To our readers:

You will see some changes in the Bar Bulletin in the months to come. Principal among those changes is the departure of long-time editor Bob Anderton, who has decided that after four years it is time to move on. Thus, I have assumed the full-time helm beginning with this month’s issue.

By way of introduction, I am a shareholder in the Litigation Department at Karr Tuttle Campbell and have worked for the firm since my graduation from the University of Washington Law School in 1996. More importantly, at least as it concerns my new position here, my “past life” includes 15 years as a newspaper writer and editor in New Mexico and Oregon. Based on that experience and my ideas for making the Bar Bulletin a better, more useful publication, Executive Director Alice Paine, President Gary Maehara, Bar Bulletin Committee Chair Karen Sutherland and the other members of the executive committee placed their confidence in me.

However, what we will bring you in the months ahead will be a collaborative effort, which is the only way the changes we have in mind can happen. Besides a new, more vibrant look (in the months to come), our goal is to make the Bar Bulletin more current, more informative and more user-friendly. We do not strive to be edgy or controversial. But we do want to be more topical. To that end, we will strive to bring you informed opinion pieces on a regular basis and to delve into the legal issues behind the stories you see in the dailies or on television, but which do not tell us lawyers what we want to know.

It is perhaps apropos that I assume my new post with the Bar Bulletin’s Media Law issue, which -- as you might have guessed -- is a subject near and dear to my heart, although I do not practice in this area. To mark the occasion, as it were, we officially unveil in this month’s pages a new feature: “The Law Behind the News.” This, as noted above, reflects our effort to bring you the sort of specialized information that newspapers and TV news do not.

Some things will not change. Karen Sutherland’s Bar Talk column will appear every month in its “comfort zone” (the first inside page of the Second Section). But, if we are successful in our efforts, Bar Talk will not be -- as Karen has heard others say -- the only thing people read in the Bar Bulletin. To help us achieve that goal, we need your help, too. Please write and let me know what you would like to see more of or less of in the Bar Bulletin, what you do or do not like about the paper. And if you have an idea you would like to see us pursue or want to contribute an article or editorial, we will consider all submissions. After all, this is your Bar Association and your Bar Bulletin.

Thanks for reading.