Historic North Carolina hotel serves as the site for ‘24 Global Conference
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From the President’s Desk
Historic North Carolina hotel serves as the site for ‘24 Global Conference
An eye-popping hotel that was “built for the ages” will be the host site of the 2024 Primerus Global Conference, scheduled for October 17-19 in the beautiful city of Asheville, North Carolina.
The Omni Grove Park Inn, neatly situated on Sunset Mountain, will be the focal point for the three-day event that is expected to attract an exceptional turnout of Primerus attorneys from all corners of the world. Long known as one of the finest hotels in the country, the Grove Park Inn was built with giant boulders from the surrounding mountainside and has welcomed 10 U.S. Presidents since opening in 1913 under the watch of founder Edwin Wiley Grove, owner of the Paris Medicine Company.
Those attending the Global Conference also will have the chance to enjoy the splendor of various Asheville sight-seeing destinations, including the Biltmore Estate, the largest privately-owned house in the United States at 178,926 feet of floor space. The Biltmore House is a Chateauesque-styled mansion built between 1889-95 by George W. Vanderbilt III, part of the prominent family that amassed a huge fortune through railroads, steamboats, and various other business enterprises. The home is now owned by one of Vanderbilt’s descendants and stands as one of the most notable examples of the Gilded Age, an era in the late 19th century marked by economic expansion.
Growth, coincidentally, figures to be among the featured topics at this year’s Global Conference, which will serve as a building block for the next 5-year plan mapped by Primerus. Much of the work on the strategic plan for 2025-30 will be taking place in the coming months as we invite Primerus members to offer their input on the future direction of our organization. The planning process will be via a series of Zoom meetings arranged by topic, and we invite members to participate in these calls with their ideas, questions, and recommendations. We also encourage members to take on leadership roles with workshop subcommittees and to participate in the planning committee that will present a series of roundtable discussions at the Global Conference before the final 5-year plan is presented to the Primerus Board of Directors for adoption.
When we began a similar strategic planning exercise in the fall of 2019, no one attending that Global Conference could have anticipated what was to come just months later when the world was rocked by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Omni Grove Park Inn is located in Asheville, a city of 95,000 in western North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains. Aside from its natural beauty, the Asheville area boasts a vibrant arts and music scene that draws tourists from around the country.
The resulting health crisis proved to be a seismic event that sent economic, social, and political shockwaves around the world that are still being felt nearly five years later.
But back then, our strategic plan to build the Primerus brand and to expand the reach of the organization had to be altered due to health and safety considerations, ushering in such novel concepts as video meeting technology and remote work stations. Suddenly, face-to-face meetings were a thing of the past, as were large gatherings such as International Summits, Global Conferences, and the like. We weren’t able to resume regular in-person meetings for nearly two years after COVID hit, and even then, attendance was restricted because of vaccination requirements.
And yet we discovered different ways to grow and remain viable, relying on new forms of communication to transmit our Six-Pillar message to law firms and legal communities around the globe. The Weekly newsletter you are now reading was one road we took to stay in close touch, as were Coffee & Conversation sessions designed to further engage Primerus members. We also remade our quarterly Paradigm magazine, adding significantly to its content and coverage while highlighting the important contributions that Primerus members make to their respective legal communities.
We did so without losing sight of our founding principles – the Six Pillars, which have served as our guideposts for the past three decades, a time when the concepts of honesty and integrity have come under repeated attack by those bent on sowing the seeds of democracy’s demise.
At the heart of Primerus is a firm commitment to the time-honored qualities of integrity, excellence, value, competence, civility, and community service. A belief in those standards has been instrumental in fueling our growth on a global scale, serving as our moral compass in all matters applying to conscience and courage.
In the legal community, we began marshalling those forces for the greater good in 1992 when we created Primerus. Back then, our original focus was to highlight the important role that lawyers play in upholding the rule of law and in peacefully resolving conflict. We set out to restore honor and dignity to the profession, and to help rebuild the public’s trust in lawyers and the justice system.
Since our founding, we have worked tirelessly to promote the most cherished ideals of the legal profession while building an alliance that is international in scope, providing an important source of strength in shaping a free and civilized society.
As part of our mission to attract the finest boutique law firms in the world, we also aim to help them practice more effectively and efficiently, offering a series of betterment programs and services that will level the playing field with Big Law when it comes to landing quality clients.
Correspondingly, our strategy emphasizes the value that Primerus firms deliver in terms of prompt and professional service at a significant cost savings over their larger counterparts. Another aspect revolves around the values we uphold, underscoring the importance of honesty, respect, and trust in matters large and small. To an equal degree, we also stress our commitment to community service, knowing how a helping hand can inspire even greater work down the road.
The Primerus Global Conference, as is its custom, will feature a number of receptions, meetings, and programs over the course of the three days that will serve as get-to-know and relationship-building opportunities. The event kicks off with a “giving back” team-building experience, typically partnering with a local food bank to pack food boxes for the needy in the community.
As we embark on a new 5-year plan, we can take pride in the growth we have achieved over the past year, highlighted by the initiatives to build the Primerus brand so that it is recognized and admired worldwide.
To help us take that next step, we need to hear your voice, whether it comes in the form of serving on boards, committees, or in various leadership roles. Collectively, it can become a powerful Primerus force and a clarion call to action for the long-range benefit of us all.
Best regards,
Jack Buchanan, President