Dallas Association of Young Lawyers

The Dallas Association of Young Lawyers (DAYL) is a bar organization based in Dallas, Texas (USA) dedicated to community service, such as clothing drives for local shelters, 5K runs for charity, holiday teddy bear drives, mentoring programs for children, programs for homeless citizens, and continuing legal education programs for attorneys.

Its membership criteria is limited to individuals 36 and under licensed to practice law in the highest courts of the State of Texas, or individuals licensed to practice law in the State of Texas for 5 years or less in the year for which membership is sought, regardless of age.

Founded in the 1920s, the organization changed its name in 1978 from the Dallas Junior Bar to the Dallas Association of Young Lawyers. The DAYL currently has over 2,600 members. Former presidents of the DAYL include retired federal district judge Jerry L. Buchmeyer (president in the fall of 1965), federal district judge Barbara G. Lynn (president in 1985), state appellate justice Douglas Lang (president in 1978), and prominent Dallas attorneys such as Robert H. Mow, Jr. (president in the fall of 1969), Beverly Bell Godbey (president in 1993), Michael Kevin Hurst (president in 1999), Christina Melton Crain (president in 2002).

The 2008 DAYL officers are: Karen McCloud (President), Dena DeNooyer Stroh (President-elect), Jennifer Duncan Edgeworth (Vice President), Penelope Blackwell (Treasurer), Chip Brooker (Secretary), and Laura Benitez Geisler (Immediate Past President).

The organization also presents the annual Liberty Bell Award, recognizing an outstanding non-lawyer who has made a selfless contribution to the community that strengthens the effectiveness of the American system of justice. Past recipients include Texas State Senator Florence Shapiro, television anchor Tracy Rowlett, and former presidential candidate H. Ross Perot.

History of the DAYL

In the early 1920’s, at a time when almost every attorney in Dallas was a trial lawyer whose success in practice depended on the amount of time spent at the courthouse, a group of attorneys led by C.K. Bullard began meeting informally at the Adolphus Hotel. The meetings were primarily social but also consisted of short speeches by some of the attendees.

Into the 1930s the group, yet unnamed, would meet during lunch on Fridays at the Baker Hotel or the Adolphus Hotel and included speaking engagements by baseball umpires, newsmen, and football coaches. Not surprisingly, the group organized a fast-pitch softball team, which was the birth of the current softball leagues. Although no record of past presidents exists, during the 1930s, Judge Sarah T. Hughes was an active member.

By the 1940s, with an increasing membership (of about 60 members who paid $3 membership dues) and involvement, the group organized itself as the Dallas Junior Bar and began electing officers, who each served six-month terms. The late 1940s saw the association expand from an exclusively social organization to include some community service.

The early 1950s saw a need for the association to educate the public on a variety of legal issues and reform the filing system for the criminal court docket, while the late 1950s saw the group’s primary focus switch to members’ needs through continuing legal education and the creation of a membership survey. Approximately 50% of the group’s 400 members participated in the survey.

In the 1960s, the group created a Speaker’s Bureau Committee and a SMU School of Law Liaison Committee. It also participated in a handbook published by the State Junior Bar (now Texas Young Lawyers Association) that contained articles by well-respected lawyers on a variety of legal issues for use as a guide for young lawyers. The sports leagues continued to thrive.

In the 1970s, the association sought to redefine its role and purpose to focus primarily on young lawyers’ needs and to differentiate itself from the Dallas Bar Association. The Dallas Junior Bar renamed itself the Dallas Association of Young Lawyers and each president began serving full-year terms by the end of the 1970s. The organization also created a historical committee which provided a much-needed recorded history of the early years of the association.

While the 1970s saw an expansion in terms of members and activities, the DAYL really began to bloom during the 1980s. With a full slate of officers and voting directors, the organization created a monthly newsletter and it hired its first employee, who split her time between the DAYL and the DBA. The DAYL Foundation, a 501c3 organization designed for charitable causes and projects was created in the late 1980s.

The departure of Cheryl Garbrick in 1992 paved the way for the hiring of the DAYL’s current Executive Director, Cherie Harris, who was hired solely for DAYL. The 1990s saw the boom of the technology age, the implementation of leadership programming to produce civic and bar leaders, and a rise in membership to over 2,000. In addition, the DAYL Foundation began awarding grants to non-profit organizations in the Dallas area in 1999.

Currently with over 2,600 members, the 2000s has been a time of internal growth in the form of long-range planning, large-scale public service projects by leadership classes, and the expansion of the DAYL Foundation with the creation of its Fellows program and it continuing to fund charitable projects through its granting process.

References