Thursday, June 7, 2007

Partying with Leadership Austin

Torquil and I attend Leadership Austin's Best Party Ever this year to get a gander at all the movers and shakers in town. We recognized plenty of people - either from past jobs or from the pages of Austin Monthly where Torquil was art director. We even spoke to a few! (Though admittedly, we weren't as social as we wanted to be.)

One person I did speak to was Luke Ellis, a young lawyer I met through my time at Austin Bar Association. When I met him, Luke was just starting his Common Law column in the Austin Chronicle, and he was already looking for help from other lawyers who might respond to the dozens of legal questions he got every day. We locked on to Luke early on, getting him involved in People's Law School and other Bar committees. He's since started a regular appearance on News 8 Austin giving out Common Law-type advice. Luke's been with Jackson Walker for a number of years now, which is amazing considering how often young lawyers change jobs. Guess they figure he's worth holding on to. He's a credit to the community, that's for sure.

We talked to Luke about GoodCause magazine, and it sounded like he approved of the idea. So far we've gotten lots of approvals from people we've talked to, which is important feedback. I'm trying to spread the word about it to the exact people who would be its audience. Their feedback - and involvement - is extremely important since the focus of the magazine is on the volunteer community. Now if only one of them would lend us a couple hundred thousand dollars to get started...