SPRINGFIELD – A zoning and development attorney who aims to usher in leadership programs for young lawyers will be inaugurated president of the Illinois State Bar Association and has his sights set on pooling interested members into a single health care plan.
David B. Sosin, a founding member and partner of the Orland Park-based law firm Sosin, Arnold & Schoenbeck, will be inaugurated president on Friday, June 14, at the Illinois State Bar Association's gathering in Lake Geneva, Wis. He will be the Illinois State Bar Association's (ISBA) 143rd president.
“We will hit the ground running, and that’s my entire board - the great officers behind me and a terrific board of directors that is energetic and diverse,” Sosin said.
David B. Sosin
In his one-year term as president, Sosin plans to focus on a variety of projects, notably creating a revised health care system for bar members and an academy to foster the next generation of legislative leaders in the community.
ISBA members can currently use a resource that refers them to health care plans, Sosin said, but the association is taking initial steps toward pooling their members into a single health insurance plan.
“One of the recurring comments that lawyers have had for many years have been ‘Boy, I wish we could do something about health insurance,’" Sosin said. “We now think that this is the time to look at this and really explore and see if it’s feasible.”
The bar hopes to offer a multiple employer welfare arrangement under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, Sosin said. ISBA is currently on step two of the process, which is surveying firms in the state to gauge interest in the plan.
ISBA expects to receive thousands of interested members, at which point leadership will seek an insurer to underwrite the plan, Sosin said. The organization has more than 28,000 members. A pooled insurance policy will make insurance more affordable and spread risk, which could particularly aid smaller firms that could run into difficulties obtaining services.
Another major project, the ISBA Leadership Academy, will take an inaugurating class of 15 attorneys to groom them for leadership positions in the legal community.
“We’re very, very excited as a board and as a group of officers to be starting a formal bar leadership academy,” Sosin said. "The whole purpose of the leadership academy is to train lawyers who have a drive and affinity for leadership in the bar and their community.”
The curriculum for the classes, which begin in December, is in the development stages, but courses will last for one year. Lawyers with three to 10 years of experience are eligible to take part in the academy, either by nomination from an individual in the community or self-nomination.
Sosin first became involved in ISBA in 1988 and has since served on several ISBA committees. He is chair-elect of the ISBA Mutual Insurance Co. Board of Directors. He has also chaired the insurance, bar services and minority and women’s participation committees.