 When Stacy Boulware Eurie talks about doing an "extreme makeover," she isn't proposing either a major home improvement or a visit to a beauty salon. Rather, the new president of the Sacramento County Bar Association wants to remodel the SCBA both internally and externally.
Boulware takes her new post with a list of significant goals for the bar association in 2007. They center around the concept of "giving back," the idea that the SCBA should both serve the Sacramento community better and be more relevant to SCBA members in their legal practices.
In the community, Boulware wants the SCBA to increase its support of programs that educate youth about our legal system so that they can become "better informed citizens." She also wants the SCBA to increase its monetary contribution to the Voluntary Legal Service Program, a joint program of the SCBA and Legal Services of Northern California that provides pro bono legal services to the poor.
 "I think we have a responsibility to give back to the community," Boulware said. "It is especially important that lawyers take the lead in youth programs designed to give kids a better understanding of our legal process."
One way the SCBA can help the community is by continuing to support the Indigent Defense Panel, Boulware said. The IDP is a program in which private counsel who are panel members represent criminal defendants, usually because the County Public Defender's Office has a conflict of interest. Sacramento County pays for the attorneys while the SCBA maintains the panel. Boulware notes that IDP Chair Kevin Adamson has done much to improve the operation of the IDP during the past year.
The SCBA also runs a Lawyers Referral and Information Service, a lawyer referral service that is licensed by the State Bar of California. Since the LRIS is an important source of lawyer referrals for indigent people, Boulware said, the SCBA should try to keep it afloat despite the funding woes it has suffered in recent years.
In terms of service to SCBA members, Boulware proposes to better publicize SCBA events, particularly those programs that offer MCLE credit.
"I want to do a better job of letting the legal community know about what the County Bar does and why it is important to their practice," she said. "Most of our members have no clue that they can fulfill many of the MCLE units at county bar events."
The SCBA also needs to consider moving to a new headquarters, including possibly buying a building, when its current lease expired in August 2008, Boulware said. Any move would require the SCBA to decide what location will best serve members in future years. If the bar council decides it wants to purchase a building, the SCBA will need to aggressively raise fund this year, she said.
Finally, Boulware said she wants to maintain the close relationship that the local bench and bar have traditionally enjoyed in Sacramento.
Such goals, of course, lead to the inevitable question of what our new president can possibly hope to achieve in a mere 12 month. Her past track record and the observations of her colleagues indicate that Boulware could, in fact, accomplish many of her lofty goals.
After graduating from UC Davis' King Hall School of Law in 1995, Boulware joined the office of Rothschild, Wishek and Sands, where she practiced until 2000, doing a combination of criminal defense and administrative hearings. She then moved to the employment section of the Attorney General's Office, where she eventually became a supervisor of a team of deputies and paralegals. Boulware also advised the office on internal, confidential personnel issues.
Since August, Boulware has served as the Senior Assistant Attorney General for the Government Law Section of the Attorney General's Office. In that position, she supervises the work of 34 lawyers who represent the state's constitutional officers, including the Governor, as well as the judicial branch and various other state agencies.
Having worked at the Attorney General's Office with her since 2000, I can readily attest that Stacy is one of the most enthusiastic, dynamic, and organized people with whom I have ever worked. Her other colleagues feel the same way.
Deputy Attorney General Noreen Skelly described Boulware as a "very polished and elegant" person who "brings out the best in people."
"She's like a tonic. I don't mean a gin-and-tonic. I mean a vitamin tonic," Skelly explained. "You think, I want to be like her. And you think that, if I stand a little straighter and I edit my work a little more carefully, and if I paid more attention to my case, I'd be more polished and elegant, too."
Superior Court Judge Jim McFetridge, who worked with Boulware at the Attorney General's Office and on the SCBA Bar Council, said, "She just has these wonderful people skills. She doesn't talk down to people, and she just gets things done."
"She's so well respected and well liked by everyone that when she says things, she won't need to say them twice," McFetridge said. Senior Assistant Attorney General Jacob Appelsmith, who supervised Boulware in the employment section, said, "Stacy has that type of commitment to our profession that one rarely finds, and it is expressed with enviable energy and intellectual curiosity. She also has organizational abilities that are admirable, in terms of her ability to accomplish all sorts of objectives big and small. When it was my job to motivate her, she did far more in the way of motivating me."
Now it will be Boulware's job to motivate the SCBA as a whole. I wouldn't bet against her.
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