Expansion of the WSBA Board of Governors

Dear Mr. Eymann:

I feel compelled to respond to your proposal to create a dedicated position for a minority member on the Washington State Bar Association Board of Governors.

I was first admitted to the Washington Bar in 1985. I recall that for the first few years I dutifully filled out forms and wrote letters volunteering to serve on numerous committees of the Bar because I was interested in Bar governance and policy issues. I was never contacted about serving the Bar until the Opportunities for Minorities in the Legal Profession Committee was created in 1990. I served on that Committee from 1990 through 1993 and as its co-chair from 1992 to 1993. I recall feeling like the Bar only asked me to serve because it needed "people of color" on the Committee. I believe that was true then and is true today.

While I believe your proposal is well-intentioned and likely to add different voices to the Board of Governors, I hope you will also reflect on why it is that the Bar has been so unable to encourage the participation of minority members these many years. Leadership in any professional organization comes from knowing others in the organization, from being mentored by others who hold positions of leadership, and from being in a place in one's career where taking on leadership is possible. Are minority members of the Bar being encouraged to seek leadership? Are current and former members of the Board of Governors helping to identify leadership among minorities? Why are minority members of the Bar not merely running for office like everyone else?

Another aspect of the proposal that I hope you will consider is what you expect from a minority member appointed to the Board of Governors. This person will, by definition, have gained their place at the table through a different and possibly more political mechanism than district election. Is the Asian American Board member presumed to have more affinity with the Hispanic bar than a white member of the Board does? Why? Does the proposal assume that the various minority bar associations have more in common with each other than they do with the general Washington State Bar merely because a majority of their members are not white? The minority Board member in fact is only the minority Board member because it is assumed that the majority of Board members are white. Do white people have less responsibility to consider minority issues than someone who looks like they have responsibility for minority issues does?

Finally, it is a burden to be placed in the position of constantly educating others because they want to be educated. We all have those anecdotal moments as lawyers where some well-intentioned stranger asks us how is it that lawyers can defend criminals. We know that these questions are ill-informed, intrusive and uninvited, even though sometimes we rise to the occasion and educate the person because we feel some professional obligation to do so. We are also thankful that it does not happen too often. For minority people this type of encounter has almost become institutionalized by our presence as the minority representative. I hope that the Board of Governors educates itself about minority issues because they are interested in serving all members of the Washington Bar. But I hope that this education does not come at the expense of an individual who is made to politely suffer ill-informed, intrusive and uninvited questions.

Again, I know your proposal is well-intentioned. I am also confident there are minority members of the Washington Bar who deserve to have a place at the table with the Board of Governors and will do us all a tremendous and positive service. I remain saddened, however, by the fact that we still deal with racial issues by finding someone who is chosen because of the color of their skin and using them to "color" the group that makes decisions.

Georgia Yuan, University Counsel
University of Idaho

Dear BOG Colleagues:

I firmly believe that the success of this Association (and so many others) absolutely depends on diversity. Recently, I chaired the Nominations Committee of the newly formed Washington Chapter of the American Judicature Society. In doing so, I met with a Supreme Court Justice and the former national president of an ethnic bar association. They suggested I write a personal letter to every minority (and specialty) bar leader in the state, encouraging each to find members who would be willing to serve on the AJS Board. I wrote over 40 personal letters, each bearing the endorsement of these two prominent Court and Association leaders as well as the invitation of Judge William Baker, Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals. The only two responses I got were to get more information about AJS.

Five years ago, as President of the King County Bar Association (5,500 dues-paying members then), we floated the proposal by its Board to create a minority seat. The most visceral objection to this came from an African American Board member — now a judge. He felt it was a slap in the face that an association would have to create a special seat in order for members of minorities to achieve a board position. I should mention, however, that the KCBA Board over the last 10 years has done fairly well with diversity issues, although there's always room for improvement.

We already have a committee working on the involvement of minorities. They need to be heard. Most of all, we need to hear from minority members themselves. What do they think? What would make them feel welcome and comfortable?

Dick Manning
WSBA Board of Governors
7th District

Dear BOG Colleagues:

If you're like me, you've been getting e-mail pro and con on the President's idea for expanding the Board. I am not of one mind yet about the proposal. The last time the YLD was up to bat with a plan, they wanted to let their trustees and a few others — an electorate of about 40 — choose the holder of the YLD BOG seat. They wanted the holder to be able to serve a year and then run for a full term if he or she so chose.

I don't know how we would define "minority" in such a way as to make the allocation of the proposed seat not seem a well-intentioned, middle-aged white guy board exercise in tokenism. Will there be some kind of rotation to make sure every group gets a turn, or will we just let people run and see who gets it? Will members who qualify as minorities get to vote twice, once for minority/YLD members and then for regular BOG candidates? Are we going to develop some standard for expanding the Board should there be future requests? (For example, Oregon has a public seat or two, and one for women lawyers.) What does expanding the Board do as far as the statutory designation of the BOG in the State Bar Act is concerned? I am also concerned that, unless carefully handled, this will be seen as a flashy quick fix for the larger problem of member participation.

We've read about how young lawyers have been shut out "for 100 years," which sounds nice. But until 15 or 20 years ago they were not a defined class of lawyers in Washington, so the claim really doesn't get you very far except to invite people to nurse a new sense of grievance.

I am also concerned that if we let it, this high-profile effort will undermine the work of the BOG committee President Eymann created this year to deal with the larger issue of minority communication and participation. If we create a couple of seats without more detailed thought about what we want to accomplish, it will be too easy to simply declare victory and go home. This proposal has to be part of a larger program for addressing these issues in a long-term, top-to-bottom way.

None of these comments should be taken as the sort of obstructionism the President anticipates and preemptively critiques in his column.

James Deno
WSBA Board of Governors
2nd District