{"id":1540,"date":"2014-10-31T11:31:22","date_gmt":"2014-10-31T15:31:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/?p=1540"},"modified":"2025-01-28T09:18:55","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T14:18:55","slug":"out-in-front","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/2014\/10\/out-in-front\/","title":{"rendered":"Out in Front"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cA woman of color my age who\u2019s still a litigator \u2014 I\u2019m trying to think if I know another one in New Jersey. I can\u2019t think of one.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Before Paulette Brown became the first woman of color elected to lead the American Bar Association (ABA) \u2014 commencing in August 2015 \u2014 before she graduated from Howard University and attended Seton Hall University\u2019s School of Law; before she even knew a lawyer, let alone became one, she was a teenager in the segregated Baltimore school system \u2014 a kid whose friends called her \u201cMom.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"paulettebrown640x300\"<\/a>\u201cI was sort of like the mother hen,\u201d she says. \u201cI felt like I needed to take care of everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

That nurturing instinct stuck with her, first as a would-be social-work student, now as an influential attorney who mentors the next generation of lawyers and as a leader who plans to make a major impact on the ABA when she moves from president-elect to president next August.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was fortunate to be in attendance when the House of Delegates carried the motion making Paulette the ABA president-elect, the first African-American woman to hold the position,\u201d said Patrick E. Hobbs, dean of Seton Hall Law. \u201cWhat an incredible moment for Paulette and for Seton Hall Law School. She brings wisdom, grace and dedication to this role and we are proud to call her one of our own.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s done what women of color could not do when she started law school,\u201d says Erika D. Robinson, an associate at Gregory, Doyle, Calhoun & Rogers and one of many people Brown has helped along in their career. \u201cI feel like I am witnessing history, and I get to benefit from her experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her Influences<\/h3>\n

Though she enrolled at Howard University in the late 1960s with plans to pursue a social-work degree, Brown found herself drawn to law classes. She arrived at Seton Hall Law and \u201clearned to think in a very different way,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

She singles out Robert Diab, a Seton Hall professor for 43 years until his retirement in 2001, as \u201cone of the best professors ever. If he could not make you understand the rule against perpetuity, no one could.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown worked hard to establish herself in the legal world. Early on, others in a courtroom would ask if she was there as the defendant, or perhaps the court reporter. At times, those assumptions even reached the bench. \u201cJudges now have training on biases and some things have improved,\u201d she adds, \u201cbut back then, if there was [judicial] discretion, I never got it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"paulettebrown1\"<\/a>Now a partner at Edwards Wildman Palmer, Brown has practiced labor and employment law, along with commercial litigation, for 25 years. U.S. News & World Report has named her one of the country\u2019s top lawyers multiple times, and the National Law Journal included her among the 50 most influential minority lawyers in America. She was the first African American to win the New Jersey State Bar Association\u2019s Young Lawyer of the Year Award; the first minority to receive the association\u2019s Medal of Honor; and soon, the first woman of color to lead the 400,000-member ABA.<\/p>\n

She sees the field slowly becoming less homogeneous \u2014 a cause she champions as her firm\u2019s chief diversity officer. \u201cBut there\u2019s still a great deal of work that has to be done,\u201d she adds, noting that women of color make up less than 2 percent of law firm partners.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still go into court on a Monday trial-call and it will be 99 percent white men [attorneys],\u201d Brown says. \u201cA woman of color my age who\u2019s still a litigator \u2014 I\u2019m trying to think if I know another one in New Jersey. I can\u2019t think of one.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the ABA\u2019s president, Brown plans to visit law schools, \u201cMain Street\u201d law firms and local Boys & Girls Clubs in two towns each month. \u201cI know it\u2019s ambitious,\u201d she says, \u201cbut I think I can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those who know her agree: they consider Brown one of the hardest workers around \u2014 someone whose emails start at 5 a.m. and keep coming past midnight. \u201cTo many people, she has already arrived,\u201d Robinson says. \u201cBut she continues to push herself all the more. She still works just as hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Packed as her schedule may be, friends say Brown always finds time for others. She\u2019s completed five 60-mile walks to raise money through the Susan G. Komen organization. She drove six hours to attend a prot\u00e9g\u00e9\u2019s wedding in Vermont. She\u2019ll make time for a phone chat even as she\u2019s about to get on a plane.<\/p>\n

And that high-school nickname? It\u2019s now in use by another generation of friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s kind of like my \u2018Legal Mom,\u2019 so to speak,\u201d Robinson says. \u201cShe really believes in supporting younger attorneys\u2019 growth and development. She has been all that I could ask for in a mentor and much more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Molly Petrilla is a freelance writer based in New Jersey.<\/cite><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paulette Brown, J.D. \u201976, president-elect of the American Bar Association, has a long history as a trailblazer.<\/p>\n

Continue ReadingOut in Front<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":1542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,257,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-articles-2010-2014","category-features","entry"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1540"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3700,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1540\/revisions\/3700"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}