feinblatt, Rothman, Hoffberger & Hollander

I think it’s a safe bet that I’m not exaggerating when I say that LLAM has the greatest membership of any association ever.

I know I don’t have to prove it to you, but let me explain anyway.

First, our Board members, including the newly-appointed Tonya Baroudi who is just off a long stint as the fantastic chair of the Placement Committee, recently passed new policies for our website — specifically, a Web Copyright Statement and Release as well as Rules and Conditions for our listserv users. These policies are available on the LLAM website. Both are fairly basic and uncontroversial, but I encourage you to read them over — particularly the listserv rules — and give me any opinions or issues you may have about them.

Many thanks to Harvey Morrell for his help with the listserv and to our new webmaster Jenny Rensler. Jenny has cleaned up the site recently, changing some colors and redesigning the navigation bar. It looks fantastic, and we are lucky to have her!

I am particularly lucky to have a fantastic Vice President on board. Mary Jo Lazun has a lot of great programs already planned for us. She will be putting together informal morning “LLAM & Lattes” coffee talks, as well as more substantial educational programs, such as a program on the Appellate Process and one on Administrative Law.

Additionally, this is a Legal Research Institute (LRI) year and Mary Jo has some exciting and novel ideas for the March event. (Spoiler alert:  Think “legal research best practices” + fun.)  If you are interested in getting involved with the LRI planning committee (and you are), contact either me or Mary Jo and we’ll hook you up.

Who could have missed our new Placement Committee chair Mary Rice? The year is just gearing up, and her regular emails have already kept us up-to-date with the law librarian market place this summer. Thank you, Mary!

I can’t possibly mention everyone in one message and I’ll definitely miss some of the super members, but while I’m on a roll, let me thank the tireless work of Membership Committee chair Pat Behles, the detail-oriented assistance of Treasurer Bijal Shah, and the delightful help of our Secretary Thea Warner. I can’t wait for another year of the awesome LLAM eNews. (Kirstin Nelson, you rock!) And, of course, the Past President Susan Herrick continues to be a wonderful source of guidance and mentoring for me.

LLAM is made up of interesting and active members who care about the profession and each other. That is why I got involved and I why I’m genuinely excited about the coming year.

If you want to get more involved, but aren’t sure how, send me an email at switman@gfrlaw.com.