Suffolk Law Student Recognized for Promoting Diversity

The American Bar Association's mission statement lists 11 goals, which include promoting improvements in the U.S. system of justice, promoting access to legal representation, and representing the legal profession. Goal IX reads: to promote the full and equal participation in the legal profession by minorities and women.

It is a goal the Law Student Division takes seriously. Each year the division awards the Dean Henry Ramsey Jr. Award to the entity-whether it's an organization, a corporation, a law student, a professor, or a lawyer-that has contributed to the achievement of Goal IX. Last year's award went to Nathanael Wright, who graduated from Suffolk University Law School in Boston, Massachusetts, last May, and now clerks for a judge on the Massachusetts Superior Court.

The Ramsey award winner is selected by the Diversity Committee of the Law Student Division's Board of Governors. Committee Chair H. Lamar Willis, the division's First Circuit governor and a third-year student at Boston College Law School, says Wright stood out. "He worked to bridge the gap," Willis says, between the school's Black Law Students Association (BLSA) and several women's organizations by working to jointly sponsor events that brought professional and career development programs and speakers to the campus. "We thought that was extremely effective," Willis says.

At Suffolk, Wright was a two-year president of BLSA and served as an associate regional director for BLSA. He helped organize two teams that went to the regional finals of the Frederick Douglas Moot Court competition. He also recruited for his law school.

Wright also was active in the Law Student Division. He served as lieutenant governor for bylaws and resolutions under then-First Circuit Governor Jennifer Springer and as a chapter officer for the ABA at Suffolk. He also served as the division's liaison to the ABA's Standing Committee on Solo and Small Firm Practitioners.

Wright recalled a program he helped organize that brought three African-American women lawyers to campus to relate their experiences in law school and as lawyers. He is quite proud that Suffolk's BLSA chapter commissioned a portrait of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall which now hangs in the Suffolk library. Wright notes there are now two pictures of African-Americans there. He also revived an alumni banquet at Suffolk for graduated BLSA members.

Nominations for the Dean Henry Ramsey Jr. Award are due April 15. Call the Law Student Division's offices at 312/988-5624 or visit the division's Web site at http://www.abanet.org/lsd for more information.

Lee Farbman