Nov 13, 2007

Donation Letter

The following is an example of a donation letter used for silent auction items. I will be posting the letterhead template on the District Yahoo Group shortly.

Jun 21, 2007

Chapter Leadership

Leadership

Leadership ability is not made of magic. Leadership skills are made up of observable, learnable practices. There are five basic practices common to most great leadership achievements:
(1) leaders challenge the process,
(2) leaders inspire a shared vision,
(3) leaders enable others to act,
(4) leaders model the way, and
(5) leaders encourage with the heart.

Leaders Challenge the Process

Leaders think creatively and refuse to accept the status quo. Leaders learn from what has occurred in the past and look for new ways to approach situations. Just because something has always been done in a certain way does not necessarily make it the best way to do it now. Leaders recognize a void and search for a way to fill it. Leaders experiment, take risks, and learn from their mistakes. The best leaders recognize that people excel when they have a chance to put their own ideas into action. An effective leader embraces change and views challenges as an opportunity for growth.

Leaders Inspire a Shared Vision

Leaders have a clear mental picture of the future, and the desire to implement that vision. Leaders must have the ability to inspire others to help attain that vision. To move others to share their vision, leaders must appeal to a common purpose, communicate expressively, and sincerely believe in their vision.

In Phi Alpha Delta, every leader shares a vision guided by our declaration of purpose:

“The purpose of this Fraternity shall be to form a strong bond uniting students and teachers of the law with members of the Bench and Bar in a fraternal fellowship designed to advance the ideals of liberty and justice under law; to stimulate excellence in scholarship; to inspire the virtues of compassion and courage; to foster integrity and professional competence; to promote the welfare of its members; and to encourage their moral, intellectual, and cultural advancement; so that each member may enjoy a lifetime of honorable professional and public service."

Given our goals, leaders must be able to effectively communicate not only the broad purpose of Phi Alpha Delta, but their Chapter’s specific vision of how its greater goals will be accomplished as well. Because our leaders truly believe in these goals, they are able to communicate them with the passion necessary to effectuate Phi Alpha Delta’s larger vision and breed excitement for those ideas among Chapter members.


Leaders Enable Others to Act

Leaders, having inspired a shared vision, make their volunteers feel strong, capable, and committed. They emphasize the importance of teamwork. Leaders immediately get new members involved to make them feel like a vital part of the Chapter. They show their support by offering assistance and advice whenever possible. The best leaders delegate – they don’t abdicate.

Leaders know that their strongest tool is their index finger. They point it at someone and ask them to do "just one thing." Leaders go beyond the Chapter Officers and they get the Chapter members involved. Leaders realize that involving members from the start – giving them the tools and the power to act – will prevent apathy from developing.

Leaders Must Model the Way

Leaders practice what they preach! They set an example by behaving consistently with their values, aims, and vision. Leaders don’t expect others to make their ideas work – they know they have to pitch in and help in order to make things work. Leaders serve as a representative of the Chapter. Their attendance at events is noticed, and their absence is noticed even more. Leaders take the time to set an example.

Leaders Must Encourage the Heart

Leaders know that attaining any shared vision is difficult. They recognize that members may become exhausted, frustrated, or disenchanted. Leaders celebrate others’ accomplishments regularly to combat apathy. They recognize volunteers publicly – thanking those who worked together to make an event happen. Leaders encourage their members to take on greater roles and they help to cultivate future Chapter leaders. They know that cream always rises to the top!

Never Forget You Are Dealing With Volunteers

As a leader in Phi Alpha Delta, it is important to remember that you are dealing with volunteers. They have given you a commitment to do "a little work." Therefore, keep the "little work" motto in mind – give them small, definite, and manageable assignments. Don’t overload them and they’ll be willing to help out again in the future. Also, keep the following items in mind:

Thank and praise volunteers. When things go well, make sure to recognize the people who made it possible. Recognize volunteers in a public fashion – and make sure to include everyone who helped!

Admit your shortcomings. Everyone makes mistakes – leaders are no exception. So, if you make a mistake, own up to it. Also, don’t be afraid to ask questions. As a leader, you can’t be helpful to the Chapter if you don’t have an accurate picture of what is going on. Finally, be willing to expect and accept criticism – as a leader you will not be able to please all of the people all of the time!

Realize you are working with colleagues. Always follow the chain of command within the Chapter. The other officers are your colleagues – don’t let personal feelings (friendships or disagreements) interfere with your working relationship. Recognize that people are going to make mistakes, but with teamwork and understanding, the Chapter can overcome them.

Develop the ability to say “No!” Being up front with people from the beginning, even if it is difficult, is for the best. Just be tactful and as nice as possible when delivering your response. As a leader, it’s very important to avoid promising what you cannot deliver.

Act in a timely fashion. Late action, in many instances, is worse than inaction.


One of the greatest benefits of Phi Alpha Delta membership is the opportunity to hone your leadership skills. These skills will open many doors for you throughout your career. Make the most of your time as a leader in your Law School Chapter by developing and expanding your leadership abilities.

May 15, 2007

SKILLS DEVELOPED BY A STRONG LEADER

Communication
Leaders are only as powerful as the ideas they communicate. Effective communication is one of the most important tools an attorney can have. Communication with Chapter Officers First and foremost, Chapter officers must communicate with each other. Hold officer meetings at least monthly. Invite your Chapter’s Committee Chairs and your Advisors to the meetings.


ORGANIZATION & PLANNING
Upon entering law school, a young first year student was advised by a long-time practicing attorney that the “simple trick” to law school and law practice is organization. Effective leaders are always good organizers. To organize, you must plan ahead. Professors admonish their students to “look at the big picture”. If you focus on the “big picture”, you see how small details fit. The “big picture” for your Chapter is your Calendar of Events. Plan ahead and follow through! How Can Our Chapter Get Organized?

VISION AND CREATIVITY
Without vision, your Chapter will perish. In examining successful leadership, it becomes apparent vision means creating a focus. Officers must create a focus for their Chapter’s members. When focus or direction is clear, it inspires confidence from the membership.

COMMON ERROR:
Officers conduct a general meeting, expecting that members will spring forth with a wealth of ideas and direction for the Chapter. When they do not, the wheels of progress screech to a halt.

SOLUTION:
Never wait for a mandate from the general membership before the officers take action. Members depend on the leadership to provide direction. As a leader, you should be attuned to programming desires of your membership. Ask your members for suggestions, and consider any suggestions that are made. Do not wait for your general membership to create a focus for the Chapter. Creating a focus and direction for your Chapter is the sole responsibility of the Chapter’s officers. Every successful attorney knows alternatives always exist. Think creatively and develop alternatives.

Overcoming The “Our Law School Does Everything” Syndrome
Leaders assess their members’ needs and strive to meet them. Look at the needs of your law school and its student body. Critically analyze each need you identify. Examine what you, as a law student need that you are not getting. Assess which needs are met by other groups; then examine the needs not currently or adequately being met by other organizations. This will let you think about programs your Chapter could pioneer to meet student needs. Visit your Deans or Faculty members. Tell them your dilemma, i.e., “There is nothing for our Chapter to do. We want something to do, but we just can’t find anything.” When the Deans finish laughing, explain what resources your Chapter has in terms of members and finances. You will not leave empty-handed.

TIME MANAGEMENT
Developing good time management skills is an important aspect of your professional development. Time is your most valuable commodity as a law student and as an attorney.

DELEGATION OF AUTHORITY
The old adage, “if you want something done right, do it yourself” is not true for effective leaders. If you find yourself doing all the work and handling all the details of every program in your Chapter, then you are doing something wrong. You may be lacking the ability to delegate.

Successful delegation of authority has three major components:
1. Get things accomplished at the lowest possible level.
2. Assess the talents and areas of interest of each member and delegate tasks accordingly.
3. Check each member’s progress periodically. Delegate, don’t abdicate! Delegation ensures that everyone participates in your programming. This allows future Chapter leaders to emerge and develop a track record for themselves. When you delegate, make sure everyone understands the desired result, the means of achieving this result, and the time frame. People take pride in what they have a stake in achieving.

May 14, 2007

How to Win PAD International Awards Checklists



The above checklists are from the Nuts and Bolts of Chapter Awards. They should be printed out and used throughout the year in planning events.

May 10, 2007

Example Calender

Below is what an award winning calendar looks like. Notice that this calender has at least one event from each of the categories of events that are necessary to achieve Chapter Merit Status and Chapter of the Year. Please review this calendar. If you have any questions call me or e-mail me.

Nuts and Bolts of Chapter Awards

OK here's the nuts and bolts that you need to know if you want to win international awards. This is the very bottom line basic stuff, so refer back here if you need to refresh your memory:


CHAPTER MERIT AWARD
Before you can even think of applying for Most Outstanding Law School Chapter, you have to qualify for the Chapter Merit Award. You will need to do the following:
  • File your Spring and Fall Reports with the International Executive Office (heads up Chapter Clerks!)
  • File your Roster of Officers within 10 days of elections (or any other changes in leadership)
  • File your Form G's within 10 days of initiation (and if you really want to be outstanding, file it BEFORE initiation)
  • Have an officer transition meeting after elections (and pass along those Officer's Manuals)
  • Have a Faculty Advisor (be able to describe who they are and why you selected them)
  • Have an Alumni Advisor (ditto, as well as what they have done to support you)
  • Give an Outstanding Service to the Chapter Award to a member of your chapter
  • Give an Outstanding Service to the Chapter Award to an alumni
  • RUSH more new members than the year before
  • Run new programs that you did not run the year before
  • You also need a minumum of the following programs:

Four Professional Programs (PP)
One Fundraising Activity (FR)
Three Social Activities (SA)
Two Community Service Programs (CS)
One Alumni Activity (AL) or Inter-chapter activity (IC)
Rush Progams (no amount is specified)
One Academic Program (AP)One Specialize Program (SP)

OUTSTANDING CHAPTER AWARD (KOHN AWARD)
On top of all that, you will have to do all of the following in order to meet the minimum qualifications for Outstanding Chapter. OBVIOUSLY you want to do all this and more so you can not just qualify but WIN!

  • have chapter bylaws (If you don’t have them already. I can give you model chapter bylaws, adapt them and adopt them)
  • have regularly scheduled membership meetings
  • have regularly scheduled officer meetings
  • keep written minutes of meetings
  • have a treasurer's report at every meeting
  • have a written calendar of events
  • form committees (you will have to list what committees you have, how many members in the committees, and what events these committees have run)
  • maintain a separate account for initiation fees (DO NOT PUT THEM IN YOUR ACCOUNT WITH CHAPTER FUNDS!)
  • have a written chapter budget(If you need help writing a budget call me and we’ll come up with one for you)
  • initiate faculty members (for free) into your chapter
  • create local chapter awards
  • put announcements in your school newspaper about your events

The two forms attached below are to be filled out and maintained to assist in filling out the application at the end of the year.(Both can be e-mailed to you upon request in Word format.) One was adapted from the Kohn Award to be used in the planning of the event. The other is the programing information section for the Kohn Award. It is in your best interest to fill these out as the year progresses. I would also appreciate receiving a copy of the forms so that I know what’s going on with your chapter. Its easier to brag abou y’all if I know what’s going on.

ANY QUESTIONS? You know where to find me.

(Borrowed from Pam Nash, former District 21 DJ, with changes from me.)

Here is some stuff you should call your DJ/ADJ about:

1. Your Dean/Administration/SBA is giving you a hard time.
If you run into any snags at your school, give me a call. First we will brainstorm some solutions. If those solutions don't pan out, then Plan B I will get on the phone and give your dean a call or I will get an alumni from your chapter to do so.

2. The IEO is ignoring you.
If Frank, Byron, or Andrew are not answering your emails, sending you your Rush stuff (pins, certificates etc.), or otherwise generally not helping you, let me know and I’ll find out what is wrong. This comes with some caveats though... Whatever you have asked them for has to be reasonable. I am not putting in a call to Frank because you called him two days before initiation and asked him to FedEx you some pins. Also, they have to be legitimately not responding to you. I am not going to bug Byron on his cell phone because he hasn't answered your email within an hour. But if you have sent two or three requests, and have received no response, let me know and I will put in a call for you.

3. You have a rush question you can't answer.
You never know what some random wiseguy at your school is going to come up with, and if you don't know the answer, don't worry about it. Tell them you will make a call and get back to them with the answer. And then call me.

4. You have ANY question you can't answer.

5. What you are doing is interesting to me.
I want to hear how your chapter is going. I want to know how school is going. I want to help you with anything that I can. Seriously, I would NOT volunteer so much of my time to this organization if I didn't care about you.

Communication is key to making your chapter successful. I’m here to help you in any way I can. There may be times I won’t know the answer to you questions, but I’ll find the answer and get back with . So call me with questions, comments, just to chat, whatever. I’m here for you guys!

Branding, Marketing, and Advertising

Branding, Marketing, Advertising

If you want to win international awards then you have got to make sure EVERYONE knows who you are. How do you do that? See below.

BRANDING: the average law school chapter bills itself around school as Phi Alpha Delta. Those of you who have attended convention are well aware that you are more than just Phi Alpha Delta. Each chapter should strive to develop its own identity within the school community and within the fraternity at large. Now this is not to say that you should focus your efforts exclusively on one type of programming in order to establish some sort of "branding". All award winning chapters have to have balanced programming, and meeting the requirements of chapter merit award will insure that you do.


MARKETING: I am not going to get into a debate about the exact definition of marketing vs. advertising, so for the purposes of this post you will have to accept that marketing means getting new members to join your chapter by making them aware of what all you are doing and how great it is to be a member of this amazing organization. This is more than just posting flyers around the school. Here are some ideas: get all members to wear PAD t-shirts one day per month it promotes bonding among current members, and it inspires other people to want to be a part of that in-crowd.

ADVERTISING: You do have to do some flyer posting, so that people know what you are doing and when.

PADLAW yahoogroup. Sign up for PADLAW yahoogroup (on the front page of www.pad.org) What you want come June 1 is for Board members to be sitting in their offices, rubbing their hands, pacing the floor and WAITING for your award application to come in, because they have been following your progress all year. Get it?

PAD REPORTER. Free advertising extraordinairre. Send pictures and a one or two paragraph description of the event to andrew@pad.org and let the whole entire fraternity see how awesome you are.

School Newspaper. If your school has one, or a newsletter, or a docket, get your events in there, along with a random little announcement from the chapter every month. Here are some examples: a congrats message to newly initiated members, a thank you to outgoing officers, a happy bday to all the PAD members with birthdays that month, or a follow up to tell the the school about a particularly successful event, with recognition to all members who helped organize the event. (save copies of all this stuff to include with your award application).

Bar Journal. Put announcements about upcoming events in the local bar journal. Make sure you put a prominent statement that ALUMNI FROM YOUR SCHOOL are welcome to attend. (save copies of all this stuff to include with your award application).

Chapter Calendar. Make sure everyone you can think of gets a copy of your chapter calendar. Post it on the padlaw and District 15 yahoogroups, email it to the DCO, pass it around your school, and to any of your members who graduated last year.

The Vice Justice is in charge of Communications and Branding/Marketing/Advertising. The best way to make sure they do this, is to make sure the rest of the E-Board is doing their job so the Vice Justice has time for this stuff. Chapter Justices, with the exception of officer training YOUR job is to make sure your E-Board is all doing their jobs. Also think about creating a position for publications and another for publicity/advertising. The Vice Justice would oversee these positions since the Vice Justice is in charge of all forms of communications.

(Borrowed from Pam Nash, former District 21 DJ, with a few changes of my own.)

Apr 25, 2007

Back to School to Do List

Please review the following Back to School To Do List.

Apr 11, 2007

Event Sponsorships

MicroMash Sponsorship Form



The above documents can be e-mailed to you or can be found on the District XV Yahoo Group.

The following link is to the ABA/LSD sponsership information.