Bar Association

 2018-2019 PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

“A lawyer is either a social engineer or a parasite on society”  - Charles Hamilton Houston

 You’re either working to make society progress or you are holding us back, you’re weighing us down or you are simply in the way. Truth be told, we stand on the shoulders of giants.  We discover truths by building upon the sacrifices made by our predecessors. We owe it to them to not let their efforts and accomplishments go in vain.

This year’s theme of the F. Malcolm Cunningham Sr., Bar Association is:

“SOCIAL ENGINEERS:  Recognizing our social responsibility to use the profession of law to be agents of progress”

The theme is strongly influenced by the spirit of scholar, educator, and lawyer, Charles Hamilton Houston, whose legal work and activism played a significant role in dismantling Jim Crow laws and the separate but equal doctrine it was built upon.  That fighting spirit was echoed in the work of the late great Frank Malcolm Cunningham Sr., William M. Holland, I.C. Smith and other African-American attorneys that paved the way for us to practice law in Palm Beach County.

What good is you law degree if you don’t use it to improve your community?  What good is having the ability to fight for what matters if you don’t express it?   I believe that elections matter…voting rights matter…access to the courts matters…the independence of our judiciary matters…diversity of the bench and our profession matters…inclusion in the legislative process matters… and service to the community matters.

We can effect change when we stand for what matters to us.   So please join me in being an agent of progress.

Jason McIntosh

President, F. Malcolm Cunningham Sr., Bar Association