What’s Your Why? How Your Past Fuels Your Purpose

Episode Notes

Transcript

Monte Frank:

The rule of law committee that we’ve started keeps moving along and we’ll leave our bar associations and our judiciary in a better place. That’s the objective, and I don’t know that there’s a better organization out there that NCBP could do it.

Amanda Arriaga:

Welcome to the next episode of Leading the Bar. I’m your host, Amanda Arriaga. Today, we’re talking to NCBP President Juan Thomas and past president of the Connecticut Bar and the New England Bar Association, Monte Frank. This episode is an extension of a workshop from our recent midyear meeting called What’s Your Why: How Your Past Fuels Your Purpose, where Juan and Monte shared how their past experiences shaped them in wanting to become lawyers and leaders. For those who didn’t attend that meeting, we’d like to give you an abbreviated version of what they shared. Monte, would you like to start?

Monte Frank:

Sure. Thanks, Amanda. And it’s always good to see my friend and brother, Juan Thomas, and collaborate with him on this program. When I was growing up, I knew that my mother had survived the Holocaust, that my grandparents were survivors, that so much of our family were murdered, and that my family had suffered through horrible times when the rule of law was denigrated, viscerated, eliminated, and hatred prevailed. And when Juan and I were down in Virgin Islands, we were on a panel together and Juan shared his story. And then we started having discussions just comparing notes and what motivated us to become leaders in various capacities, including leading bar associations and why it mattered so much and how the bars could act to defend the rule of law and how important that was. And that was sort of the seeds of the program and then this podcast.

But just a quick story, my grandfather, despite the fact that he had suffered so much, wasn’t bitter, never really lost his faith. And when he knew that I was interested in going to law school, not only he was very supportive, but he gave me a small amount of money, which was more than he had. He was not a rich man by any stretch of the imagination, and it wasn’t lost on me that one of the first things that the Nazis did when they came into power was to strip Jewish lawyers of their license and to send Jewish judges into exile and to attack the judiciary. And I never forgot that. And there was a recent ABA program which talked a lot about those Jewish lawyers and judges and the impact that it had on the rule of law. And so what I’ve tried to do is to honor my grandparents, my grandfather, the Jewish tradition of Tkunalam, which is all about doing what you can to repair the world.

And I also note that as lawyers, we have extraordinary tools to do that, to help repair the world, to stand up for injustice, to speak for those who can’t speak, to ensure that we do our part to prevent injustice. And I know that Juan shares those same goals based on a completely different set of circumstances that brought him to the leadership roles that he has.

Amanda Arriaga:

And Juan, our audience knows a bit about you with a couple of podcasts about your background, but we have never talked about this. So would you talk to us about your background and the experiences that made you want to be a lawyer and a leader?

Juan Thomas:

Sure. Like my friend and brother Monte Frank, my family also suffered from significant, what I call systemic barriers and oppression. My grandfather grew up in the Jim Crow South and he was born in 1931. And as I became older and came of age, I learned about his upbringing and how he grew up and a story about his mother, my great-grandmother, where she owned a cafe in a town called Yazoo City, Mississippi, cafe and grocery store. And in 1955, she signed a petition to integrate the public schools in Yazoo City in response to the Brown v. Board decision that had just been issued by our Supreme Court. And so she signed this petition hoping that one day her grandchildren, in fact, her granddaughter was four years old and would one day become my mother at the time.

And when she signed this petition, it resulted in the Citizens Council of Yazoo County putting together a newspaper ad. And for those who may not know what that is, the Citizens Council was what I call the sophisticated group of white business leaders who were not necessarily part of the Klan, but were organized to do more systemic segregation around economics, education, to keeping Blacks out of certain aspects of professional and civic life. And so these gentlemen put together an ad and they listed all the Black people who signed this petition to integrate the public schools with their name and their address and basically told the community, “We will no longer do business with these people.” And they put my great-grandmother out of business and she could no longer buy product to sell in her cafe, and she couldn’t get a job anymore in Yazoo City. And here’s the real context of this.

This ad ran in the Yazoo City Herald on August 25th, 1955. Three days later in Drew, Mississippi, Emmett Till was killed. And if you know the history of Emmett Till, you know that was a national story where his mother put the picture of how he was beaten in public view, that she put his body in public view. And so my great-grandmother was living in Mississippi when all this was happening, and she was being what I call economically lynched at that time. And so she literally had to leave Mississippi. She moved her and my great-uncle at the time who was 13 to Cincinnati, Ohio and lived there for the next 30 plus years and would only come back to Mississippi to see her sister and of course my grandfather, her son, and other family members. But she had to leave the state to maintain a livelihood and get a job simply because she wanted to have the schools integrated, which had been authorized by the Supreme Court.

And that famous line that we’ve heard many times with all deliberate speed, but it took it almost another 15 years for the schools to be integrated Mississippi. In fact, my mother was the last segregated class in Yazoo City High School, the class of 69. It took them 14 years to honor the law, to follow the law from 1955, but it cost my great-grandmother her business and her economic livelihood.

Monte Frank:

The story that Juan tells is sort of out of the playbook of hatred towards a group of people. If you look at the rise of the Nazis in Germany and the pilgrims against Jews, one of the things they did was every Jew was forced to wear an armband identifying them as a Jew. Jewish businesses had a Jewish star, Star David, painted onto the business. And that was the beginning. That was the beginning of identifying Jews as others and scapegoating them and targeting them for hatred. And then it became normalized. And so when the final solution, sending Jews into ghettos and then to concentration camps, when that all happened, the rest of the population remained silent and nobody spoke up. And so that’s one of the things that really motivates me is who are going to speak for those who can’t? Who are the people that are going to defend the rule of law when it gets targeted and when our institutions get attacked?

It’s bar associations and lawyers. And I don’t want to make this political because it’s not a political issue. It’s what is the role that we’re going to play to ensure that what makes America what it is will remain and continue along the trajectory towards a more perfect union. Obama always talked about how do we make this a more perfect union? And that should be where we are, not sort of bringing us back to the days of Jim Crowe and so forth.

Juan Thomas:

What Monte said really underscores what I know my family has always been devoted to. And in the African American community, there’s always been a sense of pride and importance around getting a high quality education. We were taught that education is really the pathway to progress and upward mobility. And so what my great grandmother wanted for her grandchildren is really what Black America, and I would go further to say other communities have really always wanted the opportunity to achieve the American dream, to live up to the ideals of our country’s founding. Even though when it was founded, the three of us may not have been included in the original intent, but Monte’s family and my family and others ultimately believed in those words that we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. And the beauty of our country has been those who have sacrificed and labored to expand the definition of we the people, that all men are created equal.

And so as we expand that definition to include others that were not included back in 1776, I think that’s really the work of us as lawyers. It’s what motivated me to ultimately become a lawyer, to serve and give back to the community and try to live and honor my great-grandmother’s sacrifice. And I think that’s really what I’m called to do.

Amanda Arriaga:

So your examples of people who have seen oppression and hatred, you decided to put something good in the world by becoming lawyers, and then beyond that leaders. And then beyond that, leaders of your bar association, so leaders of other lawyers. Why is it important to give back to bar associations specifically,

Juan Thomas:

Juan? Bar Associations is really an organizational hub for lawyers to grow in the profession, become better lawyers, build relationships that can help them in their career and in their life. And I think it’s important that we as lawyers connect with one another, to stay bonded in a way that allows us to grow and to enhance the best of our profession. I’ve been tremendously blessed and benefited from the relationships that I’ve had around the country and here in the Chicago area with lawyers who I’ve met through bar associations. Both of you have been people that have given me insight and perspective over the years, and I feel like I can reach out and ask for advice and counsel when I’m trying to figure out difficult questions around leadership, bar service, and sometimes candidly, client work. If you’re looking for a lawyer in Connecticut or a lawyer in Chicago or Texas, the three of us can be very helpful in that regard.

So it’s important professionally as you grow your practice, but also as you grow personally and professionally in the context of becoming a better lawyer.

Amanda Arriaga:

Monte, are bar associations still relevant? You’ve been in charge of a few of them.

Monte Frank:

I think they’re more relevant than ever. That was a question that was posed to me when I became vice president of the Bar Association in Connecticut. Is the bar still relevant? And I argued yes then for different reasons that I would argue yes now. Now bar associations are relevant for all the reasons that Juan talked about in terms of your professional development, your contacts. I certainly get referrals from lawyers from other states who have litigation matters in Connecticut. And when I have a matter that I need counsel in another state, I go right to my NCBP friends first.

But beyond that, particularly in these times, bar associations are more relevant than ever for the reasons that motivated Juan and me to become lawyers and so many others. We play a pivotal role in leading on rule of law issues and defending our democracy and teaching other bar leaders and lawyers what they can do to fight back on the attacks on the rule of law, the attacks on the independence of our judiciary, the attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, the attacks on our law schools. There’s no other association anywhere that is better suited to defend lawyers, the rule of law, our democracy and our judiciary than bar associations. Juan and I have a very good friend in Robin Wolpert, who is a former NCB past president and was on executive council with me. What she and other lawyers did in Minnesota is exhibit A of why bar associations are relevant.

When lawyers were called on, lawyers stepped up and did a tremendous service to our nation and no other association could have done what the lawyers in Minnesota did. And I’m so proud to know Robin to call her my friend, to co-chair the new Rule of Law Committee of NCB, but I’m proud of lawyers and bar associations for doing their job in such a tremendous way.

Amanda Arriaga:

Juan, can you talk a little bit about how NCBP can help bar leaders continue to give back and serve their purpose, serve their why, even when they’re done leading their own bar association?

Juan Thomas:

Yeah. So what I love about NCBP is that we are bar presidents for a year, but we’re leaders for life. I got that from Nate Adler, one of our past presidents of NCBP and past president of the Utah State Bar. And that reminds me of what we should be doing within NCBP, which is helping other bar leaders who are coming up to becoming president of their bar associations, helping them think about their leadership skills, their development, their vision on a macro and micro level, thinking about ways they can enhance their association and really giving them the tools to take back to their association to be effective, and I want to call being transformative leaders. One question that I always like to ask bar leaders, what are you working on? What are you building that’ll continue after you’re president? I’m hoping that you’re not just building a program or an initiative just for, we always use the language your bar year.

What’s going to transform your association? What’s going to make it better that the next president and future presidents will be compelled to continue because it’s so effective, it’s so needed, it’s so necessary. I would suggest that if you’ve done nothing that builds on the association beyond your bar year, that you have a limited vision. Or as one of my mentors would say, “Your address is too small. Yo need to expand your platform. Think beyond your year.” I think NCBP has the network and the tools and the relationships to help lawyer leaders do that and think in that context.

Amanda Arriaga:

So we usually talk about why leaders should join NCBP and how that helps, but why do the two of you want to give back to NCBP? Monte, you have been on council before and yet you’re still a committee chair. Why is it important for you to give back to this organization?

Monte Frank:

I don’t know that I had heard Nate Alders lesson to bar leaders before, but when Han said it, I nodded and I fully acknowledge it. Yes, I was a bar president for a year, which is a tremendous honor and privilege, but I’d like to think that I have remained a bar leader since then and will do so for the rest of my career. What NCBP does, it provides an amazing platform to both learn from what the current bar leaders are seeing in their respective states and municipalities and the affinity bars and what their concerns are, but also it’s a tool to educate those bar leaders on best practices that they can take back to their states. My initiative as bar president was focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and Connecticut was way behind the curve on those efforts. And we, through concerted efforts, revised the whole program, institutionalized it, developed a DEI summit.

And last year was the 10th summit that we’ve had, 10th annual summit, which I attended. And not only was so much was there pride in that the efforts had continued, but that it kept getting better. And I think NCB had a critical role in formulating my thinking about how to lead that effort, which was a little bit controversial at the time, but to also institutionalize it so that it lasted beyond my bar year. I am hoping that Robin and I with the Rule of Law committee can do the same thing, that we can get bar leaders in their respective states with the affinity bars and municipal bars to think about ways that we can get ahead of the curve on rule of law, not just reactive, but being proactive in making sure that the rule of law can’t be attacked the way it has been over the last couple years.

And the goal to do it’s completely nonpartisan.

Here are the things about the rule of law that are really important. This is why it matters. Here are the things that you can do in your states, recognizing that it may not be the same in Connecticut as in Oklahoma. In Oklahoma, they fight every year to maintain the independent judiciary. That’s not an issue for the most part in Connecticut, although it’s becoming a little bit more of so, but we can provide the leadership skills, the tools and the resources to enhance that effort. And that’s what I’m hoping to do. And if we can leave that legacy, so 10 years from now, the rule of law committee that we’ve started keeps moving along and we’ll leave our bar associations and our judiciary in a better place. That’s the objective, and I don’t know that there’s a better organization out there that NCBP could do it, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am to Juan for his leadership on this.

Amanda Arriaga:

Now, Juan, we’ve talked about what you hope to accomplish as NCBP president, but we haven’t talked about why you wanted to be NCBP president. So I’m curious, your family history, does that help inform why you wanted to lead this organization when there are so many others that you could be leading?

Juan Thomas:

Well, somewhere in my journey, I was taught to try to make an impact, try to make a lasting impact where you serve and where you’re planted. And so when I was elected to council, and I believe that was 2020, I fell in love with the mission and vision of the organization and wanted to continue my service. And again, looking for ways to give back and to be helpful, to stay engaged in the important conversations of the day. And since I had been president of the National Bar Association, I thought this was a way to continue doing that type of work, but in a broader context and in a platform that allowed me to reach to other aspects of our profession. I would not have necessarily gotten to know the two of you without my involvement in NCBP. And so I’m grateful for the opportunity to develop new relationships, to learn from people like Monte and you, Amanda, who allow us to have discussions and debates where we may disagree from time to time, but ultimately we’re committed to the rule of law in our profession.

And I’m grateful that Monte’s agreed to co-chair this committee this year, and him and Robin are already doing a tremendous job of keeping us engaged in this important conversation because as Monte said, I don’t know of a more important discussion lawyers can be having right now than upholding the rule of law and the tenants of our profession and the tenants of our democracy. And for those who politicize those questions, I think that is the work that we have to do to correct the politicalization of what I simply call the rules that we all agreed to when we finished law school and took an oath to become lawyers.

Amanda Arriaga:

Do you think something special happens? We talk about rule of law and it is a big concept that people can talk about and it’s an academic subject, but when we draw down to human experiences like the two of you have shared, like you shared at the midyear meeting, do you think that changes the hearts and minds of some people to know that rule of law is not always just a big abstract concept, it is actually something that impacts real people that you may know and love?

Juan Thomas:

Our panel did in Chicago and this discussion we’re having today is hopefully getting our colleagues to think about the historical context of their personal journey and how they got to where they are. Many of us, irrespective of race or culture, we may be the first lawyer in our family. We’re still experiencing that reality in many families across our profession. But even if you’re not, most of us are only two or three generations removed from some level of poverty or oppression. And so I would like lawyers to go back and learn the history of their grandparents or their great-grandparents or whoever raised them and that lineage of your family. And you’ll probably discover someone in your background had to overcome some level of discrimination and oppression, and often it was systemic and structured around the law. And aren’t you glad the law changed to allow you the opportunity that your grandmother maybe never had?

And so I love what Ketanji Brown Jackson said when she became the first African American Supreme Court Justice, female Supreme Court Justice. She said she was not the first African American African female lawyer that was qualified to be in the Supreme Court, she was the first one that was given the opportunity.

I think we have to remember that. I sit here in this role not because I was the best and most qualified ever, I was given the opportunity when 60, 70, 80 years ago, my grandfather and my great grandmother would not have been allowed to attend the University of Illinois College of Law where I went to law school. And I have to understand that context. And I think what I hope is that others will do the same and that should sensitize them to the need to open up doors of opportunity, but also to uphold the rule of law that really is about fairness and justice for all.

Amanda Arriaga:

Monte, do you have anything you’d like to add?

Monte Frank:

Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts on that and I think Juan so eloquently put it. Conversations that Juan and I have had together and I’ve had with others, it humanizes the struggle. It brings to light that we’re all in this struggle together regardless of your background, because at some point in time, I don’t care who you are, there was a struggle to become who you are. So when I was bar president, I brought in Paulette Brown, who was the first African American woman president of the American Bar Association to be the keynote speaker. And she talked about how growing up in Baltimore, she didn’t even know what a lawyer was. She hadn’t met any lawyers, and yet she emerged as a bar leader. When I was running for lieutenant governor in Connecticut, I spent every Sunday morning in the churches and I would tell my family’s story and that would ultimately lead to conversations about the struggle that African Americans were having in our cities in Connecticut.

And so when you personalize those experiences and you share those experiences and really listen, I think it makes you want a better leader, but it also encourages those who may not want to speak out to speak out and use their experiences to pursue common objectives. And that’s what I think is so important about the conversations we had at NCB annual meeting and that we’ll continue to have, because as soon as we close our ears to the plight of others, then that’s when we allow hatred to reemerge and antisemitism to reemerge and racism to prevail. And I think I just want to play a small role in developing that dialogue and encouraging lawyers to continue to speak out when they see injustice.

Amanda Arriaga:

Well, and it’s a great idea, Juan, I think you might have created a new project, this family tree idea of sometimes when you ask a person, “Why did you want to be a lawyer?” There’s a silly answer like, “Because I saw this movie or I watched Matlock.” But if you ask them, “Tell me about your grandparents, tell me about your great-grandparents,” they might realize, “Oh, it’s deeper than that. I had a need to protect people and stand for truth and justice because of all my ancestors.” And so I think that’s actually a great pairing with what’s happening with the Rule of Law Committee, because you’re right, if you can humanize it, then these big amorphous concepts become real and tangible for real people.

Juan Thomas:

I bet that’s a great project. And I think a lot of our colleagues from other cultural groups would learn a lot if they remembered their history. And so to my Irish lawyers, back in the turn of the century, being Irish was quite problematic in this country. The Italians, the Asians, as Monte said, every group has been oppressed or discriminated against by someone. And many times they fled their homeland to come here. And when they came here, they faced obstacles of additional oppression. And I think that’s true across the board. Obviously, the indigenous people, Native Americans have another story in their context of how their land was lost, stolen, and taken by people who were trying to build a new world, a new country, but they had been discriminated against in their home countries. So I think all of us need to recognize that historical context, and it should sensitize us to the need to really, what I like to always remember, the importance of building a multicultural democracy.

And I think NCBP with its diversity throughout our association is a reflection and a model of what the largest society can and what I hope should look like.

Amanda Arriaga:

Well, thank you both for being here today, for sharing your story for part two of this great program. I think that this is going to teach people a little more about you if they weren’t able to attend the midyear meeting, but a lot about the importance of giving back, taking any of that hatred and pain and putting it towards something good. So thank you all for sharing.

Monte Frank:

Thank you, Amanda.

Juan Thomas:

Thank you.

Amanda Arriaga:

On behalf of the National Conference for Bar Presidents, thank you for tuning into this episode of Leading the Bar. For more information about membership or getting involved, visit ncb.org. To catch up on episodes you may have missed, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts or watch us on YouTube at Bar Presidents.