Sponsored by the Association of Corporate Counsel
& Co Sponsored by the San Antonio Bar Association
Follies NewsACC is currently hosting a city-wide nomination process to find appropriate recipients of the "The Ethical Life Award." Two awards will be given during the Ethics Follies conference this year.
One award will go to a lawyer or law firm which has demonstrated a commitment to ethics in law practice. The second award will be given to a corporate law department which has demonstrated that ethics plays a part in the attorneys' law practices on a daily basis. Nominations can currently be made online by clicking here or the award pictured above. Kelli Cubeta is the Chair of this committee and will be seeking review of the nominations by a distinguished panel of judges."Excellent and very enjoyable presentation."
Jason Fraser, Valero
New Follies Ad
(suitable for framing)
The Texas Lawyer ad for August features a kitschy* Elvis impersonator and a Carmen Miranda lookalike (lady with the fruit-filled hat). ACC will run ads in the Texas Lawyer, the San Antonio Lawyer, and The Subpoena in the coming months. The state-wide ads were obtained in a cooperative effort with the other ACC chapters in Texas.
*see http://www.worldofkitsch.com/ for primarily persuasive authority on the cultural and literal definitions of the term "kitschy."
Diane Hirsch In Metropolitan Corporate Counsel Newspaper
Diane is the Chair of South/Central Texas
ACC Chapter. Read her article comparing The Girl Scouts' delicious cookies to ACC's delightful Ethics Follies. Click here to go the entertaining article.
Recent additions to the Cast
The Follies is fortunate to have the interest and support of judges and justices who care about the city and about preserving its ethical culture. The following members of the judiciary have volunteered to appear in the Follies on Nov. 6, 2008:
The Honorable Xavier Rodriguez, U.S. District Court
The Honorable Royal Ferguson, U.S. District Court
Fourth Court Justice Karen Angelini
Fourth Court Justice Phylis Speedlin
Bexar County District Court Judge Karen Pozza
Bexar County District Court Judge Barbara Nellermoe
Fourth Court Justice Sandee Bryan Marion
227th Judicial District Court Judge Philip Kazen
The Honorable Leif Clark, U.S. Bankruptcy Court
Cox Smith Matthews, Script in Progress
Valero and Jackson Walker are
Community Ethics Leaders
Cox Smith Matthews, Valero and Jackson Walker are "Community Leaders" sponsors, each making at $10,000 commitment to the ethics conference on November 6, 2008. The funds will help establish the conference as a city-wide event for all professions and add significant funding to The Community Justice Program budget in 2009. Many thanks from SABA, SABF, and ACC for these generous contributions to preserving San Antonio's ethical culture.
The Cast and Crew are working on all three Acts. We will have a read through of Act III at Cox Smith Matthews at the end of August. The nightly rehearsals begin in September at Valero's offices, which have generously been donated by Valero. This year, the Ethics Follies script will be one musical story told in three acts with ethics issues taken from US headlines. The ethics issues will develop and unfold along with the characters. While the story is original, the jokes and parodies are inspired by The Office, Saturday Night Live, Forbidden Broadway, The Carol Burnett Show, Weird Al Yankovik, Monty Python, and anything that makes us laugh while we are rehearsing. The fun transfers to the audience, so we try to keep the show open and flexible. We will incorporate some "documentary" elements to the show by filming vignettes of each main character to identify an ethical issue that needs resolution.
Attorney Lee Cusenbary talks about the finale of the Follies 2007 with the cast. The finale has been watched over 6,700 times on Youtube.com...mostly by our moms.
A memorable part of Follies 2007 was attorney Cynthia Smith singing an aria while the large projection screen to her right scrolled a translation of the Italian lyrics which were not exactly what Faust had in mind when he wrote it. Who says classical music isn't funny? Click on the picture to jump to the video of Cynthia's performance.
Helpful Links
We get in depth legal analysis
regarding legal ethics and the Texas Disciplinary Rules from the following hard hitting websites:
Photography by Mike Cubeta. Film footage by Fawn Mountain Films, Austin, Texas. Web design by C. Lee Cusenbary
Copyright © 2008 C. Lee Cusenbary. "Ethics Follies" is a trademark of C. Lee Cusenbary and used under an exclusive license to the Association of Corporate Counsel, South/Central Texas Chapter. All rights reserved, baby. Spam is a registered trademark of Hormel Foods, LLC. Twinkies is a registered trademark of IBC Brands (Hostess).
