Remarks of Attorney Kimberly Knox
Bar Admission Ceremony
November 8, 2013
Good afternoon, Your Honors, fellow attorneys, family and friends.
On behalf of the Connecticut Bar Association, the metro, specialty and
affinity bars who have joined us today, we congratulate you on your
admission to the bar.
As you embark on this new chapter of your life, you are not alone, rather
you have joined a community of professionals. Within that community you will
grow and develop your reputation as an attorney based upon your good
character and integrity. As a professional that means so much
more than a job.
The bar associations represented today offer you the opportunity for
professional development, for networking, and for making that difference in
your worlds. For example, last year, the Young Lawyers, the largest section
in the CBA, launched a million dollar pro bono service campaign. In
just three months, they provided double that amount, offering in excess of 2
million dollars of pro bono service. Not only did these lawyers meet a
societal need, a reward in itself, they did it together, forging personal
relationships and mutual respect that transcends the project itself, and
they built long term relationships amongst themselves.
As a newly admitted lawyer, my participation in the Young Lawyers Section
contributed significantly to my professional and personal life. Since
passing the bar, I have become a partner in private practice, married and
raised three children, and my professional colleagues celebrated these
occasions with me as I celebrated theirs. There was always room in my
life for the bar association. If you are to be competent, your legal
education will never cease, and the professional development offered by the
bar associations makes that easy. If you are to resolve litigation cases or
negotiate business contracts most beneficially for your clients, you will do
so if you have the respect of opposing counsel, and your networking
relationships within the bar association will allow you to earn that
reputation and respect. And if you want to find personal satisfaction in
being a lawyer beyond financial compensation, the opportunities to help
advance justice, contribute to other communities in need, and to be part of
what it means to be a lawyer today and tomorrow, is all happening in the bar
associations.
Please join the CBA and the sponsoring bar associations for a reception
after this event. This year we want to give you a head start in your legal
career by offering free membership with the CBA through June 30, 2014.
Also, I invite you to join the CBA for a Pro Bono and Newly Admitted
Reception on November 19th at the Mark Twain Museum in Hartford.
Once again, I congratulate and welcome you to the bar; your success is the
profession’s success and we are to help. In the words of Eleanor Roosevelt:
"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."
The future belongs to you. I believe in you.
Photos of the Event |
Remarks
of Justice Peter T. Zarella