A Message from the Incoming President
It is an absolute honor to begin my term as President of the Connecticut Trial Lawyers Association.
I would like to start by thanking my great friend, Andy Savvaides, for his service as President. Andy has been the guiding light of our great organization for the past year. Like Stephanie Roberge and Paul Slager before him, he has helped to smoothly navigate us though some fairly unsteady waters over the past year. But he has always done so with tremendous grace, intelligence, wit and common sense.
Through Andy's leadership, and with the great assistance of our Legislative Team at Gaffney Bennett (Jay Malcynsky and Jeffrey "Zeke" Zyjeski), we had a tremendously successful legislative season. We were able to pass a Uniform Discovery Act that will make it simpler to perform important discovery in our and other states. We played a significant role in getting the Prison Debt Bill passed which will wipe out the great majority of "incarceration liens" making it easier for our members to resolve cases expeditiously and increasing the amount of lawful compensation our clients will receive for their harms and losses.
My sincere hope is that we will continue to do our very best to "Return to Normal" as time moves on as it is my firm belief that we are Stronger Together. To do this, it will take a commitment from each and every one of our valued members to step up and join the fight! Please encourage colleagues to become members. Please continue to dedicate your financial resources to our mission. Please become involved and attend committee meetings. Please attend our great CLE programs. Please support our charity events. We need everybody rowing the boat!
– Timothy L. O'Keefe, CTLA President
