President's Corner

by Patricia C. Hannigan, Esquire

Calling all volunteers. Especially calling all those who, like myself, have been meaning to volunteer for another good cause and then experiencing instead the evaporation of time that seems repeatedly to characterize our frenetic lives.

I remain on the “domestic violence prevention” bandwagon. I have learned that the state’s Domestic Violence Coordinating Council (DVCC) has eight subcommittees, all in need of volunteers. More specifically, in need of volunteer lawyers. Our efforts to bring the Bar Association’“to the table”, to make the Bar Association and its members “players” in the domestic violence prevention struggle, are being welcomed with open arms and I urgently solicit your participation.

The subcommittees are: Children and Domestic Violence; Correction, Probation and Parole; Court Services and Procedures; Immigration; Law Enforcement; Legislative Drafting and Review (we have especially been asked to help in this area); Medical; and Treatment and Resources. I understand the time commitment involved with each of these subcommittees is comparatively minimal (generally one meeting each month or two), and what could be a more important contribution we as lawyers can make to our community? I have asked the chairs of the Criminal Law Section, the Section on Women and the Law and the Family Law Section to specifically solicit volunteers from their membership, but I hope also to cast a wider net across the Bar as a whole. In fact, I am learning that one of the problems in the domestic violence arena is that it tends to be always the same small group of people called upon for energy and ideas. I am very hopeful that members of our Bar Association can bring a new cross-fertilization to the discussion.

If you are willing to volunteer for any of the above, I am willing to coordinate. You can contact me directly (573-6277, ext. 156) or you can also simply call Bridget Poulle of the DVCC (255-0405).

On another front, we are also working to have a representative from the DVCC participate in the training offered by the Office of the Child Advocate to the attorneys who volunteer to represent their clients pro bono, and we will be considering how to wrap domestic violence issues into CLE seminars as appropriate. The annual Family Law “fundamental” seminar seems like a good place to start. And we will be asking law firms and offices to make copies of the brochures prepared by DVCC, including hotline numbers, available in their lobbies and waiting rooms. Who knows when a client who comes to see you for transactional advice, on a bankruptcy matter or with a personal injury claim may need to have such information. One of the very pragmatic, but chilling, pieces of information in that brochure is a checklist of necessary items to include in a kit that a victim can grab if s/he suddenly needs to run. What a world, no?

On another subject, I bet most of us didn’t realize that February 24, 2003 will be the two hundredth anniversary of the Marbury v. Madison decision, establishing the doctrines of judicial review of congressional action and separation of powers. All right, if you are active in the ABA, you are probably aware because the Senior Lawyers Division is making quite a fuss about the anniversary, and rightly so, calling Chief Justice Marshall’s opinion “the most notable and far-reaching decision in our judicial history”, and lamenting the fact that so many Americans do not understand its importance. The ABA’s Division for Public Education has prepared a very informative brochure on the subject and has asked members to initiate educational outreach to inform the public of the principles established in the opinion. For those of us who have not read the opinion in the last few decades, and don’t have the time to study the brochure, here’s a brief synopsis, avoiding legalese, which I have shamelessly cobbled together from the ABA materials.

John Adams (a Federalist) lost his presidential re-election bid to Thomas Jefferson (a Republican) in 1800. Adams was not happy. On his last nights in office, Adams busily signed off on a slew of judicial appointments in an effort to fill all the positions with his Federalist friends and thereby maintain control of the judiciary. However, not all the appointment letters were delivered to the respective appointees before Adams left office, and Jefferson refused to deliver them after his inauguration. William Marbury was among the disappointed would-be judicial officers whose appointments were not delivered, and he asked the Supreme Court to order Secretary of State James Madison to give his to him. In a fascinating maneuver, Chief Justice Marshall found that the law passed by Congress giving the Supreme Court the right to issue orders such as sought by Marbury was unconstitutional, therefore there was no basis for Marbury’s appeal. The Court thus adroitly avoided getting itself into the position of either granting the writ, which Jefferson and Madison would have ignored, adding to the image of the Court as a secondary tribunal with unequal powers, or denying the writ, which would look as though the Court were genuflecting to the president. And, by the way, the opinion established the power of the judiciary to review the constitutionality of Congressional action. Therein the independence of the judiciary was established for posterity.

Come to think of it, looking at the chaos in so much of the world today (and remembering the amazement in many parts of the world that our last presidential election ended up being fought out in the courts rather than on the streets), I believe I could persuade John Q. Public that Marbury v. Madison is a story worth telling.

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