Teveia Barnes, President of Lawyers For One America
By Regan Morris
Remember ''One America,'' Bill Clinton's initiative to promote discussion about race relations in the United States? Then President Clinton reached out to the legal profession to encourage attorneys to do more pro bono work and promote diversity in law firms. LawCrossing speaks with Teveia Barnes, a woman who revived Lawyers For One America, even after the ''One America'' initiative lost steam with a new boss in the White House.
When President Bill Clinton called on the legal profession to do more pro bono work in underserved communities and to focus on increasing diversity in the legal profession, Teveia Barnes was reminded of John F. Kennedy's call to action to attorneys during the Civil Rights movement.
The legal community was a natural place to promote the "One America" initiative, Ms. Barnes said, because both Bill and Hillary Clinton were attorneys. Lawyers For One America was born in the summer of 1999, and Ms. Barnes was asked to head up the volunteer organization in the fall of 1999.
"Clinton had requested a report on the status on diversity and pro bono services in the legal profession," she said. "And I was asked to head up a collaboration of leaders in the profession to basically do that report, to get people together."
Ms. Barnes, 52, achieved success early in her career. She joined Bank of America in 1986 as senior counsel to the New York legal department and rose through the ranks to become associate general counsel of the global operations and a senior vice president.
She had been considering a career change, to "give back" to the community, which had helped her so much in her career, and she answered President Clinton's call to action.
"I took a pay cut, a huge pay cut," she said of her decision to leave the bank to work in the nonprofit world. "I was turning 50 and I thought it was time to do something different with my life. You know we all get to that point; well, many of us do."
Ms. Barnes, who wanted to be a lawyer since she was a 10-year-old girl watching Perry Mason on TV, said she originally wanted to become a litigator, but decided at New York University Law School that she preferred conflict resolution outside of the courtroom. This month, the Human Rights Commission is honoring her with the Martin Luther King, Jr., Humanitarian Award for her outstanding efforts in the area of human and civil rights. In 2004, she won the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award by the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Legal Profession.
"I've always been an advocate of people," she said. "In school, people would come to me in resolving conflicts and resolving questions, and I've always sort of been in that role. I like helping. I like coming in and solving problems for people."
When Ms. Barnes first started with Lawyers For One America, it was a volunteer advocacy and research group with the ear of the Clinton Administration and hence a lot of power. Ms. Barnes and other members met in Washington, DC, about once a month and reported to the administration about progress and the status of diversity and pro bono work in the legal community.
When President George W. Bush was elected, the initiative "went into hibernation."
"After Bush was elected, there was no One America initiative any longer in the White House. And so I was asked to head up the San Francisco Bar, which had similar programs," she said.
Ms. Barnes went to work for the Bar Association of San Francisco as its general counsel and executive director and spent two years in the role.
"In addition to being a pretty prominent and well-regarded regional bar, the San Francisco Bar also had diversity programs and pro bono programs," she said. "They had the volunteer Legal Services Program, and they had the California Minority Counsel programs, so those were things that were very near and dear to my heart. And so I did that for two years, and then I realized I really wanted to do those two things exclusively."
So Ms. Barnes opened a Lawyers For One America office with a new mission. Instead of just encouraging attorneys to do pro bono work and promote diversity in law firms, Ms. Barnes started doing pro bono work locally herself and acting as a diversity coach and mentor nationally through seminars and outreach programs.
The new Lawyers For One America is made up of Ms. Barnes and her legal assistant, Aurora Josephson (see this week's legal staff profile), and a small group of volunteer attorneys, including Ms. Barnes' tax attorney husband. The nonprofit organization survives with the contributions of a small membership base and from various grants.
"I focus on the client base that does not otherwise have a place to go," she said. "So if someone is eligible for legal aide, I send them to legal aide. If someone is eligible to the volunteer legal services programs, I send them to those programs. I generally deal with the working poor: people who have a job, a low-paying job. They're able to meet their bills and things like that, but if something extraordinary happens in their life, they won't be eligible for legal aide and they won't be able to afford an attorney."
About 94 percent of her clients are pro bono. The rest pay a small fee.
Ms. Barnes said the legal profession in general is behind the times when it comes to promoting women and people of color. She believes the dominance of white men in the legal profession hurts all of society because minority attorneys are not readily available to provide volunteer legal-aide services.
"For women and lawyers of color, it is difficult for them to have that added time to do that pro bono work that I would otherwise hope they want to do, because they're struggling with their careers," she said. "They're working twice as hard to just maintain their career, to just showcase what they can do, and to prove their value to the organization. And so they have to be pretty well established before they'll risk doing the pro bono work that all lawyers should be doing."
Ms. Barnes, who is African-American, said she faced some discrimination in her career but was able to get over her struggles because she had such strong mentors and good guidance. She doesn't take her success for granted and feels there was a reason she was "so blessed."
Ms. Barnes advises attorneys of color to remember that they were hired for their talent and not to fear asking questions. She said to remember that "the white guy sitting next to you also has those same fears" of inadequacy or insecurity.
She half laughs, saying that if she didn't go into nonprofit work, she feared God would "strike me down" for being an "ungrateful person."
"I just think it's what I'm supposed to be doing,' she said.
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