Message From the President

Introducing Duly Noted!

January 18, 2022

By Chad Sarchio

Welcome to the D.C. Bar blog, a space for members and other legal professionals to share their expertise, get up to speed with developments in the law, and stay connected to the Bar’s expanding community and resources.

We lawyers lead busy lives, so here you will find easily digestible and shareable content to help enhance your practice, including sneak peeks into upcoming CLE courses, practice pointers, wellness tips, and professional advancement opportunities.

Ours is not only the largest unified bar in the country, but one of the most diverse. Duly Noted will help you get to know many of our outstanding members and hopefully gain inspiration from their professional journeys and passions outside of the law.

Let me inaugurate this blog with a few words of homespun wisdom that a wise man once shared with me. In the context of a broader conversation about the outdoors, hiking, and Scouting, he took the time to list dozens of ways in which backpacking mirrors life. As I listened to him and thought more later about what he’d said, I realized that many of his rules for a successful backpacking adventure also describe a pathway for a successful trial, and maybe even a satisfying legal career. Here are my top 10 favorites.

1. Plan ahead so that you will be prepared. A solid plan must be well informed, so remember that knowledge is power.
    
2. Once out on your journey, make wise choices, especially about where you step and when, and in which direction(s) you turn. Have a well-marked and -oriented map and consult it regularly.
    
3. Understand that you’ll have to take some risks to realize the most rewarding views.
    
4. Address small problems early; if you let them fester, they will worsen and may well ruin your entire journey.
    
5. Leadership — even if you’re out on your own — matters, because everyone needs to be led well. Make peace with the fact that it sometimes entails truly hard, extra work!
    
6. Beware hubris and recognize that good guides sometimes make all the difference.
    
7. All choices, perhaps especially bad ones, have consequences.
    
8. Don’t underestimate how important good health can be.
    
9. Well-tended friendships (and fires and stoves) raise everyone’s spirits.
    
10. And, of course, arriving home safely makes it all worthwhile!

There are other nuggets. As I said, the man was wise. Maybe I’ll share more sage words sometime in a future blog. Or perhaps, if you’re interested, you can catch me over a cup of coffee. For now, just know that this is but a humble beginning for the Bar’s blog, and that the wisdom it surely will contain will only grow from here.

Thanks for stopping by and I’ll see you around!