On July 10, 1994 at 9:00 pm, Eastern Daylight Time, at computer terminals across the country, from New York to California, from Florida to Alaska, members of the chapter logged on to CompuServe to participate in the chapter’s inaugural meeting, thereby making “Cyber Chapter” a reality. The premier “White Paper” was presented for discussion by Morry Schorr to ask the appropriate question: “Will law firms, as we know them, survive in the 21st century?”

Meetings followed on the second Sunday evening of each month thereafter, with attendance and participation growing exponentially, month by month.

In August of 1994, the Cyber Chapter arrived by “conventional standards” as the cover story for the August/September edition of ALA News, in an article entitled “Zooming through an Electronic Universe” by Jay Strother and Michael Prudhom.

By December, 1994—one year after ALA’ s electronic forum made its debut on CompuServe, and only six months after the birth of the Cyber Chapter—the forum membership had grown to more than 170, and more than 40 administrators had formally joined the Chapter. The online membership included every director of the international Association of Legal Administrators, the majority of the headquarters staff sections, and at least 10 serving chapter presidents. The chapter was fully integrated into ALA, with active participation in its monthly meetings by the Region Director and members of the ALA Headquarters.

Unlike “traditional” meetings—in ALA or elsewhere—any member participating in the online conference could log the meeting and create a verbatim transcript in “real-time,” so that the preparation and dissemination of the minutes was no longer a time-consuming task. For the benefit of members unable to be “present,” however, the chapter meeting logs were electronically uploaded into the section library.

In the Future Who knows? The possibilities and potential of the chapter, and the ALA Forum itself, continue to grow and develop with each passing week and month. The interaction between the Cyber Chapter and the ALA Headquarters increases and becomes more intertwined with every log-on of their respective terminals. Among the members, products are evaluated; policies reviewed; ideas are broached, discussed, refined and implemented. All instantly. All electronically. The only thing known for sure is there is no going back. “Cyber Chapter,” and the 21st century are here.

The section library continues to expand, with a growing number of resources and topical discourses. ALA directories now include individual CompuServe addresses, where known. In a decade, all this may be taken for granted, but in 1994, the Cyber Chapter helped opened a new frontier for ALA and legal administration.

This portion (1995-1996) of the chapter history was written by Jeff Hackett, of Baltimore, who served as chapter historian.

The year 1995 saw the Cyber Chapter mature and become an increasingly high profile Chapter in the ALA. Exerpts from Forum threads started to appear in legal newsletters and publications. The Chapter published its first newsletter called Cyber@Net and introduced its new logo featuring “Cy Bear,” shown on the welcome page of this web site surfing the Internet on a computer mouse. The Chapter devoted some of its meetings to issues facing the larger ALA organization. The Cyber Chapter made presentations at the Association Annual Conference in Orlando and at some Regional Conferences, demonstrating the ALA Forum’s capabilities. The Cyber Chapter made a big splash at the Annual Educational Conference in Orlando, winning the Best New Newsletter Award, and was mentioned by several speakers over the course of the Conference.

While in Orlando, chapter members visited Epcot at Disney World, touring the Innoventions exhibit and the Disney computer animation studios.

The number of posts for the bulletin board increased as the number of Cyber Chapter members grew from 40 at the beginning of 1995 to 154 by March 15, 1996. The number of ALA members logging onto the Forum grew from 170 at the beginning of 1995 to 349 by March, 1996. During the first year, those logging on twice a week might have 50 to 100 new posts to read. A year later, that number had doubled.

The Cyber members attending the 1995 Conference planned an active social agenda with one another and made even more elaborate plans for the 1996 Conference in New Orleans. New officers were elected in July. Morry Schorr agreed to serve another term as President, Diana Clark became Secretary, Michael Gallery became Treasurer, Ron Henry took over Membership, and Kent Davis became Human Resources Chair. Phil Hamilton continued as Sergeant-at-Arms. Jeff Hackett became Historian at the end of 1995.

The Cyber Chapter experimented in late 1995 with a World Wide Web “home page” on the Internet, thanks to the good graces of Mike Prudhom, who also moderated most Cyber Chapter meetings. The Cyber Chapter and ALA began to look to the future for new venues for online activities with an expectation that the ALA would grow to have its own Forum on Compuserve or possibly move the whole show to the Internet.

Diana Clark succeeded Morry Schorr as Chapter President in April, and Ron Henry succeeded as vice-president. Jeff Hackett was elected to be secretary and Phil Hamilton agreed to serve as chapter treasurer.

The first successful “live” Internet presentations at an ALA Annual Educational Conference were presented by Cyber Chapter members at ALA’s 25th Annual Conference in New Orleans in May, 1996. Chapter members were active on ALA’s conference committee and several served as session managers or presenters at a variety of educational sessions.

After winning approval from ALA Headquarters, the Cyber Chapter web site was launched on September 7, 1996. The decision to establish an independent Internet presence was undertaken only after chapter leaders were able to confirm that ALA’s own Internet site would not provide for chapter networking or accommodate local chapter pages and discussion groups. The chapter web site was written entirely by chapter members, and all costs were borne by the chapter. Total development costs were estimated at $200, including registration of the cyberala.org domain name.

The official ALA world wide web site at alanet.org made its public debut on October 2, 1996, and quickly established itself as one of the most information-intensive sites on the Internet. Discussion groups on the site, known as Professional Development Networks (PDN’s) were added one at a time. Cyber Chapter founder and charter president Morry Schorr volunteered to serve as Section Leader of the first ALA PDN, which focused on Technology.

Diana Clark was reelected chapter president in April 1997, and Ron Henry agreed to a second term as vice-president. Bernadette Peters of Honolulu was elected as secretary, and Lew Gray of Raleigh as treasurer. This slate of officers was destined to see the Cyber Chapter complete its migration—along with ALA—to the Internet and World Wide Web. ALA withdrew from its CompuServe presence in April 1997. The termination of the “ALA Forum” in Section 17 of The Court Reporters Forum on CompuServe marked the end of a brief era, when peer-to-peer online networking among ALA members first was offered on a mass basis. The April 15 termination marked ALA’s complete break with members-only online services, as it focused its entire online presence on the Internet at alanet.org.

In May, the Cyber Chapter repeated its support of ALA Internet education at ALA’s 1997 Annual Educational Conference in Seattle. At ALA’s request, Cyber Chapter members conducted a series of live Internet navigation and education sessions in the Microsoft Learning Pavilion in ALA’s Exhibit Hall.

The chapter launched its own discussion forum in September 1997 after three months of testing and development. This forum, designed by chapter members and employing a database routine written by Rob Mallard at Service Pointe, restored much of the convenience which members had enjoyed on CompuServe.

The chapter continued to encourage the publication of monthly “white papers” on a variety of topics. In April, 1998, the first paper devoted exclusively to “Y2K” or the “Millennium Bug” was released, and days later was distributed in print form at ALA’s Annual Educational Conference in Boston. The April white paper was re-published on the ALA website and in a wide variety of local chapter newsletters and state bar association materials.