I appreciate the opportunity to lead the Pennsylvania Chapter in the coming year. Our Chapter reflects the rich diversity of the Commonwealth. Our Fellows live and practice in large, medium, and small cities, in the suburbs, and in our beautiful rural regions. Working together, we ensure that our clients have elite and sophisticated representation no matter where they reside.

I plan to build upon the hard work of my predecessors, who guided us through the pandemic and a fraught political environment with grace and vision. Due to their efforts, the Chapter has its own website and social media presence. That site provides the Chapter with the technological capacity to expand and promote its reputation as Fellows write for the website, produce programs at the Commonwealth and national AAML level, and increase the Chapter’s involvement with the national AAML through committee work. The website will serve as a central connection hub, where Fellows will interact, share ideas, share announcements, and ask for help from one another as they navigate their challenging cases.

None of that is going to happen without consistent prodding, leadership, and coaching. Our current leadership team will assist the Fellows in creating content and establishing life-long professional connections with one another across our 67 counties. We will partner with more sponsor organizations to cross promote our practices with professionals in other fields. Through the new website, social media, and the high quality programs that we will continue to offer, our Chapter will become more broadly known to the national Fellows and to the public as leaders in the emotionally and legally challenging field of family law. I will work with our Chapter Administrator and the Chapter Fellows to offer at least one symposium to our national AAML Fellows in addition to the programs that we present to our own Fellows and the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Family Law Section every January and July.

Through its committees, the Chapter will mentor qualified attorneys who wish to apply for Fellowship, it will continue to grant scholarships to law students, and I shall do all that I can to bring out the very best that every Fellow has to offer, including by writing, teaching, mentoring, and collaborating with colleagues on legislation and rules related to family law.

The Chapter will continue to support with vigor the community service mission of the AAML Foundation, which is currently chaired by Pennsylvania Fellow Brian Vertz,, who took charge from Past President and Pennsylvania Fellow Julia Swain.

My year will pass by before I know it, but I hope that it will be remembered as the Year of the Rocket Ship, when the Chapter left the launch pad.