Voice From The Chair

By Tiffany Boyland, Chairwoman, California Lawyers Association, Workers’ Compensation Executive Committee

Ah the Holidays!  A joyous time for reflection and coming together – but not too close! As we continue to weather the pandemic, I am struck by how much not only friends and family have helped us all through but also how our colleagues have done so as well.By maintaining professionalism and respect for one another we help each other get through what initially appeared to be an untenable position vis a vis handling cases in a pandemic.  From my perspective, I’ve actually seen an increase from all sides in professionalism and respect as people have collaborated together to get cases moving forward and maintain the integrity of our workers’ compensation community.

We’ve supported each other as dogs barked and babies cried in the background, while admitting we had just put on our “deposition shirt” for a Zoom appearance.  We laughed and virtually hugged each other through it all – a true collegial atmosphere which I hope continues as we move forward.  Thus, I extend a sincere thank you to all of you in our wonderful community.

I’d like to now take an opportunity to tell you a bit about the California Lawyers Association Workers’ Compensation Executive Committee. Essentially, we come together as defense attorneys, applicant attorneys and current and retired judges with a shared passion for improving our system and lauding the reputation of our system and those who practice in this area of law.  We recently had our Long-Range Planning meeting and there was a very strong and shared sentiment – what we do matters!  Our work has a huge impact on the daily lives of so very many people and is not to be taken lightly.  I’ll say it again – what this community does matters and our committee strives to embrace that sentiment.

We now have TEN sub-committees which are: Community Outreach; Education, Publications, Legislation, Unpublished Cases Committee, Technology and Social Media, Membership, Practice and Ethics, Awards and Recognition and our newest – Diversity.  This newest committee will function as its own subcommittee while also interacting with all of the other subcommittees on diversity goals.

During the Long-Range Planning meeting, our committee members join one or more of the sub-committees and commit to working on behalf of their chosen subcommittee throughout the next year.

To accomplish our goals, we have several in-person and telephone meetings many of which coincide with conferences and programs we host. For example, in addition to the various activities of our subcommittees, we have ongoing educational programs which are presented in person as well as others via webinar. Many of our programs are available for viewing at subsequent dates as announced online and you can locate those at https://calawyers.org/section/workers-compensation/events/.

One of the things our committee is most proud of is the Quarterly publication; I encourage you to submit articles that are meaningful to you and that you think will be of benefit to our community.  As we move through 2022, I’ll be using these articles as an opportunity to highlight to you all that the committee does for our community.  I hope you’ll see the passion and commitment and are inspired to channel that into your own work.

As always, we encourage you to check out our website and the E-news as they provide updates for these events and other activities including the Annual Conference. 

As my predecessor has stated, we are YOUR committee. Please do not hesitate to contact us and let us know if you are interested in participating in any of our activities or even joining the committee. We are committed to always looking for diversity in our speakers, authors and members.

A hearty thank you to all of our community for all that you do!