"I believe we must be committed to serving our community, and being a good lawyer means commitment to pro bono, commitment to legal services, and commitment to the justice system . . . Knowing what it feels like to come from a powerless segment of society has made me a more compassionate lawyer."
Salvador A. "Sal" Mungia
Partner
Gordon, Thomas, Honeywell, Malanca, Peterson & Daheim, PLLC
Salvador Mungia lives in Tacoma, Washington where he is active in the local community. His parents are both immigrants to the United States – his father emigrated from Mexico and his mother from Japan. His father was a retired Army Noncommissioned Officer (NCO) and the family moved around the country before settling in Tacoma. After Sal's father retired from the army, he worked as a cook at Western State Hospital. Sal's parents have emphasized education his entire life and strongly supported Sal's efforts to become a lawyer. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree (magna cum laude) from Pacific Lutheran University. In 1984, he graduated from Georgetown University Law Center (cum laude) and he was the administrative editor of Georgetown's Law and Policy in International Business Law Review.
Sal's community activities include serving as a director of the R. Merle Palmer Minority Scholarship Foundation, a director for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law, director and president of Directors for the Legal Aid for Washington (LAW Fund), leadership positions with the ACLU, and past commissioner of the Tacoma Human Rights Commission. Beginning September 15, 2005, Sal will be the governor of the 6th District, WSBA Board of Governors. His legal practice is exclusively in trial work with emphasis in aviation, medical malpractice, business, and real property and construction litigation.
How do you define diversity?
Diversity is the need to understand and embrace different viewpoints and perspectives. I can go back to my undergraduate days to show why this is so important. I took a sociology course and we were assigned to read the book Group Think. The author discusses the dangers with one homogenous group thinking the same way. In those situations voices of concern are not heard or worse yet, everyone just agrees and goes along with decisions. It has always struck me there is a danger with everybody agreeing and nobody bringing anything different to the table. We need to embrace different perspectives and different ideas.
When you have people with different viewpoints and perspectives people challenge one another and better decisions are made. I believe in the marketplace of ideas — the better ideas are going to win over the not so good ideas. But you must have people willing to challenge other people and ideas. When you have one idea you don't know whether it's a good idea or not (until it's been challenged), and the way to bring diverse ideas is to have people with different backgrounds, perspectives, and thoughts.
I think in the long-term, the way that you get different viewpoints, ideas, values, and different perspectives is by getting people with different backgrounds, perspectives, values, and experiences. I think it's obvious that we as a society still have a long way to go in so many ways. And we as a legal society, legal organizations have a long ways to go as well.
Did you have a mentor and how did they help and inspire you?
I have had a number of mentors in my life. Two mentors really inspired me at the law firm: Ronald Leighton and John "Jack" Connelly both when I was young attorney. I gravitated to those two the most. Ron was great. He taught me how to be a very ethical lawyer. He guided me on how to be a competitor but do so always in an honorable and respectful way. And he always said leave the personalities out of it, you're just here to win. And keep your focus on winning. At the end of the day you'll have the gratification of winning and don't worry about the petty stuff that goes on, keep above that. Ron was always a huge influence on me as far as walking through any door that opens! The door opens, go ahead and walk through it, take advantage of new experiences, new opportunities.
Jack was a great mentor and one who taught me tenacity. He emphasized tenacity and focusing on the desire to win and win for your client. Jack's got a lot of passion and that shows through his practice and I think that he helped me realize how important it is to bring that passion to the practice of law.
I recognize there are so many other mentors as well. You may have the idea for somebody really being a mentor and it was never a formal mentorship, but you can look back and see their impact on your life. I recognize that the impact of a mentor is kind of an amalgamation, an accumulation of everybody that's touched my life and impacted me. For example, I think of my parents as mentors. They taught me to never give up and the value of hard work. I came from a lower middle class background and my parents were both immigrants with limited formal education. They both worked hard, my father was a cook after he retired from the Army and my mother worked in a fabric store. They inspired me with the real sacrifices they made for me to attend college and go to law school. They never had that opportunity but never hesitated to support my effort to become a lawyer.
Which people or what experiences influenced you to become a lawyer?
I didn't have any experience with lawyers or the judicial system prior to attending law school. Believe it or not, I was inspired by two television shows. People always say that TV's a bad thing, but I think in my case, TV had some positive influences, and one of them was Perry Mason. He inspired me by showing how lawyers can represent the underdog and prevail. In think in my generation Perry Mason was huge.
Another inspiring show was Judd for the Defense, a show about a defense lawyer. Growing up, I wanted to be a criminal defense lawyer and fight for the underdog.
Perhaps the greatest inspiration for me was just seeing and experiencing my family being taken advantage of – this is something I rarely discuss. This really drove me. At a young age I saw how defenseless my parents were to the system. They didn't have money, they didn't have contacts, no relatives in this area. I couldn't help but get the sense that at times they were being taken advantage of. And there's nothing, not a whole lot they could do. And so I wanted to be in a position where I could take care of my family and make sure I knew the rules and no one could take advantage of us. Which kind of goes to the Perry Mason theme, you know, it's a Perry Mason bit. Wanting to take care of those who couldn't defend themselves.
What were the greatest obstacles you had to overcome to become a lawyer?
I don't think they were huge, but if you look at my background there's nothing which would lead you to believe that I'd even finish college. I have worked with economists and one of the economic analyses is trying to figure out if a kid dies, if they would go to college or not. Statistically if your parents go to college then statistically you'll go to college. It's a high probability. And if your parents don't go to college there's a high probability you're not going to go to college. I took a standardized test in high school and the results showed that I was supposed to be an auto mechanic. Even my mom, as much as she supported me and was a great influence, whenever I told her I wanted to become a lawyer she just kind of laughed like it was ridiculous, not believing it was possible. I didn't know any lawyers and I knew nothing about the legal system. But I always knew from at least grade seven I was going to become a lawyer. Because I came from a lower-middle-class family, I had to overcome the perceptions of people who didn't think being a lawyer was a realistic life goal.
I didn't have the financial barriers. My parents valued education. They made sure I could go to college and law school. They sacrificed a lot for me to attain my education.
What advice would you give to high school and college students considering a legal career?
I have a lot to share. First, I love the practice of law. It's great but you got to realize how hard you work at it. How much it takes up of your life. If you want to do well, and you want to have many opportunities then you've got to work extremely hard at school.
I talk to a lot of high school kids and college students, and I emphasize the importance of working hard and getting good grades. I always try to tell students, it's the first year in law school that that really matters. You've really got to bust your butt during the first year and unless you've been to law school, or have known someone who's been there, you don't realize that. The first year really sets the tone for kind of opportunities that come early in your legal career.
A lot of times students will ask how much do you make? And I say never do anything for the money because you'll be miserable. I know lawyers who do it for the money and they're miserable, why do that? Life's too short. You got to go with your passions; it's something that's going to fulfill you. And fortunately for me the law does that.
If a student is not sure what they want to do, I share the following advice: Sample out different things. I'm not sure why, but I've always been impressed by people of my same background who went into law to do some good. That always impresses me the most, whereas people who went into law because they have nothing better to do or they want to make money – that's a lousy reason to go into the profession. If you want to make lots of money develop real estate. You should only go into law if it's what you want to do!
What advice would you offer to a young attorney from an underrepresented background just starting out their legal career?
I would give the same advice I give to high school or college students but with the added advice, we're really in a time with a lot of opportunities. Because we are underrepresented in this profession, you can get active in the organized bar, on committees because you bring that diversity element. The bar needs that diversity element. And if you are good at what you do you can become very active and you can do a lot of good. I think the bottom line is do you want to do good? If you're coming from an underrepresented background you may have a stronger desire to do good because you've seen or experienced struggles in your own life. My parents were taken advantage of and there's nothing they could do about it. I think, minorities bring different values than someone who comes from middle class, upper middle class, and upper class, and they don't have the same kind of experiences and may have stronger motivations to right wrongs. An underrepresented attorney can have a great influence and be a role model for kids who come from underrepresented backgrounds. Every time I go out to talk to a high school class, there's a lot of them that say this lawyer's brown, and that's kind of cool because all we see is white lawyers. I go to Bar meetings, I can look around and see mostly Caucasian lawyers, there's no secret about that, but the profession is getting more diversity among its members.
I've been involved in an organization called Law Fund Legal Aid for Washington, and I remember the last meeting; we're talking about diversity and I'm saying, Look, unless we institutionalize our recruiting practices, look around the room, there are two of us who are non-white. And we've been talking about this and talking about this and you can talk about it or you can make steps institutionally to change so that that doesn't continue on. Another organization I'm involved in is the ACLU, which has a strong commitment to recruit minorities. I was on the board in the late 80s, and at that time along came the national ACLU talking about the need to get more women on the board of directors. The ACLU as an organization made a commitment to add women to the board but it didn't happen until they made specific rules requiring 50 percent women on the board. It worked! To recruit people of color, people with different sexual orientation, geographic diversity, all these things requires institutional change for many organizations. I served on the recruiting committee this past year for the ACLUW, and it can be done, but you can't just talk about it.
Describe a challenge you faced as a young attorney and what you did to overcome it?
I think the biggest challenge you face as a young attorney is being a young attorney. You are so green. And you don't know what you don't know. There are many times I'd come back from a deposition, and I tell them what I did. The senior lawyer would just slap his forehead because of what you did or didn't do. There are times I'm sure where judges give an older attorney the benefit of the doubt, during arguments or during proceedings, just because they have less trust in younger attorneys. Those are the biggest challenges.
I can remember that sometimes a more experienced lawyer would say something to the effect of "shut up," or "you don't know what you're talking about," or generally try to put you down as a young lawyer, which is not right. I'm always trying to go over backwards because of those kinds of experiences and never doing that to a younger lawyer. A lot of time, let's face it, younger lawyers just make mistakes, that's part of the learning process. You will gain skills from experience, a lawyer one to five years out will have better skills at 20 years. It's an art trying to assist a young inexperienced lawyer on the other side, because you can't trust the other side. However, I will try to guide them if nothing else. A lot of times younger lawyers think they have to be overly aggressive (to compensate for lack of experience) and that is not good advocacy. It defeats the purpose. Maybe that's how they've had to deal with some other older lawyers but that's not the way it should be.
Have you faced any discrimination or anything like that as a lawyer?
Not that I know of. Sometimes you wonder why certain things happen to you and you can't, as much as you try to push it out of your mind. Is it because of your skin color? Sometimes that thought creeps into your mind. Is this why it's happening? But I don't think so. And at least I know the Pierce County bench very well, and I would be surprised if anybody on that bench did that to a person of color. Not saying I couldn't be surprised, but I would be surprised. I'm pretty active throughout the state and I don't get that sense in the state where the bench is going to treat you differently because you are a person of color. Again, as a green lawyer they may treat you worse. I certainly have plenty of those experiences, but I don't think it's because of my skin color.
Does being a minority help you as a lawyer?
There are some things about being a minority that I think have proven beneficial. I think everybody is helped by certain things in their background. I'm not sure whether the color of my skin has really helped me as much as knowing what it feels like to come from a powerless segment of society, which has made me a more compassionate lawyer. If being a good lawyer means commitment to pro bono, commitment to legal services, commitment to the justice system, then yes.
Do you want to add anything else to why you like being an attorney?
Yeah. I love the competition — I hate losing, and I love winning. I also love the creativity of being a lawyer. You know it's really a creative process. I love the fact that when I want to take time off to attend my kid's ball games or coach their teams I can do that. I also like being able to do good and give back to my community. If I wasn't a lawyer, people wouldn't ask me to sit on the ACLU board or the R. Merle Palmer Foundation board or go and talk to high school kids. Just wouldn't happen. So it's really opened a lot of doors. And isn't that what we're here for?
Please share with us your most recent community involvement?
I believe we must be committed to serving our community. I'm a director of the R. Merle Palmer Minority Scholarship Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides funding and mentoring so that minority youth of Pierce County can attend college. This is a real exciting program. We not only get the kids to college, but have mentorship programs to keep them in college! We get a lot of support from local businesses to support them once they start attending college. Intel Corporation and DuPont provided 30 new computers for $150 each. We give out 20 scholarships a year and currently have 80 scholars attending college.
A key success factor is the mentorship program. We don't just give money but guidance, too. As a result, the R. Merle Palmer Minority Scholarship program is highly successful; the graduation rate is 90 percent, versus a national graduation rate for colleges below 50 percent. This program is making a difference and we are graduating first generation college students from the poorest neighborhoods in Pierce County.
