Dear CALL members,

Thank you very much for an amazing year as your President. It has been an honor and a joy.  I mean that sincerely. For my final letter, I’d like to share with all of you the remarks that I gave at the last Business Meeting on May 10, 2018:

Not many of you know that we have a strategic planning committee mapping the future of CALL. Jean Wenger, chair of the committee, will tell you later how you can be a part of mapping that future. As part of that process, the committee wrote a new mission statement for CALL. It is: “CALL supports legal information professionals through advocacy, education, and engagement.” As we look back on this year, we can see how we have lived up to this mission statement and done amazing things.

CALL supports legal information professionals. We gave out over $5,000 in grants to our members to attend conferences and programs. Placement and Recruitment posted 17 jobs.

CALL supports legal information professionals through advocacy.  Government Relations empowered us to be advocates, especially around net neutrality. CALL worked to advocate for our members in the profession.  Lindsey Carpino led the Professional Development Task Force. The group worked on ideas to encourage the professional development of our membership beyond CALL in supporting writing opportunities, helping membership submit program proposals, and promoting our membership’s involvement in AALL and other legal organizations. Next year’s Mentorship and Leadership committee will carry forward that work.

CALL supports legal information professionals through education. We had incredible programs from Continuing Education this year. We had multiple webinars. Our webinar on Illinois legislative history was attended by over 40 members. We had a roundtable on current awareness where we got to hear from the mastermind behind the AALL KnowItAALL newsletter. The same speakers who do AALL’s Leadership Conference held a program for our members. Beyond continuing education programs, the CALL Bulletin educated our members with articles on topics like blockchain technology and leadership.

CALL supports legal information professionals through engagement. We engaged with our community through our generous community service efforts. We raised over $1100 dollars this year. We came out to show the Chicago legal community who we are at Race Judicata and volunteered our time to pack food for the Greater Chicago Food Depository at their warehouse. We took the opportunity to engage with our colleagues and network at four successful business meetings.

We are truly the sum of our incredible members and we cannot do this without your work.  I thank you.