http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/309053/17/
Saturday, 16 May 2009
Bar elects first Utah County lawyer in 35 years as president Print E-mail
Ace Stryker - Daily Herald
PROVO -- It wouldn't have been a great leap to predict Robert L. Jeffs would end up in law.
"My father, my uncle, all of my brothers are attorneys," he said. "My entire immediate family is attorneys."
Jeffs, who grew up in Provo, attended Brigham Young University and graduated from the school's J. Reuben Clark Law School in 1984. He joined the family's Provo-based firm, Jeffs & Jeffs PC, immediately afterward.
The way he tells it, it wasn't even a great leap for him to run for a spot on the Utah State Bar Commission six years ago.
"I come from a background that I think is very rich in the practice of law, which has been very good to me and my family," he said. "It's something I feel like I owe back to the profession."
He won a spot representing the lawyers of Utah, Wasatch, Juab and Millard counties by a vote of that group. The Utah State Bar is responsible for licensing and disciplining lawyers and for public service, among other things. Those responsibilities are delegated by the Utah Supreme Court, which bears the duties under the state Constitution.
The great leap, in fact, only came recently, when Jeffs decided to run for president of the organization. Before he ran, no Utah County lawyer had held the position in more than 35 years. That's technically still true -- but as of earlier this month, the streak is destined to break when Jeffs takes the office in July 2010.
"When I originally became a bar commissioner, I had no interest whatsoever in becoming bar president," he said. "The demands of the job, the nature of the job just wasn't something I thought I'd be interested in."
Indeed, Jeffs said he anticipates about half of his professional time will go toward the volunteer job when he takes office. But the encouragement of fellow lawyers "pushed [him] over the edge," he said, and he won more of the vote among statewide attorneys than Felshaw King, his challenger from Kaysville.
Jeffs said he's excited for the opportunity to be an advocate for Utah County and surrounding areas, which have been historically underrepresented.
"By and large, appointments and service positions are dominated by attorneys from Salt Lake County," he said. "I can help influence that. More attorneys from our community will be involved in leadership positions for the bar."
He said he also plans to build relationships between attorneys and both the public and the state Legislature. Jeffs's father, M. Dayle Jeffs, attorney at Jeffs & Jeffs and a former bar commissioner, said he's proud to see his son take on the job, but he doesn't expect it to be easy.
"It's an opportunity -- but of service," he said. "You put in many dozens of hours as president of the bar, and you do it for the good of the system."
Robert Jeffs will be sworn in as president-elect this July. He takes office as president a year later, and will remain in the position for a year.