Message from the Chair

The Health Law Section ends its 2002-2003 bar year with a number of accomplishments to its credit.

The Section successfully moved its annual CLE program and annual meeting from the   Virginia Beach meeting of the Virginia State Bar to the Fifth Annual Legislative Update program held in Richmond on April 30th. This joint effort with the VBA Health Law Section attracted 130 pre-registrants.

Walt Sowers organized our CLE portion of the program. Tom Spahn, a noted expert in legal ethics, spoke on the ethical aspects of lawyer marketing and the Section also sponsored a panel discussion on an "Anatomy of a Peer Review Proceeding" that featured Greg St. Ours, Bob Adams and a practicing physician, Dr. Jon Palmintier. Following the Legislative Update program, the Section held a brief business meeting and the following persons were elected to a four-year term on the Section's Board of Governors: Brian O. Dolan of Kaufman & Canoles in Norfolk; John E. Oliver, Deputy City Attorney for the City of Chesapeake and Elaine Solomon Bernstein, Director of Clinical Research, Mobile Respiratory Assessment in Charlottesville.

Walter P. Sowers, II of Warton Aldhizer & Weaver PLC in Harrisonburg will Chair the Section during 2003-2004. John C. Bilzor of Hofheimer Nusbaum, P.C. in Norfolk will serve as Vice-Chair. Stephen C. McCoy of WilliamsMullen in Richmond will edit The Virginia Health Lawyer newsletter and will be the Section's Secretary. I have high confidence in all three of these lawyers and believe that they will serve us well in the years to come.

We express our appreciation to and congratulate the following retiring members of our Board of Governors for their service: James L. Banning, Robert F. Donnelly, Jr. and Dorthula H. Powell.

The online publication of three issues of The Virginia Health Lawyer on the Section's website, http://vsb.vipnet.org/sections/hl/, continued to be a major activity during 2002- 2003. My thanks to all of the contributing authors who worked so hard to make this publication "news you can use". A special acknowledgement goes to John Bilzor for the idea that the newsletter start publishing casenotes on Virginia health law cases that might be of interest to our members. In order to be sure that our members knew when the newsletter was posted to the website, a memorandum regarding each issue was sent to the membership describing the articles in each issue.

Pat Devine, the leading VBA organizer for the Fifth Annual Legislative Update, also found time to make a significant contribution to our Section this year by undertaking an update of the "Principles of Cooperation for Physicians and Attorneys in the Commonwealth of Virginia". These Principles, a joint project of our Section and the Medical Society of Virginia, were last revised in 1993. Pat assembled an ad hoc committee that solicited views from the plaintiffs' bar, the defense bar and the judiciary.

Several steps were taken this year to raise the profile of our members. The next edition Virginia Business magazine's "Legal Elite" will contain a section on health law for the first time. The April issue of that magazine featured an article on the evolution of health law as a specialty in Virginia. Additionally, our Section will be responsible for the theme in the June/July 2004 issue of the Virginia State Bar magazine, Virginia Lawyer.

A Compendium describing and providing contact information for Virginia Health Care Trade Associations and Regulatory Agencies was posted to the Section's website. Thanks to Steve McCoy, Marie Graham, Molly Evans and Pat Devine, an update of this Compendium is underway and should be completed by the Fall.

Special thanks go to Robyn Ellis who, as our Section Webmaster, updated the Section's website and played a key role in posting The Virginia Health Lawyer newsletter to the website.

All in all, the Health Law Section continued to make good progress in providing services to our members and in promoting health law as a recognized legal specialty.

It has been my great pleasure and honor to serve as your Chair. My sincerest thanks go to the Board of Governors and to the many other Section members who have been primarily responsible for the positive steps taken during 2002-2003. It is my firm belief that the Section's best years are still ahead of it and I will look forward to seeing that expectation fulfilled.