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Akron Bar president discusses some new initiatives
SHERRY KARABIN
Legal News Reporter
Published: December 8, 2023
Since beginning her term as Akron Bar Association president on July 1, solo practitioner Susan Durr has worked with other bar leaders and staff members to officially unveil a diversity task force, offer a mental health program to members and restart a mentorship initiative that Durr hopes will lead to more new lawyers joining the organization down the road.
And those are just some of the items on her agenda this year.
If it seems like she has a lot on her to-do list, Durr said she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“When I was asked about taking on this leadership role at the bar association, I thought long and hard about it,” said Durr. “As a solo practitioner, my time is limited. The reason I agreed to serve as president is because I want to give back to the bar association, which has played a pivotal role in my career.
“I plan to spread the word about the many benefits of membership and do as much as possible to bring attorneys together and make the bar association a place where everyone feels welcome,” said Durr.
“I’m very lucky to have great people around me, including the bar staff, Executive Director C. Allen Nichols, my president-elect Tom Teodosio and immediate past president Maura Scanlon, who make my job much easier.”
Durr’s eventual successor retired Ninth District Court of Appeals Judge Thomas Teodosio said she’s “well qualified” for the role.
“Susan has been very active in the Akron and Ohio State bar associations,” said Teodosio. “In addition, she has been in the practice of law for 40 years, all of which provides a great background for the job of president.”
It was Teodosio’s wife, Summit County Juvenile Court Judge Linda Teodosio, who swore Durr in on June 22.
“We have both known Susan well since our days at Akron Law School,” said Teodosio.
“Susan is a well-respected lawyer and gets along with everyone at the bar association. She works very hard, stays focused and keeps our meetings on point. She will be a great president and I look forward to continuing to work with her over the course of her term.”
Akron Bar Association Immediate Past President Maura Scanlon echoed similar sentiments.
“I feel very fortunate to have worked with Susan during my presidency,” said Scanlon, an attorney at The Scanlon Group. “She and I worked together to implement some ongoing initiatives as a result of the adoption of the strategic plan by the Akron Bar in the spring of 2022.”
Scanlon said Durr is not only continuing to focus on those initiatives, but has quite a few plans of her own.
“I am extremely confident that the Akron Bar is in excellent hands with Susan serving as president and Tom Teodosio serving as the president-elect,” said Scanlon.
A native of Akron, Durr received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from The University of Akron.
After earning her juris doctorate from Akron Law in 1983, she started a small firm in Canton with her two former moot court partners.
In addition, she served as a part-time assistant criminal prosecutor in Cuyahoga Falls. About a year later, she left the firm and became a full-time criminal prosecutor for the city.
In 1988, Stow Law Director L. James Martin recruited her and attorney Rita Rochford (now a Summit County Juvenile Court magistrate) to become the criminal prosecutors for the city of Stow and to join his private law practice. The three formed the firm Martin, Rochford & Durr.
Two years later, they left the prosecutor’s office.
When Rochford exited the firm, Martin and Durr continued practicing together until the mid-1990s when Durr became a solo practitioner and moved her office to Cuyahoga Falls. At the time, she had a general law practice.
Durr also sat as an acting judge in Cuyahoga Falls Municipal Court on numerous occasions and was the city prosecutor for Streetsboro from 1999-2007.
For about the last 20 years she has shared her office space in Cuyahoga Falls with her husband Jeff, who is a mental health therapist.
Today Durr primarily focuses on probate and estate planning. She also does mediation with her son Andrew, a cognitive coach and mediator who, with his wife Katy own Evolve Services in Cuyahoga Falls.
Durr’s daughter, Lauren Emery, is a senior assistant attorney general at the Court of Claims Defense Section in Columbus.
“I no longer work on contested matters and instead get to spend my time helping people overcome their struggles or create plans for their future,” said Durr. “It’s much less stressful and not doing litigation frees up more time for things like being with my three grandchildren.”
A longtime member of the Akron and Ohio State bar associations, Durr completed three terms on the Akron Bar Association Board of Trustees over the years, including one term as secretary.
She chaired the professionalism committee for many years and served multiple terms on the judicial commission, along with being a member of several sections.
She’s also a former member of the OSBA Council of Delegates and is a fellow of both the Akron and Ohio State bar foundations.
In addition, she previously served on the boards of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Summit, Medina, & Stark Counties and the Cuyahoga Falls Schools Foundation & Alumni Association.
As Akron Bar President, Durr said she’s focused on carrying out the strategic plan that the organization adopted in early 2022 under then-president Maura Scanlon.
“One of our main directives under the strategic plan was focused on diversity,” said Durr. “This was not just to increase diversity within our organization and leadership, but to create a welcoming culture for attorneys of diverse communities to recognize the Akron legal community as a place for their careers.
“In April 2023, we began planning for a diversity task force. In September the full diversity task force had its first meeting. In addition to myself, the group includes board members, bar leadership, Akron Law representatives and attorneys from several area law firms and corporations.
“We are also continuing to reach out to minority student groups, as well as the Akron-Canton Barristers Association and additional large firms and corporations to get them to join our efforts.
“In addition to the task force, we have also partnered with the Raising the Bar program that Akron Municipal Court Judge David Hamilton and the county executive’s office started, which works with primarily minority high school students to introduce them to the legal field,” said Durr.
“Diversity is a goal of many organizations and we are taking concrete steps toward making a real change,” she said.
As part of her efforts to encourage attorneys to join the bar, the Membership Committee worked with Akron Law administrators and bar staff to restart the Pathfinder Program, in which upper-level students are paired with seasoned attorney mentors from the bar who take them to the association’s CLEs, section meetings and events and court hearings.
“We are looking to get young people involved in the bar association while they are still in law school, with the hope that they will see the benefits and choose to remain members once they graduate,” said Durr. “We also want to provide mentorship to our new bar members to help them develop their practices.”
Plans are underway to bring back the Akron Bar’s Leadership Academy, which was suspended in 2020 due to the pandemic.
The academy works with emerging attorneys to assist them in becoming leaders at the bar association and in the greater Akron community.
Durr also plans to increase in-person bar events.
“Between Covid and the improvements to technology it’s been harder to attract new members,” said Durr. “I think it’s easier to demonstrate the value of membership when people are able to come together and develop relationships that actually help them grow as lawyers.
“This is especially important for solo and small firm practitioners,” she said.
“I’m still working on trying to find the right balance between Zoom and in-person networking opportunities,” said Durr. “But I believe that to get the full benefit of the bar association we need to be together.”
The bar association has also partnered with the workplace wellbeing platform Unmind to allow members to set up free accounts that provide access to mental health tools and resources.
“Since the end of October, our members have been able to sign up for this service,” said Durr. “The bar association has always provided assistance to lawyers with substance use issues. This is just the next step in trying to help our members combat stress, anxiety and depression, which statistics show that attorneys suffer from more than most other professions.”
Durr said she’s excited to see how the current initiatives progress.
“With the commitment and passion that our leadership, staff, board and members have shown to making them successful, I am confident that these programs will be in place not just for my term, but well into the future.”