2022 Annual Report
Executive Director’s Message
Jacqueline Mullenger, Acting Executive Director
Reflecting on the last year it has been a year of change and opportunity for the Society.
Despite lingering COVID-19 issues, Society staff have continued to adapt while fulfilling our public interest mandate. We’ve focused greatly on member support and resources as we introduced new webinars, education sessions, educational blogs, and a new tool to search for resources on the nsbs.org website. I want to take this opportunity to reflect on a few of these supports and resources.
Webinars
Over the summer of 2021, we hosted webinars focused on practice topics identified by our Legal Services Support team.
The Anti-Money Laundering/Client ID and Verification webinar discussed the Society’s cash transactions, client identification and verification Regulations and the File Retention and Destruction webinar discussed the easiest path to file retention and destruction. We received positive feedback from these sessions that saw over 180 registrants.
“The seminar was very helpful. I particularly appreciated the many ways the presenters made it concrete and applicable”
Over 200 members attended both the morning and afternoon education sessions of the annual LIANS/NSBS Solo and Small Firm Conference held in November 2021. The conference included sessions focused on alternative fee models, electronic banking, professional ethics hot topics, working in virtual courts, representative capacity, cloud computing and more.
“I really enjoyed this event. This was my first Solo and Small Firm Conference and I found a lot of the information interesting and useful”
We’ve shared the replay of these webinars and conference sessions on our website and plan to continue offering webinars on key topics throughout the year to come. I encourage you to connect with our Legal Services Support team if you have ideas or thoughts on future webinars at lss@nsbs.org.
Equity Education Sessions
In August, our Equity and Access team hosted our annual event during Halifax Pride week. This year we collaborated with The Youth Project as they presented the session ‘Creating Affirming Spaces for the 2SLGBTQIA+ Community’ to members. This session offered participants a framework and tangible, actionable items to create a space and service provision that is safe, inclusive, and affirming for 2SLGBTQIA+ people. We look forward to Pride 2022 and hope to walk in the parade with our CBA-NS colleagues again this summer!
Our TRC Working Group (TRCWG) organized a session with lawyer and podcast host, Myrna McCallum titled ‘Trauma-Informed Lawyering: The Duty to Do Better in the Era of Truth & Reconciliation.’ We were extremely lucky that Myrna joined us to host a session on trauma-informed lawyering for the second year in a row. This year’s session, which over 200 members attended, reflected on the content from last year and dove deeper into the topic of trauma-informed lawyering. A special thank you to the TRCWG for organizing this impactful session.
Practice Resource Search
Our Legal Services Support, Equity and Access and Communications teams launched a new search tool, our Practice Resource Search, on the nsbs.org website to help members find websites, articles, webinars, podcasts, videos and more on topics from law firm management to equity and cultural competence.
Members can browse through resources by categories or use the search tool to bring up relevant articles based on their search terms. To date, the search tool contains 47 categories, over 200 resources and it has been used for over 600 resource searches.
We plan to continue to grow this resource hub in the year to come and welcome any feedback on potential resources or topics to highlight.
Educational Blogs
We launched our first blog series, Equity in Action, focused on exploring ways to make your legal workplace more equitable. In addition to featuring educational equity-related blog posts, we presented real-life scenarios that ask the question “what would you do?” and provided practical suggestions to improve equity in your workplace.
You’re encouraged to review the complete blog series and provide any comments or questions by commenting below the blog posts or by connecting with our Equity and Access team at equity@nsbs.org.
Whether you’re opening your practice, looking for practice guidance, succession planning, or seeking to understand your professional and ethical obligations, our Legal Services Support (LSS) is here to assist you. LSS recently rolled out educational blogs to support members focused on cloud computing, introducing our new cloud computing checklists and highlighting how this group can support you in your practice. Stay tuned as this group introduces new blog posts on a variety of topics.
I want to take this opportunity to thank Executive, Council, volunteers and everyone who works with us. I especially want to thank the staff of the Society who are a dedicated group of individuals who work hard every day and who have adapted to much change over the last number of years. Thank you all, it takes a village to keep us on track and moving forward.
Lastly, before moving into the next year, I want to remind members that, as always, we welcome your feedback, insight, and reflections. I encourage you to connect with me at jmullenger@nsbs.org.
Jacqueline Mullenger
Acting Executive Director