In Conversation with American Bar Association President Paulette Brown

Paulette Brown, president of the American Bar Association, is a Partner and co-chair of the firm-wide Diversity & Inclusion 360 Commission at Locke Lord LLP. She is also a member of the firm’s labor & employment practice group..Earlier this year, Paulette Brown was in India for the SILF-ABA second edition of India-US Cross Border Investment Forum in Delhi, where she also met Law Minister DV Sadananda Gowda and the members of the Bar Council of India to discuss the issue of liberalisation..In this interview with Bar & Bench’s Pallavi Saluja, Paulette Brown shares her views on liberalisation of Indian legal market, women in leadership roles, lack of diversity in the legal profession, pro bono legal work and much more..Pallavi Saluja: What are your views on the opening of the Indian legal market? .Paulette Brown: As a policy matter, the ABA supports liberalized legal services markets at home and abroad, including in India. I was encouraged by discussions in some of my meetings and by recent media reports indicating that progress is being made towards consideration of proposals to open the Indian market. The ABA looks forward to engaging in further dialogue with the Bar Council of India to exchange information and to emphasize the importance of liberalization to our professions and our countries..India and the US have the world’s largest legal professions, with more than a million lawyers each. I believe that lawyers practicing in both countries will play a crucial role in the growing economic relationship between our two countries, as well as in promoting democracy, the rule of law and access to justice..As we know, the legal marketplace has been transformed by globalization, technology and other factors, and we need to recognize the need for regulation of the profession to keep pace with these advances. To facilitate cross-border trade and investment, we must also facilitate the ability of lawyers and law firms to cross borders, both virtually and physically, to provide the services their clients need in our respective countries..Pallavi Saluja: How has your term as ABA President been so far? What have been the major challenges?.Paulette Brown: It’s a privilege to represent my profession as President of the ABA, and it is rewarding to work towards strengthening the profession for the future. It’s been wonderful to meet lawyers across our country and around the world. My biggest challenge is that there are not enough hours in the day to visit everywhere I’d like to go..Enhancing diversity and inclusion in the legal profession and fighting bias in the justice system are huge challenges that I’ve been working on through my initiative, the Diversity and Inclusion 360 Commission. The legal profession in the United States is the least diverse of any comparable profession — engineers, accountants, and physicians, for example. Eighty-eight percent of lawyers here are white. It is important for the future health of the profession that our profession more closely reflects the demographic makeup of our country..Pallavi Saluja: We understand that the ABA next year will have all-woman or at least significantly-female team of executive office holders. Can you please talk about that? .Paulette Brown: This year, I am the first woman of color to be President of our association. We also have a female Secretary. Next year, we will have a female President, President-elect, House of Delegates Chair and Secretary..The exciting year ahead for the ABA is a reflection of the progress made by women lawyers in the United States. But while there have been advancements on many fronts for women lawyers over recent decades, there is still work to be done. We often still face unequal treatment and subtle discrimination – including implicit bias. This is the subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle prejudices outside of our conscious awareness that cause us to make judgments on others based on criteria that have nothing to do with our abilities..We all have implicit biases, including me. Many female lawyers, especially women of color, experience hurdles in advancing their careers and in obtaining equal compensation. Clearly, more women serving in top leadership roles of the ABA will serve as an example for our profession, and lead the way for other professions as well..Pallavi Saluja: Can you talk about the changing face of the profession, retaining more women long enough for them to take on leadership roles and change the sector? .Paulette Brown: Unfortunately, it’s still not that unusual for women and people of color to face biases and low expectations in the legal profession. In the past two decades in the United States, men and women have entered the practice of law in roughly equal numbers. However, women partners at law firms are not much better off than they were in 2006..According to the latest study released by the National Association for Law Placement, women comprise 21 percent of equity and non-equity partners, up only 2 percent from the 2006 survey. And the numbers are even worse for women lawyers of color. The ABA Commission on Women in the Profession examined research that suggested that virtually all women lawyers of color working in private practice had left their positions at major law firms within eight years..A more recent study by NALP found that from 1998 to 2003, nearly two-thirds (64.4 percent) of minority females left their firms within 55 months of being hired. And in a recent survey of 464 young women lawyers in Florida, 43 percent said they had experienced gender bias in their career..The Commission has been working to increase women’s success in the legal profession. One of its recent endeavors is the Grit Project, which seeks to educate female lawyers, law students and others about the science behind a “grit and growth” mindset – two important traits that many successful women lawyers have in common — and its importance for advancing to leadership roles in the profession..Mentors are essential to our growth and development as lawyers because our profession is relationship driven. One of the accomplishments I am most proud of is my Women of Color Mentoring Group. It was designed to create a safe place for associates to discuss issues facing them in law firms. Almost a decade later, we are still going strong..Pallavi Saluja: Lack of diversity is something that is common in the legal profession in any jurisdiction. What do you think Indian law firms need to do to create more diversity and inclusion in the legal profession?.Paulette Brown: I understand that India’s large global law firms have been making advances. But most countries, including the United States, could do more to advance diversity and inclusion in the legal profession..As President of the American Bar Association, one of my initiatives is advancing diversity and inclusion in the legal profession. By leveraging the power of our more than 400,000 ABA members to promote full and equal diversity, we can work toward ending bias in the legal profession and the justice system. We are combating implicit bias in the delivery of justice, as well as addressing critical issues around diversity and inclusion within the American Bar Association, the legal profession and the justice system..We are producing implicit bias training materials for judges, prosecutors and public defenders, so they can learn to recognize implicit bias in themselves and take positive steps to mitigate those biases. Our first training video on implicit bias, for judges, was unveiled at our Midyear Meeting last month..I have spent a significant portion of my career searching for ways to promote full and equal participation in both the legal profession and the justice system. For decades, as a corporate lawyer, as a partner in my law firm, and as a partner and chief diversity officer of Locke Lord, I have advocated for firms to hire, retain, and promote women and people of color..Pallavi Saluja: Do you see the Indian Bar growing in the US? .Paulette Brown: Yes. Within the American Bar Association, the India committee of the Section of International Law now numbers more than 200 Indian and American lawyers. Several developments make me confident in a growing presence of India’s legal professionals in the US, such as the growing trade and investment relationship between our countries, which grew to more than $100 billion in bilateral trade in 2014, and the growth of India-based businesses in the US economy. These companies will need expert legal advice on both U.S. and Indian law..The changing demographics of the US population also point to the need for India-based lawyers. More than 2 million Indian-born immigrants live in the United States, which is almost 5 percent of the US foreign-born population. Nearly 103,000 Indian-born students were enrolled in US educational institutions last year. Many of these individuals may need the services of an Indian lawyer while they are in the US..Indian lawyers are eligible to become fully admitted to the bar, if they meet certain criteria, in every US jurisdiction. In addition, the majority of US jurisdictions have adopted foreign legal consultant rules allowing Indian lawyers to establish offices and to associate with local lawyers in those jurisdictions. The ABA will continue to promote the adoption of rules that enable Indian lawyers, and other foreign lawyers, to appropriately access the US legal services market..Pallavi Saluja: How do you think a culture of pro bono work can be inculcated in Indian law firms?.Paulette Brown: I am most qualified to discuss the American legal profession’s pro bono work, but I think that a culture of pro bono is critical in whatever country where you practice law..No other occupation in America has a greater proportion of leaders who perform pro bono work than the legal profession. In the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, lawyers are encouraged to do at least 50 hours of pro bono legal services per year, with an emphasis on providing these services to people of limited means or non-profit organizations that serve the poor..As one of many examples where increased legal representation is desperately needed, a recent study found that children with lawyer have a 47 percent success rate in US immigration courts, compared to a 10 percent success rate among unrepresented children..Our Resource Center for Access to Justice initiatives serves judicial, bar association and legal aid leaders who work together to provide low-and modest-income individuals with meaningful access to our justice system. Our Commission on Domestic & Sexual Violence helps survivors in need find pro bono legal assistance by connecting lawyers through our national domestic violence pro bono directory. The Commission also conducts training to better equip lawyers to assist victims of domestic and sexual violence and provides legal resources to support lawyers who represent survivors. Through our Military Pro bono Project, we connect low-income military families to volunteer lawyers who help them on civil legal matters where the military is not able to..And my initiative, And Justice for All: An ABA Day of Service, mobilized tens of thousands of lawyers to volunteer and increase pro bono participation to higher levels than ever before on October 30, 2015. The programmes held included an eviction diversion program in Michigan, a veterans legal advice clinic in Texas, a family law clinic in New Mexico and a criminal record expungement clinic in North Carolina, just to name a few. I helped kick off the week by volunteering at a senior law project clinic in Portland, Oregon.