Paths to Presidency: Women Leaders of NCBP

Episode Notes

Transcript

Jennifer Parent:

Courage is taking the leap before you think you’re ready. And I try to tell people, go outside your comfort zone, take that leap before you even think you’re ready to do so, because you can do such amazing things.

Amanda Arriaga:

Welcome to the next episode of Leading theBar. I’m your host, Amanda Arriaga. Today I’m thrilled to, again, go down memory lane with a history lesson from the past presidents of NCBP. In the past 75 years, the National Conference of Bar Presidents has had only 10 female presidents and we’re lucky enough to talk to two of these women. Marna Tucker was the first NCBP female president in 1991 and the first female president of the DC Bar in 1984. She’s been a family law attorney for nearly 50 years and has received many honors, including the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award and the Robert Drinnon Distinguished Service Award from the American Bar Association. Jennifer Parent was NCBP president in 2018, president of the New Hampshire Bar Association in 2011, and she’s currently the chair of the American Bar Foundation Fellows. She was named Trailblazer in the Law by the New Hampshire Women’s Bar Association in 2008 and received the Maria M.

Ricker Achievement Award in 2016. She’s also hosted many episodes of the podcast, McClain Middleton Minutes, for the features what’s her story. The activities and honors I listed for both Marna and Jennifer are just a fraction of what they’ve received, but I want to spend more time talking to them than about them. So Marna and Jennifer, thank you for being here today and welcome to leading the bar.

Marna Tucker:

Thank you. Look forward to it.

Jennifer Parent:

Thank you for having us.

Amanda Arriaga:

I want to start with you, Marna. What was the biggest issue that your bar Association faced when you were president?

Marna Tucker:

Well, when I was president of the DCBar, we had a problem that was called the referendum where our dues, our bar dues had gone up to $75 a year. And that was considered to be very, very high. And there was a group of lawyers who wanted to limit the use of bar dues for public against using them for public service activities. That bar dues, they created a referendum that said you could only use bar dues for lawyer functions such as admissions, discipline, and that limited field, but they could not be used for any public service activities. Now, public service was a big thing in the DCBar when it became an integrated unified bar. We always did public service. We were trying to create more legal services for the poor. This would have limited our dues from involving us lawyers in any of that. So we had to accept that referendum.

There was a vote, but we figured out other ways to fund these activities. But that was, I came in right at the beginning of the implementation of the referendum and it was tough, but we used a lot of creative ways to keep our activities going. And I’m proud to say that the DCBar is still one of the most active bar associations in involving assistance to the public and to people who need legal services.

Amanda Arriaga:

Well, it’s interesting because that was happening in 1984, but that’s sort of an evergreen topic that bar associations face is why should we use our money on anything other than our members? And as a career public servant, I feel like this conversation always feels strange, but it’s something that keeps going. So this isn’t so novel. We are still having those discussions today in our bar Associations. Jennifer, what was happening in your Bar Association in 2011?

Jennifer Parent:

Coming off of that, Amanda, I’d say what’s old is new again. And we seem to see themes that circle right back around. So in 2011, 2012, when I was bar president, it was the changing dynamic of the bar, right? We had multi-generations in the bar. We had baby boomers. We had Gen X, which is what I am. We had millennials. We didn’t even have a name for the next generation. I think we called them post-millennials, which we now call them Gen Zs. And it was, how do we keep people engaged in the bar? So the year before I was bar president in 2011, we created a leadership academy at the New Hampshire Bar Association, and we were getting younger members of the bar to put their name in for this leadership pool. They went through a year and they graduated the night I came in and got the gavel as bar president, which was fantastic because then I then I was able to appoint some of those graduates of the Leadership Academy to different committees and task forces.

But with this multi-generation too, we were dealing with how do you communicate when you have three generations in the bar. We had people who still wanted that newsprint. We had people who wanted something electronically. They wanted it fast. They wanted to know that first, when you opened up the email, what was going to be below. So we played with how we communicate with the members of the bar. And I think I was the first person to record a message to new lawyers that we sent to them digitally, just welcoming them to the New Hampshire Bar as soon as they were sworn in. So again, we had multi-generations. Also at this time, which we’ll see is still another factor. We had the uniform bar exam. The UBE was being talked about at this time and it was being discussed. And I believe the first UBE bar exam was in 2011 when I came in as bar president.

We had a very active New Hampshire Supreme Court that signed on to the UBE and we were taking the UBE exam in New Hampshire in 2013. I believe the first state that was east of the Mississippi River. So we had a lot of changes, right? The growth, the breaking down the walls with the UBE, just multi-generations. It seemed like a transition time, but I’d say even if I look at today, it’s still a transition time.

Amanda Arriaga:

Did you happen to keep track of some of those Leadership Academy graduates? Have you seen that they now are leaders of the bar?

Jennifer Parent:

We have tracked. They’re very active in committees. They’re active on the board of governors for the New Hampshire Bar. They have stayed engaged and involved and not just within the Bar Association. So part of the Leadership Academy was introducing them to community organizations and nonprofits. And so they are out in the community and they’re leaders within the community. So very proud of that program. I worked with Richard Uchita, who was a past president of the New Hampshire Bar. And we pulled that together part of a steering committee. And I really wanted that graduating class to graduate the night that I came in as bar president. That was important to me.

Marna Tucker:

I’d like to interject something that when I was bar president, you were using the word multi-generational as the emblem sort of of your term. And we, in 1983 and 84, and then in 1991, when I was with the Conference of Bar Presidents, we were just trying to get more women in. When I started law school, there were five women. There were 10 women in a class of 180. Five women graduated. That’s what, 0.05% or something. Now that there are women and minorities, the big change was trying to attract during my term, was to attract more women to join and more minorities to join, but it was not multi-generational at that time. We were just trying to be multi-anything except white men.

Amanda Arriaga:

Well, and it’s interesting how time changes because there are more women in law school and who are lawyers. There still aren’t very many women of color. And so there are some people that would argue the time for diversity is over. You had your chance, you have been able to be featured. And so it’s time again just to let everybody be in charge again. So the white men need their time back, which is fine, but we’ve still only had 10 female presidents of NCBP. And there are a lot of lady lawyer rock stars that are serving and that deserve this national platform as well. So Marna, when you became the first female president of NCBP in 1991, I want to know what the issues were that NCBP was facing, but also personally, was that a big change for NCBP? Was it very obvious that you were being a trailblazer or was it just like, “Oh, that’s Marna and we love her, and of course you should be in

Marna Tucker:

Charge?” It was obvious, of course, when I was the only woman in the room, that I was the only woman in the room, but because I became the first woman president of one of the largest bars, the DCBar at the time was the second largest bar in the country. I was invited by other bar associations to speak to them. And I remember this story, I was invited to the Texas State Bar annual meeting. And as president of the bar, I had been going to an awful lot of meetings and I wanted to go to the Texas State Bar because you don’t know this, but I’m a graduate of the University of Texas and I was reared in Texas. I grew up in Houston, but being in Washington, I sort of kept only a small bit of my Texas accent. Anyway, my husband said, “You want to go to the Texas State Bar meeting?” He said, “Every weekend you’re going to another bar meeting.” He said, “Aren’t you tired or is it you just want to go down to Texas to show that you became a hotshot lawyer?” I said, “No, honey, I want to go back to Texas to show them I got married.” And that was really what I wanted to do.

Anyhow, I went back to Texas and met all the presidents of the other large bars, and that was what got me involved in the National Conference of Bar Presidents. I was the only woman of one of the largest bars, and I was very proud of it. And I loved meeting lawyers from everywhere. It was not a job. It was not a task. It was not only an honor, but it was fun. And some of the people, I know Jennifer just mentioned some of the people I met then are … I still try to keep up with them and find out what they’re doing, but it was very good. It was good is not the word. It was fun. It was exciting being a trailblazer. And to tell the truth, the things I still do, even now in a senior retirement community, I’m still a trailblazer.

I like to do new things. I like to take risks. That’s fun for me, and I’ve done that my whole career.

Amanda Arriaga:

Well, and it’s interesting because some women, your husband says you want to show up that you’re a hotshot. Well, we do, but some of us feel like we’re not supposed to. That’s too braggy. And so if you went and said, “Look at me, I’m the first.” Maybe some people wouldn’t like it, but it’s important because that is what inspires other women to know they can lead their organizations and their bars. So I’m glad that you came back. I’m glad that the audience knows that we are both Texas girls. We have a lot in common, and we’re both happy to show up to meetings and say, “Yeah, I’m a lady. Make me in charge of stuff. I’m good at being in charge of stuff.” So now you are in charge of NCBP. What issues was the organization facing in 1991?

Marna Tucker:

Most of the issues, theBar throughout the ’80s. We first started in the beginning of the ’80s, we were dealing with the expansion of lawyer advertising. God forbid, a lawyer should have a sign that said he or she was a lawyer. So we went through the expansion and set up rules for lawyer advertising. But I think the biggest issues that I’m actually most proud of is that we were trying to increase funding for people or legal services for people who could not afford lawyers. That was really the first big push toward legal services for the poor. We also focused on how to make lawyers better lawyers, but my real passion at the time was to increase legal services for the poor all over the country.

Amanda Arriaga:

And that’s again, an evergreen topic where every bar association’s struggling with that and even trying innovative, some people think controversial ideas like, “Well, if we don’t have enough lawyers that can increase those services to the poor, maybe non-lawyers could help us do that. ” So I’m not going to make anyone tell their opinion on that since for some reason that is a very controversial issue, but thank you for sharing that because again, still from the ’90s to today, that is something that we’re all struggling with.

Marna Tucker:

Well, what the other issue that I really should say we were focused on is that we were trying to increase the number of women and minorities in the judiciary and in law firms because there was really a very, very low glass ceiling on women and minorities in law firm partnerships and in the judiciary, we worked very hard to increase those numbers and got the American Bar Association to finally jump into that issue and take hold. And now we have a really solid number, but need more. And as you said, we need more African American women, even though they had the first president, there was an African American woman president during my heydays in the bar, but when you say that there’ve only been 10 women presidents of the ABA, I look back and when I was president of National Conference of Bar Presidents, I gave in my speech as the first I said, “I hope that this will … I never have to be the first and that we will lose count of how many women there have been in these leadership roles.” But sadly, you’re telling me now, you can still count them as who the leaders are and yet we have over 50% of the profession as women, and yet you can still count the number of leaders who were women.

Amanda Arriaga:

If it gives you any hope, at least for NCBP, we will soon be able to start counting with our toes because we have our 11th female president, Anne Kiel, who is currently treasurer. So we will move to our toes very soon, so that’s exciting.

Marna Tucker:

Well, as long as we keep our thumbs up and keep positive about it, we can count our toes too.

Jennifer Parent:

Exactly. I do agree with Marna. If you’re the first or the seventh or the ninth, what’s good to know is that there are going to be people who follow, and that’s the exciting part that there are going to be others. And it’s good to know that we’ve got people in the pipeline.

Amanda Arriaga:

So Jennifer, was it novel when you became NCBP president to be a female?

Jennifer Parent:

Well, let me talk about when I first walked into the NCBP room, I was coming in as in line for the presidency for the New Hampshire Bar Association. I remember walking into the room, there were not a lot of women presidents, and there were a lot more senior lawyers sitting at the tables when I walked in. If you walk in to NCBP today, it’s a very different room, so that’s exciting to see. I know when I first walked in, one of the first people I saw was someone that I was a young lawyer with the YLD days of ABA, Jonathan Cole, and he was coming up through his ranks to be bar president of the Tennessee Bar, I believe, and excited to see him in the room. So when I became president in New Hampshire in 2011, I was the seventh female president. Those are really good numbers for a small state and compared to other states at the time.

I had earlier in 2000 to 2002, I was president, the second president of the New Hampshire Women’s Bar Association that I helped found in 1998, and that’s because we were seeing a need. And before 1998 or around that time, we were coming off the year of the woman. We had the most women in Congress. We had Madeline Albright, we had Janet Reno, and there was a groundswell to start this first statewide woman’s bar in New Hampshire. And somehow I came in, I was a baby lawyer. I came in in 1995, helped found this woman’s bar in 1998 and then become the second bar president in 2000, just five years under my belt. But I knew then that I loved that bar leadership. I loved giving back to the profession. I loved making sure that members had resources that they could use. And so got myself into the New Hampshire Bar and then attending the NCBP, I walked to the room and I loved it.

I loved talking to other colleagues who were going through similar issues and situations and how did they work through it? More important, what did they do that didn’t work so that you would be prepared. And just those round tables, even today, the round tables that you have at the end of the day on that Friday with all the bars and New Hampshire is a unified bar. So I’d sit at those tables. The information you get and the connections you make with people, some of my best friends are lawyers and some of my best friends are lawyers that I met at NCBP, VP. And I, to this day, so I have all good things to say about NCBP. You talk about evergreen issues. When I came in in 2018 as bar president NCBP, again, the issues before us, the globalization of the profession, right? We were talking about reregulation.

In 2012, you had Washington State, right? They started that limited license legal technicians, triple LTs, I think is what we called them. At that time, Legal Zoom was out there. They were putting out all these forms that companies could go get, and they were getting sued for the unauthorized practice of law. And I’d say what’s old is new again, right? Today we have AI. And I think what was reported just in March of 2026 this year, an AI company has been sued for the unauthorized practice of law because they helped a pro se litigant prepare filings in a litigation matter. So you just see these things coming around. The world is faster to the technology. So at that time, you had all this going on. Mindfulness became a big word in 2018. And I know the ABA had their pledge. So you have technology that’s speeding everything up.

You have these other ways of getting the access to justice. That’s why the Triple LTs came in. How do we make things more affordable? But then you have this wellness component and this mindfulness component that’s coming into the bar at the same time.

Marna Tucker:

I’m curious, Jennifer, were you elected by your full bar in an election or is it an appointment system? What is it? How did it work for you?

Jennifer Parent:

You get elected by the full bar to come up through the bar leadership, and it’s just the very last step. You’re nominating by the board of governors to actually then fill that role as bar president, but you are elected by your members.

Marna Tucker:

Because I think it’s hard. We had an election too. And when I ran, and I was not only the first woman, but the first woman to be nominated by the slate and then to run. And several times people would say, “Well, how do you get elected?” And it made me think, I remember as a young lawyer joining my firm for the first time, we sat around the table and I looked and I said, “How am I going to make my mark and become a partner in this firm? How am I going to do that? ” And I said, “I have to become indispensable in some ways.” And the way I figured it out is I watched people and I noticed over a period of months that whenever somebody had to go to court, it was always, I volunteer because none of the men wanted to go.

The men were afraid to go to court. They were sitting around and I said, “Well, if I go to court all the time, they can’t get rid of me. ” And so I watched in ways we were to become indispensable. And I think that was one of the ways to start on your journey. But in the elections, I remember I did something for the first time. I went everywhere to law firms, to legal organizations and introduced myself. Nobody had ever really campaigned because it was not considered proper, I suppose. But I decided if I was going to get out there and be the first woman running, I’d better be the first woman to win and had a wonderful time meeting people, going to law firms, going, speaking. And I even spoke to women’s groups who were not lawyers. I remember speaking to a nurses association because they heard that the lawyers were electing or a woman was running and I spoke to them.

And it was very, very interesting to see how a number of professions that just find slots for women or become women dominated, how important it was to watch the legal profession change that way. And I did a lot of speaking to a lot of groups and I encourage people who run for office, look and see where you can make yourself indispensable, and there will be a spot.

Jennifer Parent:

I agree with that, Marna. And sometimes what has worked in the past works still today, that being indispensable, finding out how, what you do, people need. I also think a big component of it, you talked about Jack Middleton, who is a mentor of mine, I know was NCBP, our president near you, Marna, told me and taught me the importance of giving back to the profession, being involved in the profession, being involved in the community, and just showing up, like showing up, doing a good job, taking a seat at the table, as they like to say, to make sure that you’ve got a voice in the room. And that’s what I would say today to anybody who’s seeking bar leadership is show up, do a good job, but make sure you’re sitting at the table and you’re being heard.

Marna Tucker:

I do want to tell another story that in terms of the early on, in 1970, it was in the ’70s and the early ’80s, the Equal Rights Amendment had come up. And when I was bar president, I guess it was 84, they were having hearings at the Senate on the Equal Rights Amendment for the second time they had hearings and various women groups asked me to testify before the Senate committee on the Equal Rights Amendment because at that point they felt I had some gravitas having a title. So of course I was going to do it. And I told my husband, who had worked on Capitol Hill for many, many years, I told him I was going to testify before the Senate subcommittee on constitutional rights. And he said, “Marna, don’t do it. They will tear you apart.” I said, “What do you mean don’t do it?

” He said, “They will ask you questions and try to make you look terrible.” And I said, “Honey, I am going to do it because they’re not trial lawyers and I am. They’re only one question deep and I can answer that one question.” And he said, he was surprised. So I took my then eight year old daughter with me to testify. She is now a lawyer as well, but she still remembers that day that she was there. And I did testify. I was put on a panel with a man who was opposed to the Equal Rights Amendment and he was smoking a cigarette. Now, I remembered him smoking the cigarette, but my son, who is a videographer and sent me a film that he made of those hearings of the Equal Rights Amendment. And this man sat there and kept blowing smoke in my face.

Yes, as I was talking. And I do remember that there were ways people had to try to minimize women. And it was such a good lesson though. It made it so much stronger to have to overcome some of those barriers. And of course then nobody could smoke a few years after that, thank goodness. Anyhow, those days, those early days were quite wonderful in testifying on behalf of women to get that amendment passed, which it never did. But the law has changed to cover most of the things that that amendment was supposed to handle.

Amanda Arriaga:

Well, and part of the lesson that you all have just shared is you need to be indispensable, show up at the table, and run. Because in so many organizations, there is the quote gentlemen’s agreement about who gets to go next. And a lot of people fall for that and then think, “Well, I guess it’s not my turn. I guess I shouldn’t make waves. I guess I should just stand in line.” And you could stand in line forever. And sort of Marna, to your point, if you run, you might just win. So that competition is healthy and there should be people, good people competing against each other to try to get these roles. Because if everybody’s here to serve and if everybody is willing to work to further that organization, then we don’t need to stand in line because of the gentleman’s agreement, because you just got here because, well, they’ve been waiting longer.

So I’m proud of both of you for modeling that, that you show up and you’re indispensable, and then you also try to do it.

Marna Tucker:

But there’s also a group of women that would be by our side. There might be a gentleman’s agreement, but there could be a woman’s strength in numbers group that were always by my side. And I remember one of my dearest friends gave me a line when she was describing, she was a partner at Arnold Porter, one of the biggest Washington law firms. And she tells a story about how when she went to a meeting of lawyers, one of the men asked her to get him a cup of coffee. And she stood up and she said, and this will date the time, she said, “Well, at $50 an hour, that’s an expensive cup of coffee.” So she sort of proved her point. And I still remember that line that she got them a cup of coffee, but then let them know what her hourly rate was at the time.

Jennifer Parent:

And Amanda, I would add to not just run, run even when you don’t think you’re ready or it’s not the right time, because if you wait for the right time, there’ll never be a right time. And I’ve heard it said, “Courage is taking the leap before you think you’re ready.” And I’ve often talked to people, “Go outside your comfort zone.” Because when I do, I’m always amazed at what I can get accomplished and what I can do. So I try to tell people, go outside your comfort zone, take that leap before you even think you’re ready to do so because you can do such amazing things. And we have such amazing leaders out there. The one thing about NCBP, you walk in the room, these are all leaders around the entire country. And where else do you get to walk into a room and have that?

They all care about the profession. They all care about their members and we’re all hoping to row in the same direction. And it’s an exciting thing. I used to come back from the conferences all energized to do good things back in New Hampshire and bring ideas back because why reinvent the wheel when other people have programs that they’re working on? So I would just add, take the leap even when you probably think you’re not ready. Just do it.

Marna Tucker:

And I’d add one other tip. Have a mentor, at least one mentor. Find somebody who will have your back and will help you on all of those journeys you feel like you might be all alone. A mentor is so critical and you don’t know who that’ll be. You’ll find somebody at one of those meetings, you’ll befriend someone, but I think a mentor is critical in anything that you want to advance in.

Jennifer Parent:

I’ll piggyback on Marna. Someone once told me, have your board of advisors. So when you are a bard leader, who can you trust to make that phone call? Because sometimes you just need to say it out loud. You need someone to hear it. And if you have that board of advisors, right? We don’t go it alone as leaders. We’re surrounded by people who help us along that journey. And having that board of advisors, I found to be incredibly helpful when issues came up during my bar year, whether at the New Hampshire Bar Association or during NCBP.

Amanda Arriaga:

Well, and I think the part that’s unspoken is you should have a mentor and have a board of advisors and then be a mentor and be on someone’s board. And that’s the way that you reach back and keep making sure that we’re lifting everybody up.

Jennifer Parent:

Exactly.

Amanda Arriaga:

So one thing that the two of you have in common, a question I didn’t send in advance, but I think is fun, is you have both been or are chair of the American Bar Foundation Fellows. And I am one of your fellows and I have a very important question to ask about this very important organization. At every American Bar conference, there is a fellow sing along and it’s very late at night. Can you make that earlier in the day? Or can you help me make one for NCBP that starts earlier because I like to go to sleep early?

Marna Tucker:

Just do it.

Amanda Arriaga:

Okay. Get

Marna Tucker:

Yourself somebody who’s playing the piano and start it earlier and in a different place and maybe have some nibbles for people to do it, but do it with your own style and just do it.

Jennifer Parent:

So thank you, Amanda, for being a fellow. I appreciate that. And the sing-alongs are fun. I think at the end of the night, thinking that that’s what you do before your head hits the pillow is helpful sometimes. But I agree with Marna. If you want to start it, just get it going. And by word of mouth, and it’s so fun to get together and sing along, I suspect it will be successful.

Amanda Arriaga:

I’m going to invite y’all to a brunchtime fellow sing along, because I think we can sing along anytime, anywhere. If I hear elevator music, it’s on.

Jennifer Parent:

And with enough coffee, people will do anything.

Amanda Arriaga:

Maybe some mimosas. Who knows? Depends how many meetings we have later in the day. So my last question for y’all, and I know this one is hard, is if you weren’t a lawyer, what other profession do you think you would have been in? Marna.

Marna Tucker:

Oh, wow. I thought about that. If I asked what my 20-year-old self would have been at the time I chose to do that, I was thinking about wanting to be a doctor, but the reason I changed majors in college is because all of the labs they had for quantitative analysis and all of that stuff to be a doctor filled the whole afternoon. And I was much more looking to do other things besides stay in a lab two days a week, all afternoon. So I changed from wanting to be a doctor in the 20s. But now, if I look back, because I’ve been retired for quite a while now, and what I love is fashion. I love clothes. I love to buy outfits with jewelry to match. And so now looking back, I think I would study fashion design and marketing if I were to not be a lawyer, but that’s totally different than what really was.

Amanda Arriaga:

I love that. I can’t wait until the three of us have dinner without microphones. I can’t wait. Jennifer, what about you?

Jennifer Parent:

So I also have thought about this question and I think things happened for a reason. So I do remember growing up in high school. I was so excited about the space program. So I’m excited to see what’s happening with NASA today. I was an economics major from Boston College, but it soon became apparent that those complicated math problems that you had to know being a NASA astronaut or a scientist or economist was not my cup of tea. And so then I went into the legal field. And I have to say again, things happen for a reason. I just feel like there’s something right about what I’m doing. I like helping people solve problems. I like working in our communities. I like giving back to our justice system. So while I may have had grandiose plans of being in space one day, I think I landed in the right spot.

Amanda Arriaga:

Well, you all were definitely at the right place at the right time. Thank you on behalf of NCBP, on behalf of all female lawyers, just trying to get it done and make a difference. I really appreciate y’all being here today, and I think that the audience will get a ton of takeaways from your experiences. So thank you for being here.

Jennifer Parent:

Thank you, Amanda.

Amanda Arriaga:

Thank you. On behalf of the National Conference of Bar Presidents, thanks for listening to this episode of Leading the Bar. For more information about membership or getting involved, visit ncbp.org.

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