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Historical Summer 2019 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Last week, the Community Associations Institute (CAI) presented me with its “Author of the Year” award at its national conference in Orlando.
The award recognizes volunteers who, among other contributions, author a new significant publication. CAI is a national nonprofit organization providing information and resources to leaders of homeowner and condominium associations and cooperatives.
From its creation in 1973, CAI has grown to 41,000 members and more than 50 chapters in the US and Canada, South Africa and UAE.
In the fall of 2017, I reached out to several colleagues around the country for their recollections.
When they began representing HOAs and condos in the 1970s and 1980s, community association law didn’t exist.
I asked: “What were you thinking? Where did you look for guidance? Did you plan this practice or stumble into it?” Virtually none of them anticipated a career in this field when they started practicing.
It didn’t exist then.
I asked the attorneys to tell their stories and took the same approach with community association managers.
After eighteen months, I’d interviewed some three dozen early CAI leaders, attorneys and managers and produced two stories: how we created a new body of law and a new field of community association management. No easy feat, indeed. CAI is publishing the stories. Here’s an excerpt from CAI’s description of the award: “…Marv has spent countless hours this past year on two pieces that are incredibly important to community associations and CAI: a history of community association law and the creation of the field of community association management. For each, Marv has interviewed dozens of sources – lawyers, managers, and early CAI leaders. Through his hard work, these human-interest stories unfold through the voices, recollections, and anecdotes of the pioneers in each field.
They are important not only for substance but also for timeliness as members of these early groups retire, move off the grid, or sadly pass on.
They show where each field and CAI has been. Through these histories, we might also learn what comes next. CAI owes Marv a great deal of gratitude for his research, writing, and dedication to the cause.” My law practice concentrated in representing condos and HOAs in the metro area and outstate for more than 30 years. I’m a charter member of the College of Community Association Lawyers, served six years on CAI’s Board of Trustees, and was an adjunct professor at Saint Louis University School of Law for seven years. And I’ve published six novels including my new work, The Pinball Lawyer.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, Summer 2019.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times2019_06.pdf, printed page(s) 4; PDF page(s) 4.
