One of the many things I learned from our Past President, Susan Russo Klein, is that the strength of this Bar is in the connections it creates. And I want to build on that idea in the coming year. So let’s start with a story.

In 1973, a sociologist named Mark Granovetter asked a simple question.  How do people actually find jobs? He surveyed a few hundred people who had recently been hired. He expected the answer to be obvious. Your closest friends. Your family. The people who know you best. He was wrong. Most people did not get their job through a close friend. They got it through someone they barely knew. An old colleague. A friend of a friend. Someone they ran into twice a year. Granovetter called this the strength of weak ties. This was a small study.

But fast forward about 50 years, and enter the LinkedIn database. In 2022, researchers tested the same idea on more than twenty million people over a span of five years. They asked the same question Granovetter did, and they got the same answer. The people who open doors for us professionally are our loose acquaintances, the people on the edges of our network. It is the strength of weak ties.

Here is why it works. Your closest contacts know what you know. They run in your circle. They have heard the same things you have. But your loose acquaintances live in different worlds. They carry information you would never find on your own. The opportunity that changes your career usually arrives across one of those bridges. The quality of your relationships matters when it comes to support. But the quantity matters when it comes to opportunity. The referral you get next year. The casual acquaintance who gives you insight into your impossible case. The attorney you hire that allows you to scale out your business. Odds are, you will meet them here. That is not a small thing. That is the whole thing.

So my theme for this year is simple. Member engagement. For the members, I challenge you to attend more events. Talk to people you don’t know. Tell other lawyers about the strength of weak ties and encourage them to show up. My challenge to the executive committee and to myself will be this: let’s keep making it hard for attorneys to pass on our events.  But let’s also find new ways to engage more people. Let’s ensure people know that member engagement is an opportunity and not an obligation. Thank you and I look forward to seeing more of all of you next year.

Sincerely,
Jonathan Dunlap
President, Buncombe County Bar