Patrick M. Kelly

Kelly's major accomplishment, he says, was getting elected as next year's president of the State Bar.

What he did to get there included taking a lead role in restructuring the bar's governing board and planning the bar's future. The overall goal was "to retool and reorient us toward public protection," he said.

Legislation last year required the bar to shrink the Board of Trustees from 23 members to 19 and to reduce the number of elected lawyers from 17 to six. The Legislature appoints two lawyer trustees and the Supreme Court names five.

The task of phasing in the changes fell to the trustees' planning, program development and budget committee, which Kelly chairs.

"There was a lot to do," he said. Bar staff, with the committee's supervision, "had to completely redo the election process" for new trustees. Because the changes in board membership are being phased in over three years, Kelly held a random drawing to pick which of the redrawn board districts would hold elections first.

Next came working with the state Supreme Court to design a system for it to select bar leaders for the first time. Kelly gives great credit to staff on that front, as well.

Several new trustees, along with Kelly, are set to take office Oct. 14.

Overall, he said, the process required "attitudinal changes" by bar leaders, the court and others.

Kelly also designed and guided the trustees' strategic planning retreat. The January meeting produced a list of 10 goals and 22 objectives for action, from enhancing continuing legal education to coordinating with local law enforcement agencies against lawyer wrongdoing.

"The thrust of all of this is the need to retool the legal profession to meet the needs of the public," Kelly said, at a time when the market for lawyers' services is shrinking. "There are not enough jobs for all the lawyers we've got."

Kelly said he based the State Bar retreat on the many other planning meetings he's attended for bar associations, community groups and his law firm. "I directed staff on what I wanted. ... Staff picked up on the themes," he said.

But the product of the meeting "was a real group effort" by the board and staff, he said.

Beyond his State Bar work, Kelly stayed busy as a litigator and western region managing partner for Wilson Elser. He settled a number of big cases over the year, including one for regular client Snow Summit Ski Corp., and also was lead counsel for one of the defendants in a major insurance coverage appeal.

He manages it all by being a good delegator. That way, he said, he only has "to make sure none of the balls get too close to the ground."

- DON J. DEBENEDICTIS