President's Page • May 2025
Do Our Legal Practices Cast a Light or Cast a Shadow?
Above: Steve Benesh at his law school
graduation with his brother Dr. Greg
Benesh and his father, Judge G.A. Benesh.
Photo courtesy of Steve Benesh.
Growing up, my brother greg, eight years my senior, seemed to be first in everything, captain of this and president of that. Meeting new people, I was often greeted with, “Oh, you’re Greg’s brother!” We joked that “Greg’s brother” was my middle name. And I was okay with that because people often imputed to me all of Greg’s best qualities, presuming we were cut from the same cloth. His character and accomplishments cast a favorable light on me.
Our roles reversed in a most unexpected way in 1981. By then, I was a 20-year-old college student at the University of Texas, and Greg was engaged in postdoctoral physics research at Cambridge University. By coincidence, Ilya Prigogine, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, taught at UT in 1981 and lived in the high-rise apartment building where I worked as a night doorman. He would take long walks every evening, and afterwards, plop down in a chair near my doorman’s station to chat for a while.
Later that year, Dr. Prigogine attended a conference in England, where he was introduced to Greg for the first time. Dr. Prigogine glanced at Greg’s name tag, looked up at Greg, smiled, and said, “Oh, you’re Steve’s brother!”
Our actions can either cast a light or cast a shadow upon those who follow in our footsteps. As attorneys, it is important for us to recognize that the way we manage our careers can have a substantial impact upon the legal practices of lawyers who follow after us. So, what can we do now to ease the load, rather than increase the burden, for lawyers who come after us?
Mentoring
The most important way we can lighten the load and illuminate the path
for less- experienced members of our profession is to look for
opportunities to mentor them. One of the chief complaints younger
lawyers make, and a leading reason for changing jobs, is the lack of
adequate training and mentoring. Regardless of where we find our
mentees—in our workplaces, local bar associations, law schools, or
elsewhere—they desire for us to model and teach them about the practice
of law, the obligations of professionalism, dealing with clients,
life-work balance, and service to the public and the profession. Let us
all look for opportunities to assist and mentor newer lawyers in the
development of their legal careers.
Succession Planning
Since 1995, the over-65 age category for
Texas lawyers has grown more rapidly than any other category.
Unhappily, lawyers often pass away or become incapacitated without
making adequate arrangements for the transition of their legal matters
and cessation of their practices. Fortunately, the State Bar of Texas
maintains an easy, free online toolkit to guide attorneys through the
succession planning process, which can be found at texasbar.com/
successiontoolkit. Our passing or incapacitation can create an
uncomfortable burden for loved ones, clients, and the attorneys who
ultimately take over our legal matters. Let us not add to these
difficulties by failing to make plans for our practices now.
Docket Assistance
As many know, the Texas Lawyers’ Assistance Program (TLAP)
provides life-saving help to attorneys (as well as law students and
judges) who are struggling with mental health, depression, or substance
use issues. Often, lawyers in such situations need to step back from
their practices for a while to seek treatment, and they would benefit
from the assistance of lawyers who are willing to step in on a
short-term basis to help keep their dockets afloat, deadlines met, and
clients informed. Local bar associations could be a big help by
identifying and recruiting a pool of attorneys in their communities who
are willing to render this short-term aid. Kudos to the Austin Bar
Association, which, in coordination with TLAP, is currently
developing a “Lawyers in Crisis” assistance program for this
very purpose.
Author Ruth E. Renkel once said, “Never fear shadows; they simply mean there’s a light shining nearby.” As attorneys around us labor along often-difficult career paths, may we be that nearby light, readily offering guidance, encouragement, and assistance to fellow lawyers in need.
STEVE BENESH
President, 2024-2025
State Bar of Texas
