Why You Should Go to Convention This Year, Even If You Sit in the Back
- Emily Steeves
- 15 hours ago
- 3 min read
When I went to the CWBA Convention for the first time in 2024, my plan was simple: go, sit near the back during the programming (because, I thought, surely everyone else knows each other already and their seats at the front tables are predestined and saved and sacred and I, a young attorney in polyester pants and in hiding, will sit in the back where no one will notice me). I didn't know what to expect and no one else from my firm went that year. Like anyone, my first instinct when facing the unknown was to proceed with caution.
I picked the perfect table for the headliner event: the table with the videographer and a bunch of empty seats, in the shadows of the projector screen setup, dead in the back. I had a tee time in Eagle nearby after the programming was finished that day. I could fly out of there like an eagle myself.
Eventually a woman took the seat next to me. We chatted about law school, about Colorado, the same topics I’m sure were repeating themselves in echoes, reverberations, across the room around us. The noise of lives somewhat similarly lived, at least thematically, at least academically. By the time the room filled in, our table was one of the few with empty spots left still - confirmation that I had indeed picked the most inconspicuous seat in that room.
Until I looked down at my program and matched the name of the woman next to me to the name of the keynote speaker in print on the program and I looked up at her (because suddenly I was a foot shorter than I was a second before) and realized I had just befriended one of the most powerful attorneys in the world, fourth in command at the Department of Justice, the Solicitor General of the United States of America, the lawyer who represents the United States of America on all matters before the Supreme Court of the United States of America.
The most ironic part of it all wasn’t that I was going to Eagle that day and sitting next to someone whose official seal is an eagle. It was that I was wearing a vintage Polo Ralph Lauren sweater with an American flag on it. I had an American flag on my shirt. She gave her keynote address, then, about her experience representing America in matters that affect every single one of us while I sat there in my American flag sweater.
The point of this story is, hopefully, to make you want to go to the Convention this year. Because however small you feel, or insignificant, or inconspicuous, you can go to this place where you can have conversations that matter with people that matter and you’ll walk away with this realization that you matter. Because, of course, everything does. What we do for work is important, the friends we make, the words we use, the clothes we wear.
As a female attorney, even when I try to sit in the back, physically or metaphorically, at the end of the day I find myself rising to the front. Every single time. I overcame so much to get to the place I’m in today and that same buoyant resilience finds me again and again because it has to. I know it finds you, too, and I hope it carries you all the way up the mountains to Vail.
When you get there, I hope you sit in the front.
Join us May 15th - 17th in Vail! Learn more about our 49th Annual Convention, register, and make your hotel reservations at The Hythe Luxury Hotel, at www.cwba.org/convention. Registration is open now!
The programming will include a Friday afternoon workshop, a hosted debate with your candidates for Colorado Attorney General, inspiring keynote presentations and plenary sessions, breakout sessions, roundtable sessions (all CLE eligible!), and the always thought-provoking On What Grounds discussion. Click here to see the current programming schedule. And so much more, including a First-Time Attendees Welcome Lunch, spa and fitness time, dine-arounds, yoga, hiking, karaoke dance party, onsite professional childcare provided by Call Emmy, and our Annual Meeting and Passing The Gavel Celebration!
SPONSORSHIPS also available! Click here for more info.
Questions? Please contact us at execdir@cwba.org.
Emily Steeves is an IP and data privacy attorney at StudioIP based in Denver, Colorado, which is a hybrid law firm and creative agency. She earned her undergraduate degree in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her law degree from the University of Colorado Law School. She enjoys writing, skiing, and creating art.
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