January 2004

Why Diversity Matters — Reflecting the Public We Serve

by David Savage, WSBA President

A key component of my central initiative, "listening to our membership," is striving for diversity in the legal profession.

We all want this bar association to be relevant. It cannot exist simply to tax and police. It must lead, but it cannot do so unless it reflects, understands, connects with, and represents women, persons of color, people with disabilities, and those disenfranchised due to their age, economic circumstance, national origin, or sexual orientation.

Established in January 1888, this bar association (which became "integrated," or mandatory, in 1933, with the enactment of the State Bar Act) is directed by a 14-member Board of Governors, a president, and a president-elect. The Board guides its work by means of Strategic Goals, which it reviews annually and revises in detail every five years. The 2003-2006 Strategic Goals, adopted by the Board of Governors on May 9, 2003, provide:

1. The WSBA will be a leader in assuring equal civil access to justice.

2. The WSBA will advocate for effective criminal and juvenile access to justice.

3. The WSBA as the voice of the profession will exert leadership on issues affecting the rule of law and the integrity and effectiveness of the justice system.

4. The WSBA will foster communication with and among members and provide value to their professional lives.

5. The WSBA will promote civility and professionalism in the practice of law and the professional development of new lawyers.

6. The WSBA will assist members in balancing their business, professional, and personal lives.

7. The WSBA will help members address changing conditions of practicing law.

8. The WSBA will explore and promote just and effective methods for resolving disputes.

9. The WSBA will promote diversity, equality, and cultural competence in the courts, legal profession, and the bar.

While our membership has changed dramatically from the 35 white male lawyers of whom the organization consisted in 1888, the following comparative statistics reflect the continuing need for further change:

Under age 40: 34% (WSBA)  59% (Washington)
Female: 32% (WSBA)  50% (Washington)
Persons of color: 10% (WSBA) 18% (Washington)

(WSBA has 24,000 members and Washington State has 6 million citizens)

As the foregoing reveals, the WSBA trails, rather than leads, in reflecting the diversity of Washington. Until the adoption of Bylaw III.M in May 2001, which provides for two governor-at-large seats on the Board, Lembhard Howell was the only person of color to have served on the Board of Governors. Since the adoption of the bylaw, the Board has been and is now served by two talented women of color, Zulema Hinojos-Fall and Fawn Sharp.

In its 115-year history, the Board has had the benefit of only 18 female governors, and until the Board's creation of a seat for the Washington Young Lawyers Division in September 2001, there was no provision to ensure representation of our young lawyers. It was 1998 before the first openly gay member of the Board of Governors was elected.

Though I am proud to be your 113th president, our bar association's lengthy history includes only two women presidents, Elizabeth J. Bracelin and Mary E. Fairhurst (now Justice Mary E. Fairhurst). Until Ronald R. Ward was elected as president-elect in the spring of 2003 to become president in September 2004, this bar association had never been led by a person of color.

We can talk all we want about relevance, but until we reflect the diversity of our membership and strive to reflect that of the public we serve, we are going to have relevance for only a limited audience.

Society has changed dramatically and continues to change. By the strength of their struggle, persons of color and women have achieved ever-more-prominent roles in our social fabric. By virtue of their numbers, persons of color will soon be in the majority in several states of the Union.

Broadening our composition is necessary if the legal profession is to play a meaningful role in addressing the substantial social issues and problems inherent in a complex and diverse society. Economic disparity continues to increase rather than diminish. Single-parent families and homelessness are growing tragedies. The recent Civil Legal Needs Study, commissioned in November 2001 by the Washington State Supreme Court, found that Washington's low-income citizens annually experience nearly 1.1 million legal problems — a significant number involving matters of safety or subsistence. Women and children suffer this circumstance the most, especially with respect to family law matters and domestic violence. Low-income persons face more than 85 percent of these problems without help from an attorney. (For more about the study, see the article on p. 16. Visit www.wsba.org/media/releases/2003/wa_courts_study.htm for a link to the Civil Legal Needs Study.)

Similarly, the legal system is stretched to the breaking point in its ability to provide capable representation of indigents in the criminal-justice system. The legal system has done a poor job of competently representing those charged with capital crimes. While five percent of the world's population lives in the United States, 25 percent of the world's prison population resides in U.S. jails and prisons; 66 percent of the nation's prison population are persons of color, 53 percent of inmates earned less than $10,000 per year prior to incarceration, 13 percent were homeless before imprisonment, and 34 percent lost their homes because of their sentences. The circumstances are equally challenging with respect to the juvenile justice system as the recently released Washington Juvenile Justice Assessment Project demonstrates. (See www.wsba.org/jjstudy.pdf for the Project report.)

Addressing these problems requires adequate and stable funding for our courts, and counsel for the indigent. Funding for our courts continues to be in jeopardy, and counsel for the needy has never been adequate or stable. We must take the lead in elevating these economic needs to a place of primacy in the allocation of public monies.

For our part, if the promise of "justice for all" embodied in the Pledge of Allegiance is to be realized, the WSBA must reflect the diversity of the public it serves. We must recruit dramatically more women and persons of color into our ranks, and truly open the profession to all who wish to serve regardless of disability, age, national original, or sexual orientation.

The Board of Governors has committed to these goals as reflected in its Long-Range Plan. The job, however, is more than recruitment and "opening." We must ensure thereafter that these members of our Bar Association are and remain fully enfranchised by it.

This "follow-through" is central to the work of the Glass Ceiling Task Force, its Minority Women's Advisory Committee, the Gender and Justice Commission, the Minority and Justice Commission, and the minority bar associations, all of which are devoted to seeing to it that the diverse members of our ranks enjoy more than token participation in the benefits of the profession. (For instance, visit www.wsba.org/info/glassceiling.htm, for information about the Glass Ceiling Task Force and a link to its report.)

Recognizing the need for a concerted effort, the Diversity Consortium, a collaborative effort of bar associations and leaders, has developed the Initiative for Diversity, which will be launched this spring. The Initiative for Diversity seeks an attorney work force that is representative of the many faces of our pluralistic society and includes a set of commitments by which signatories will pledge their adherence to diversity goals and receive support in the implementation of their commitment.

Change is underway. The Washington State Bar Association is committed to it. Meaningful change, however, requires a meaningful commitment to "listen" to those who have been excluded, who are on the periphery, or who are only partially enfranchised.

We will devote the Board's February 2004 meeting to listening to the minority bars — the Asian Bar Association of Washington, the Cardozo Society, the Filipino-American Legal Association of Washington, the Hispanic Bar Association, the Kanoon South Asian Bar Association, King County Washington Women Lawyers, the Korean-American Bar Association of Washington, the Loren Miller Bar Association, the National Conference of Black Lawyers, the Northwest Indian Bar Association, the Pierce County Minority Bar Association, Washington LEGALS, and the Washington Women Lawyers.

No single meeting, no single president, and no single Board, however, can achieve the needed change. Change will not be achieved until we have institutionalized diversity by opening our profession to all persons regardless of race, creed, color, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, or disability. This is a job for all. We need your help. We need to hear from you. We are listening.

Dave Savage may be reached at savage@imsblaw.com or 509-332-3502.

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