Immediate past president of the American Bar Association (ABA), Paulette Brown, was honored during a reception at Western Michigan University Cooley Law School at the Lansing campus’ orientation on Friday, April 28.
During the reception, she spoke to WMU-Cooley incoming students, faculty and staff, as well as legal professionals from the community, about the need for and responsibility of lawyers.
“I do not subscribe to the theory that there are too many lawyers,” Brown said. “I don’t believe that because if there were too many lawyers, there wouldn’t be as many people who did not have access to justice.”
She also emphasized the responsibility involved with earning a law degree. She urged students to always remember the communities they come from.
“A law degree is more than a piece of paper, it is a real privilege,” Brown said. “It is a license to do good, and to make sure the rule of law is maintained in this country and elsewhere.”
Brown is a partner and co-chair of the diversity and inclusion committee at Locke Lord LLP. Brown has held many positions throughout her career, including as in-house counsel to a number of Fortune 500 companies and as a municipal court judge. In private practice, she has focused on all facets of labor and employment and commercial litigation.
Within the ABA, she has been a member of the House of Delegates since 1997 and is a former member of the Board of Governors and its executive committee, as well as the Governance Commission. Brown also chaired the ABA Council on Racial and Ethnic Justice (now Coalition on Racial and Ethnic Justice) and is a past co-chair of the Commission on Civic Education in our Nation's Schools.
Brown has served on the Commission on Women in the Profession and was a co-author of "Visible Invisibility: Women of Color in Law Firms.” She is a former member of The Fund for Justice and Education (FJE), FJE President's Club and a Life Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.
She has been recognized by the National Law Journal as one of "The 50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America” and by the New Jersey Law Journal as one of the “prominent women and minority attorneys in the State of New Jersey." She has received the New Jersey Medal from the New Jersey State Bar Foundation and serves on its Board of Trustees.
Brown earned her J.D. at Seton Hall University School of Law and her B.A. at Howard University.
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