About Queens Bench

Mission and Vision Statement

Mission Statement
The Mission of Queen’s Bench is to foster professional and social relationships among women lawyers and to promote equality and opportunity for all women through education, programs, and community outreach.

This Mission Statement can be expanded and clarified with further detail extracted from our Bylaws and other historical documents in appropriate situations.

Vision
These policies and priorities will guide our Queen’s Bench leadership team decisions and detailed planning:

1. Service to Queen’s Bench Members.

• We will strive for continued moderate upward growth in our membership numbers.
• Continued and improved quality of our services to members (i.e., camaraderie, networking, mentorship, programming) is a higher priority than expanding the quantity of our member base or the services we offer to members.
• We will focus on recruiting new members, and retaining existing members, with the following priorities:
  »  To recruit diversity candidates and improve the diversity mix of our membership on a broadly defined basis; i.e., race, sexual orientation, type of practice, economic profile.
  »  To improve our process of bridging the gap from initial recruitment of new members by actively welcoming them and encouraging their immediate assimilation into committees.

2. Service to and Role in the Legal Profession.

• We will focus our resources on supporting the interests of women in the following major issues currently facing the legal profession at large:
  »  Retention of women in the profession;
  »  Work/life balance;
  »  Upgrading/modernizing the business and marketing management sophistication of law firms and other legal service organizations;
  »  Sustaining high ethical standards in the practice of law; and
  »  Continued elimination of bias in the legal profession.
• Our tools for accomplishing this will include a combination of committee work, MCLE and other programming, and building alliances with other bar associations.
• Our alliance-building efforts will primarily focus on the following organizations:
  »  California Women Lawyers
  »  Minority Bar Coalition
  »  Bar Association of San Francisco, including Barristers
  »  National Conference of Women’s Bar Associations

3. Services to and Role in the San Francisco Bay Area Community.

• We will continue to offer our members the opportunity to perform public/community service through Queen’s Bench in the areas of domestic violence, support to the girls’ unit of Juvenile Hall, and scholarships.
• We will promote a positive profile for Queen’s Bench in the San Francisco Bay Area community at large by:
  »  Disseminating information about the collective strength and connections of our member network (especially our Past Presidents);
  »  Emphasizing our wealth of mentoring and positive role modeling opportunities; and
  »  Highlighting the many and varied professional accomplishments of our members.
• We will periodically assess and discuss public perceptions of Queen’s Bench to decide if such feedback indicates a need to revise our plans.