	April 2003

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His Wife Reads it, Too: What Bill McClearn thinks of The Docket 25 years later

by Karen Bries

Calendar is Dead, Long Live The Docket

“The Denver Bar Calendar,
like Marley’s ghost, is dead as a doornail.
The coroner’s inquest revealed the
cause of death as terminal boredom on the
part of the DBA readership . . .”

—From the April 1978 issue of The Docket.

Over many years, I’ve taken many legal magazine subscriptions, and The Docket is the only one my wife reads. That must count for something."

It must, if past president of the Denver Bar Association Bill McClearn says so. He was president and a driving force behind the birth of The Docket in April 1978.

"Anything was better than what it was before," he says, referring to the boring, one-page list of upcoming events called "The Calendar" that was sent to DBA members before 1978.

McClearn remembers the DBA’s "Calendar" had hardly any communication at all. The association needed something light, irreverent and gossipy.

"The Docket is all of that," says McClearn. "It’s immensely successful, and it’s achieved everything we hoped it would."

Two years ago, The Docket staff polled 700 random members and asked what they liked or disliked about the publication. Some thought it should be more like the Colorado Bar Association’s The Colorado Lawyer. Others wanted more bar reviews.

The consensus? It’s great just the way it is!

McClearn sums it up best when he says: "If you want to read a law review, go someplace else!"

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