Page 5 - Flyer Spring 2023

Officer Reports
Craig Marvinney
We predicted this. But then maybe we didn't. Awaiting my next flight at New York's LaGuardia airport, I'm writing this on a cloudy
not as strong as before, struggling as the smaller business that used to support the large offices closed permanently and will not soon be returning. Is all this due to COVID? Not so. Indeed, the 'work from home' movement had roots much earlier than the Pandemic.
In 2017, our Annual Meeting in Montreux, Switzerland featured Past-President Mike Lucey speaking of 'new' office arrangements as law firms reduced their square footage by allowing staff to office share and, yes, work from home. Cutting- edge office design and financials three years before COVID actually foresaw remote work. A deeper issue lurked in the background of these ideas, not readily foreseen back in 2017: disengagement.
The economic consequences of the COVID shutdowns did not create this disengagement, they accelerated it.
Fortunately our Federation moved boldly, and came out stronger today than it was as 2020 dawned. Yet the unintended consequence of remote work and frequent Zoom meetings, while allowing for much to get done, also detracts from the bonds that makes the Federation as strong as it can be. These bonds are key.
Those who study sales, particularly in the legal profession know personal bonds form the basis of legal referrals in significant cases. We often hear that FDCC ROI is based on referrals. While this is partially so, what with how our iron sharpens our iron, referral dollars are an easy measure of that ROI. And what better way to foster those referrals than attending meetings and building those relationships -- those bonds.
But our Federation ROI is broader than that. Engaged FDCC members, those attending the meetings on a regular basis, know that they are better lawyers, better people, and better leaders through their experiences and relationships built through the FDCC than
had they never engaged in it as members.
The struggle the FDCC now
faces is how best to engage our membership in what is the FDCC's "special sauce". The core of this
is our meetings. The upcoming Annual Meeting at the Broadmoor in Colorado, our Corporate Counsel Symposium set in Philadelphia,
the Insurance Industry Institute
in New York, as well as 2024's Winter meeting at the Vinoy in St. Petersburg, Florida and Annual meeting at Toronto's famed Royal York, a vibrant wonderful summer site set on Lake Ontario. These unparalleled meetings provide our opportunity, our chance to soar together if we only but engage.
So we pivot and look ahead, striving to wrest our FDCC beyond COVID's grasp. To succeed, we need all of
us -- your ideas, your input, your efforts, to engage our members no matter how remote you may be. To build on our predecessors' work,
to form these tenets in relevance not for today but for tomorrow, and grow in our collective purpose becoming the best we were meant to be. The finest in Defense Lawyers, Defense Leaders. This is your Federation.
Craig A. Marvinney, is President-Elect of the FDCC and an Attorney at Bricker Graydon in Cleveland, OH. Contact him at: cmarvinney@brickergraydon.com
March morning amid the buzz
of travelers heading it seems to everywhere. Just three years ago this week, LaGuardia and airports around the country and then the world began shutdowns turning them into cold, dark, and empty halls. The COVID-19 pandemic took its toll on the economy with lightning speed. Unprecedented closures struck the NBA, March Madness, MLB Spring Training, the NHL, and soon, most businesses not only around the US, but across the world. Schools, churches, public buildings all closed. As people adapted, remote work became the new normal.
A year later to the week, a months' long study presented to our FDCC Board predicted that after a painful 2021, the American and world economies would slowly overcome the shutdown's inertia as travel and business began to seriously rebound in 2022 and 2023. Sure enough, businesses have re- opened, and travel is rebounding. The FDCC Study predicted that
as 2024 and 2025 came upon the scene, we would see "normalcy" in key sectors of the economy, including business travel. So far, looking at the crowds here, the Study sure got it right.
But let's look deeper. Remote work and employee isolation lingers. Not so much by government fiat any longer, but by a more deeply entrenched personal decision by many that working remotely is better. Is it? Downtowns still are
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