The Dallas Bar Association’s board of directors is scheduled to vote Thursday on whether the largest organization of women lawyers in North Texas should have an official voice in DBA leadership and policy-making – a move that most lawyers consider a historic development and long overdue.
The vote, however, has become mired in controversy, pitting some of the state’s most influential lawyers – and even many long-time friends and law partners – against each other.
The Dallas Women Lawyers Association, which has more than 300 members, asked the DBA to give it a permanent voting position on the DBA board – a recognition granted two decades ago to the local African-American and Hispanic bar associations.
The DWLA started a petition that gained the support of 604 lawyers, including several corporate general counsel, a handful of Texas judges and the deans of the two local law schools.
The DBA board appointed a task force of four women, including two DWLA past presidents, and three men to study the bar association’s process for granting affiliate legal organizations, including the DWLA, official status on the larger bar board.
The task force recommended that the DWLA be given two non-voting seats with the potential to become a voting member in the future. The committee also approved the DWLA’s inclusion on the DBA membership application.
Whether the DBA board follows the committee’s recommendations, which DBA President Jerry Alexander said the committee spent “hundreds of hours” to reach, will be determined at a vote conducted Thursday afternoon at a meeting at the Belo Mansion, the DBA’s headquarters.
The DBA committee pointed out that nearly half of its current board members are women and that two of the three other minority bar associations – the J.L. Turner Legal Association and Dallas Hispanic Bar Association – started with non-voting positions.
“Since the DBA board is comprised of 48 percent women, women are not under-represented in the DBA leadership,” Alexander said in an email. “The DBA hopes that a seat on our board will serve to increase the DWLA’s membership and their presence will enhance the focus on issues that face women in the law.”
Supporters of the women’s lawyer group say the offer is too little, especially at a time when the legal profession is struggling mightily to do more to promote women leaders. Leaders point out that the two minority bar groups were admitted more than two decades ago and that the Dallas Asian American Bar Association was given immediate voting rights when it was admitted in 1999.
“Women lawyers are making great strides in our city, and I would hate for the message to be that the DWLA is a second-class citizen to other bars,” said Yvette Ostolaza, managing partner of the Dallas office of Sidley Austin and a prominent leader in the women and Hispanic bar communities.
“I am surprised by some of the feedback I have received about how challenging it has been for the DWLA to get the recognition that it deserves within the DBA,” Ostolaza said. “I am hopeful that the Dallas Bar Association will come to a consensus and give the DWLA the full recognition that it deserves that other minority bar organizations have received.”
Alexander said if the DBA board votes on the committee’s recommendations, the DWLA has the right to petition for a permanent voting seat “at any point.
“The important thing that needs to occur during the Ex-Officio (non-voting) period – however long that is, is the DBA and the DWLA need to find projects that are compatible with the missions of both organizations and work together cooperatively on those,” said Alexander, a shareholder at Passman & Jones. “The DWLA and DBA Board need to develop a strong and positive relationship with their leaderships during this Ex Officio period.
“Starting as Ex Officio is not unusual,” he continued. “We expect that any organization applying for affiliation in the future will also first have that status.”
Besides Alexander, nearly all members of the DBA board members contacted for this article declined to comment publicly on the pending vote. The only exception is Dallas District Judge Martin Hoffman, who said he favors the DWLA receiving a voting position on the board.
“I don’t agree 100 percent with (the task force’s) recommendation, but both sides worked very hard to get to this point,” Judge Hoffman said. “I do think it’s very important that we adopt criteria for future organizations to be able to apply to sister bar status.”
DWLA President Angela Zambrano said the organization informally requested inclusion as a DBA sister bar about five years ago, but the DBA only asked the DWLA to submit a formal request last year, which it did.
Then-DBA President Brad Weber appointed the ad hoc committee in October to look into DWLA’s request and to create criteria for considering future requests by other specialty bar associations that seek voting seats on the DBA board.
“While the current committee report does not recommend that the DWLA immediately have such a voting seat, I have been assured by multiple DBA board members that the board has all intentions of making the seat voting,” said Zambrano, a partner at Sidley Austin. “We are pleased with the committee’s work in all other respects and trust that the leadership on the DBA board will address this issue. Personally, I hope that due course is sooner rather than later.”
Zambrano and others say their disagreements rest with the language included in the committee’s 19-page report, which is the basis of the DBA board’s vote Thursday.
“The board has expressed deep concern over the possible creation of further appointed seats because of potential dilution and recommends that no future designated director positions… be created without substantial and lengthy consideration of such potential dilution,” the report states. “Whereas, it is the desire of the DBA to provide these board positions to encourage inclusion among the board of directors without diluting representation of the Dallas Bar Association by elected directors.”
The report pointed out that it is not appropriate for the DWLA to currently have a voting position on the board since the DWLA’s membership of roughly 300 represents a small amount of the 5,383 practicing women attorneys as of 2015.
“Each minority bar with a voting position on the DBA board has membership representing at least one-third of the minority group it seeks to represent in Dallas County,” the report says.
Alexander said the benefits the DWLA will join through the participation on the DBA board as well as the inclusion on the DBA’s due statements will facilitate in growing the DWLA’s membership.
“The hope is their membership numbers will increase as a result, since presently their membership constitutes for less than 7 percent of the female members of the DBA,” Alexander said.
(Editor’s Note: The Texas Lawbook is following this story as it develops and will implement updates as they occur.)
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