The only pages I read are the disbarment section to see if my favorite friends have come out! Do the bar fees paid by the DA's office pay for these things? Seems like a waste of shiny paper.

Hang on, help may be on the way. A little over a year ago, I, too expressed such concern about the contents of the State Bar Journal. I first sent a letter of criticism to the editor. I then met that person for breakfast and expressed myself in even more detail.

The result?

I was asked to serve on the Editorial Board for the magazine. So, since then, I have attended several meetings with the various lawyers on that Board (see list of names and shiny pictures at front of the January 2006 issue), most of which don't have a background in criminal law.

While on the Board, I have encouraged the board members and the editorial staff to consider increasing the use of materials relevant to criminal lawyers. But I also have seen how difficult it is to put together a magazine for over 70,000 lawyers.

Anyway, while I think there continues to be a need to look for ways to make the magazine more accessible to lawyers in general and criminal lawyers in specific, the magazine has made advances in style and content.

What kinds of changes would you like to see made (be specific about what you like and dislike). And what would you think about having an entire issue devoted to criminal justice issues, written by people who actually work in criminal justice?

I certainly think that perhaps at least a yearly devotion to a single criminal justice issue is not too much to ask, but it has sorta been done before. Back in the early 90's, I wrote an article regarding death penalty prosecution for an issue that had somewhat of a focus on the death penalty - for and against.

Kelly was still the editor back then.

The fact that the focus of the TBJ has been on medium and large firms and the civil law issues they frequently face has always been interesting to me. I am aware that most participants in bar politics and activities are those from medium and large civil firms, as their participation is allowed for time wise and strongly encouraged in their travels to partnership. But the thing I find interesting is that general practitioners are almost wholly ignored, yet they comprise a sizeable portion of bar membership. Again, they are extremely under represented in the ranks of bar officios, although a solo was recently president.

Even the Texas Lawyer gives more coverage to criminal matters than does the TBJ. I would gladly accept the portion of my dues that go towards funding the TBJ to be applied to a Texas Lawyer subscription for me.

It's been this way forever. John is to be acknowledged for his time and efforts to attempt to bring more focus on our area where we practice, but I can recall 10 years before I was an attorney watching my solo general practitioner dad every month toss the bar journal after reading the disbarments, deaths and Judge Buchmeyer's trial bloopers.

Well, could we all agree that Jane Starnes' Cowwaboration/Corroburation (whatever) is better than the Buchmeyer column?

The quality of our own magazine renders puny any attempt, however well intentioned, to address our concerns in the State Bar publication. Exactly what our Bar Ass'n does for the every day practioner is an impenetrable mystery to most of us. Maybe they lack in PR to their constituency. When queried, Bar leaders mostly respond in two ways: you should see the things we have put a stop to and we are hard at work preserving our privilege of self-regulation. I'm hoping the Bar is also nudging along student-loan forgiveness and the like. The Quixotic quest to eliminate lawyer jokes is, however, a lost cause.

I am confident they will not coopt JB.

Not to depreciate your well-intentioned efforts John, but I am with Ben on this. Forget the Journal and focus on the Prosecutor. The Journal rarely offers anything that can't be found elsewhere and often done better. Why do we need to change the Journal? What can it contribute that our own magazine can't? I am fairly confident that the civil bar has no interest in our work anyway. Do we expect to change their mindset by including articles on criminal law? If we want the defense bar's perspective, the Voice is readily available.

John, your writing betrays nothing of your Oklahoma accent!

No page of my copy of the Texas Prosecutor goes unread; all but eight or ten pages of the Bar Journal I never lay eyes on. The Voice, however, is wee bit harder to come by. I think Rob once wrote he has been trying to subscribe for a period of years.

A couple of years ago I advised one of the courthouse beat reporters to subscribe to both publications when she mentioned she wanted to deepen her understanding of our biz. She could get only one...guess which?

Imagine, my folks even tell me I sound like a person from these parts! Thanks for the clarification Ben. I have never tried to subscribe to the Voice but our County Law Library carries it. In our case that is one floor down from us, so it especially close at hand.

Or you can often view the voice in the waiting room of a friendly judge, as I believe they still receive a complimentary subscription.

If judges also receive complimentary copies of the Prosecutor (do they?), then the Journal doesn't offer them anything better on criminal law either. So why do we need the Journal?

If we need to check a lawyer's professional status, the most current information is the website, and the et cetera column ceased providing amusement years ago. Maybe the Journal simply can't reach all its readers and should continue doing what it does best, catering to the large firms.

An opt-out provision, permitting those not interested in receiving the magazine to reduce their dues, should be offered. The electronic mediums and other, more focused, publications have filled the niche.

[This message was edited by John Stride on 01-05-06 at .]

It seems to me that the complaints seen in this thread are symptoms of a larger ailment within the bar. There is the perception (whether uniformly valid or not) that civil firm lawyers view prosecutors and our defense counterparts as the tattooed, dirty-nailed laborers who show up at the country club only to fix the plumbing, electrical systems, roofing and crabgrass infestations on the greens. Prosecutors and criminal law practioners, in contrast, view "civil lawyers" as a relatively monolithic group of condescending snobs. This says nothing of GP solos, most of whom seem to go ignored as they try to eke out a living far from the worlds of capital murders and multi-million dollar lawsuits. This schism within the bar cannot do much to promote the bar's perennial drives for "contribution," "participation" and "professionalism." Does it not appear that the Bar Journal is seen largely as a representation of this dichotomy between the "haves" and the "have-nots"?

Indeed, a microcosm of this factionalism can be seen in our own organization. To an increasing extent, our own members (e.g., CAs and the civil divisions of CA and DA offices) are called upon to practice civil law. We have a forum on this website for civil issues, but a discerning eye can detect a measure of exclusivity between the two camps (criminal vs. civil) even within our own ranks.

All of this can largely be attributed to what may be termed the "curse of familiarity." We talk about, and generally associate with those who engage in, those aspects of the profession with which we are most familiar. Until these gaps can be bridged, we are likely to continue to see ourselves as being on the outside looking in. For that reason, Brother Bradley's commendable infiltration of the ranks is -- in my view -- representative of the necessary remedy. Being active in the local bar is another step toward creating a ripple effect of recognizing the validity and respect due each area of practice within the profession.

Now that I'm off the soap box, however, The Texas Prosecutor is still the superior publication. And one can glean better gossip from The Texas Lawyer. Perhaps the editorial board of the Bar Journal should take a closer look at these publications (as I'm sure John already does) if they want to broaden the magazine's appeal to more Texas lawyers. I have a sneaking suspicion that more Texas lawyers are interested in criminal and family law developments than the fineries of Sarbanes-Oxley.

Well said, Mr. Brumley!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I wrote an article on the prosecution perspective on the death penalty, and after checking my records, that was the April 1992 issue of the TBJ.

Why was I, who at that time had a grand total of 16 months experience as a prosecutor and absolutely no death penalty prosecution experience, asked to pen an article on the prosecution perspective on the death penalty? Simple, because at the time I was very good friends with the then-assistant editor Mindy Smith of the TBJ, and I was a readily available source for them.

I did try to do my best, co-writing the article with my father (an experienced ex-Harris County prosecutor and prominent Houston defense attorney) and interviewing prosecutors with experience in death penalty cases.

At the time, I got to know the staff of the TBJ somewhat well, including the editor Kelly Jones King, and they are wonderful hard working folks. At that time, none of the folks under her leadership were lawyers or had any type of legal experience, and I assume none of them today have any of that experience either.

Frankly, the TBJ is basically the same as a corporate type of in-house publication. Over the past 15 years, on occasion, I have seen letters published in the TBJ from solos/criminal defense practitioners complaining of the same thing we are discussing in this forum. So these complaints are not new. I was simply moved to post this poll after reading the January issue that came in the mail this week and saying to myself, once again...there is only 1 article of interest to me in this entire 98 page issue.

Bottom line is, the civil firms run the bar. If you doubt this, check the employment of the officers of the bar and of the TYLA. Their employers can afford to let them write articles, attend bar meetings across the state, etc, all on the dime of their clients or their profits. Rarely, you do see a solo involved with the bar as an officer or as a member of a committee, but usually that solo has firm experience and practices in an area that is not considered "tawdry" as criminal and family law often is.

I also served on a bar committee as a young lawyer for several years. Why did I stop? Because I was paying my own hotel expenses when I came to Austin for a meeting and when those meetings occurred during the week, I had to take vacation time from my employer. The gals and guys at the firms are taking these trips on the company tab, both financially and time-wise.

During my involvement with the bar, I had the same notions that John Bradley has and was unable to effect any change, despite some small interest from some of the firm guys I was on the committee with. I met some great folks, and in a few cases made some lifelong friendships based upon my bar activities, but at the end of the day, felt somewhat frustrated by the lack of change I was able to effect.

Hopefully John Bradley will have better luck.

By the way, I am very interested to know what it costs to produce a single issue of the TBJ, on glossy paper, and then mail out to the members of the Texas Bar. I'd be curious to know the total yearly budget of the TBJ, and how this compares to other areas of the TBJ budget concerned with the providing of legal services to the poor.

I guess I will always think that the TBJ is just a great place for country club lawyers to be able to see their name in print, see pictures of them doing great things, and for them to pontificate about serious civil legal issues that a tawdry practitioner like me couldn't understand.

And yes, the Texas Prosecutor is a marvelous publication. I have mine dating back to my hiring as a prosecutor, and on many occasions have had problems solved and questions answered by referring to them. I read every page, and I bet their budget is WAY LESS than that of the TBJ, proportionally and otherwise. It's like one of my heroes, the former dean of Thurgood Marshall School of Law, Otis King once said about the bar passage rates of TMSOL (paraphrasing) "We are the bastard child of Texas legal education. We were conceived in sin (Sweatt vs. Painter) and continue to exist in that condition. We have for so long done so much with so little that anything is appreciated."

I asked the same question, Greg, about the cost, when I got on the Board. To my surprise, the Journal pays for itself through ads.

In addition, some of the content is required, as the TBJ is the official publication for notice of many things legal.

You all raise excellent issues and I will continue to bring them to the attention of the Board and the editors. I think you know where my allegiance lies.

John, your effort is noble and appreciated. Good luck. If I can help in any small way, just ask. I am all for meaningful change in the State Bar.

Can't seem to find any advertisement on just where I can get a leather bound binder for newly created articles of incorporation, bylaws, etc?

(when I first started getting the TBJ, I thought that was something I was gonna have to have to practice law because just about every other page advertised where you could get one (more than one - leather, corinthian leather, kid leather, corinthian kid leather, faux leather, corinthian faux.... I stop now

I think you need to look in another periodical for a leather-bound binder. Do you readers of the TBJ see the importance of something as miniscule as a hyphen? To most people, it's just a flash of ink, a tittle of color on a page of epigramic ramblings. But to writers and plagiarists like myself, the hyphen is an escape, if you will, from having to know proper grammar. If you don't know whether a semi, full or spastic colon belongs, you can always insert a hyphen. If only editors and writers knew the significance of apostrophes and hyphens, the world would be such a happier place.

A.P., what is "epigramic"?

PS to JB: There are two types of real-world publications, i.e., those you can buy on newstands, in the airport, etc. "Ad driven" and "Subscription driven". My wife used to serve as editor of a "subscription driven" publication in the oil and gas industry, in fact, they refused ads because they wanted to be completely above suspicion of pandering to their advertisers. Even though a publication is ad driven does not mean it is not sold to the public, even though I know the public can't buy the TBJ.

Guess which one claims to have more journalistic integrity?

Again, good luck in your efforts to better the recognition and education of our profession.

How about a push to include a gossip section in the middle of the TBJ, to be provided by the editors at the Texas Lawyer, to provide a little interesting reading to the forced subscription base?

Oddly enough, ever since I sent the editors at TBJ a letter correcting numerous errors in an article they ran this summer on legislative changes, I have not received any more issues.

Hmm ....

Some might consider that a benefit!!