New Jersey lawyer Paulette Brown was selected this month as president-elect nominee of the association and, if elected in August, will serve as president-elect for one year before assuming the ABA presidency in August 2015. Brown, a labor and employment law partner and chief diversity officer with the Morristown, New Jersey, office of Edwards Wildman Palmer, will be the first woman of color to serve as ABA president. A member of the House of Delegates since 1997, she is a past member of the association’s Board of Governors and serves on the Task Force on the Future of the Legal Profession. She co-chaired the ABA Commission on Civic Education in the Nation’s Public Schools and is a council member for the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar.
Brown, a recipient of the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award and the Spirit of Excellence Award from the ABA, has been recognized by the New Jersey Law Journal as one of the prominent women and minority attorneys in the state of New Jersey and by the National Law Journal as one of “The 50 Most influential Minority Lawyers in America.” She also has been repeatedly named by U.S. News and World Report as one of the best lawyers in America in commercial litigation. She is a former president of the National Bar Association.
Brown earned her J.D. from Seton Hall University School of Law and her B.A. from Howard University.
During an address Feb. 10 to the ABA House of Delegates, Brown said it is her goal to make sure “the ABA is the go-to organization for all lawyers, everywhere.”