Professor to receive ABA Solo and Small Firm Trainer Award
The American Bar Association Solo, Small Firm and General Practice Division will honor law professor Gary P. Bauer with its Solo and Small Firm Trainer Award, which recognizes attorneys who have made significant contributions to educating lawyers or law students regarding the opportunities and challenges of a solo and small firm practice.
Professor Bauer will be recognized during the Solo and Small Firm Awards Luncheon on Friday, May 13, during the 2016 Joint Spring Meeting at the Key West Marriott Beachside Hotel in Key West, Fla.
Bauer has made a number of significant contributions to educating lawyers and law students regarding the opportunities and challenges of a solo and small firm practice. In 1999, under Professor Bauer’s guidance, Western Michigan University-Cooley Law School created a General Practice, Solo and Small Firm concentration. This concentration provided mentoring for students who were interested in solo and small firm practice, and Professor Bauer volunteered to be the concentration chair, working with the faculty advisers as well as mentoring students.
Bauer also created the WMU-Cooley class, Solo by Design™, to educate students on managing clients and operating a law firm as a solo practitioner. He recently launched a website and blog, sololawyerbydesign.com™, to provide law students, recent solo practitioners and seasoned professionals who wish to go solo with information and resources to be successful in the legal business.
Bauer also co-founded the “Solo Institute,” a continuing legal education conference held once a year in Michigan, sponsored by the Institute for Continuing Legal Education in Michigan. The program is now one of the most heavily attended CLE programs in Michigan.
Bauer practiced law as a criminal defense attorney before joining WMU-Cooley Law School in 1997. He served in the U.S. Air Force before earning his bachelor’s degree from Purdue University, master’s degree from Central Michigan University and J.D. from WMU-Cooley Law School.
Bauer has written or co-written more than nine publications on the topic of teaching the law. In addition to his leadership in the ABA Solo, Small Firm and General Practice Division, he is a member of the Michigan Bar Association, the Clinical Legal Education Association and the Ingham County Bar Association.
Florida attorney to receive 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award
Donald D. Slesnick II, a distinguished lawyer from Coral Gables, Fla., will receive the American Bar Association Solo, Small Firm and General Practice Division’s 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award, which recognizes the efforts and accomplishments of outstanding solo and small firm practitioners as well as bar leaders and associations.
The award will be presented to Slesnick at the Solo and Small Firm Awards Luncheon on Friday, May 13, during the 2016 Joint Spring Meeting at the Key West Marriott Beachside Hotel in Key West, Fla.
Slesnick is managing partner in the law offices of Slesnick & Casey in Coral Gables. He has been in private practice since 1976, representing public sector employee organizations. Prior to this he held labor relations management positions with the Miami-Dade County Public Schools and the Miami-Dade County Police Department. In 2011, he concluded 10 years as mayor of Coral Gables He served as the 2009-10 president of the Florida League of Mayors. In 2014, Slesnick was appointed Honorary Consul of Australia for Florida.
Slesnick is a Vietnam veteran and a former U.S. Army adviser to NATO forces in Germany. He retired from the Army at the rank of Lt. Colonel, and now serves the Chief of the Army Reserve as an “Ambassador.” He was founding chairman of “Team Miami,” which led the efforts to relocate U.S. Southern Command to Miami and to save Homestead Air Reserve Base after its destruction by Hurricane Andrew. He was awarded the U.S. Army’s “Outstanding Civilian Service Award” by the commanding general of SOUTHCOM.
Slesnick earned a bachelor’s degree in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia, a J.D. from the University of Florida and a master’s degree from Florida International University. He was admitted to the Florida Bar in 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1985, is a Florida Bar Board Certified Specialist in Labor & Employment Relations and a Florida Supreme Court Certified Mediator. He is the immediate past president of the College of Labor & Employment Lawyers, past chair of the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation and serves as a member of the ABA House of Delegates and as vice chair of the ABA Section of Labor & Employment Law. He also is president-elect of the Orange Bowl Committee.
For more than 25 years, Slesnick has held the Martindale-Hubbell rating of AV Preeminent. He has been included in the “The Best Lawyers In America,” designated as a Florida “Super Lawyer” and was named as one of South Florida’s “Top Lawyers.”
He has received the Bill Colson Community Leadership Award from Leadership Miami; the ABA Distinguished Service Award; the Miami-Dade County Medal of Merit for Leadership in 2007, was included in the Miami SunPost list of the “50 Most Influential Persons in South Florida,” was chosen in 2004 by South Florida CEO magazine as one of the “Top 101 Global Leaders of South Florida,” was the first Floridian awarded the Friend of Foreign Service Medal by the Republic of China (Taiwan) and was named the 2011 “Citizen of the Year” by the Kiwanis Clubs of South Florida.
Allen to receive 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award
The American Bar Association Solo, Small Firm and General Practice Division will honor Jeffrey M. Allen with its 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award, which recognizes the efforts and accomplishments of outstanding solo and small firm practitioners as well as bar leaders and associations.
The award will be presented to Allen at the Solo and Small Firm Awards Luncheon on Friday, May 13, during the 2016 Joint Spring Meeting at the Key West Marriott Beachside Hotel in Key West, Fla.
Allen is a principal in the general practice law firm of Graves & Allen in Oakland, Calif. He focuses on negotiation, structuring and documentation of real estate and other business transactions, receiverships and civil litigation. In addition to his practice, Allen has worked as an educator for more than 40 years, teaching courses in undergraduate and graduate programs at University of California at Berkeley; California State University, East Bay; St. Mary’s College and University of Phoenix.
Allen has been a member of the American Bar Association since 1973 and has been active in the GPSolo Division for most of that time, holding several leadership positions in the last 34 years, making him the member with the longest standing record of continuous leadership service to the division. He has chaired many substantive and administrative committees for the division and currently serves as the editor in chief of GPSolo Magazine and the GPSolo eReport. Allen also serves on the council of the Senior Lawyers’ Division and as a member of the editorial board for Experience Magazine and the Voice of Experience.
Allen also served on the editorial board of the ABA Journal for six years and as a member of the ABA Standing Committee on Technology and Information Services (SCOTIS). He continues to work with SCOTIS as the liaison for GPSolo and for the Senior Lawyers’ Divisions. Allen has accepted appointments to numerous task forces within the ABA and has served as a liaison to two drafting and one study committees of the Uniform Law Commission.
Allen has written hundreds of articles on technology and legal practice and regularly writes for several magazines, including GPSolo Magazine, Experience Magazine, the American Journal of Family Law and the GPSolo eReport. He has contributed to several books and co-authored four: “Technology Solutions for Today’s Lawyer,” “The iPad For Lawyers,” “Tech Tips for Lawyers” and “Tech Tips for Seniors.”
