Join Dennis W. Archer, Mayor of Detroit, former Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court and former President of the National Bar Association, the State Bar of Michigan and the Wolverine Bar Association. "I welcome the opportunity to encourage every minority lawyer to take full advantage of the opportunities that are made available to members of the ABA. My membership with the ABA has been a rewarding experience. I recognized soon after I passed the bar that I should network as widely as possible to gain the professional training and experience I needed to reach my full potential. The ABA has not disappointed. In 32 years as an ABA member, I have sharpened my skills, broadened my knowledge, and made lots of friends. While I recognize that the potential time commitment is a concern for busy professionals, believe me, the investment is well worth it. Since 1970, I have been a trial lawyer in four busy law firms; taught classes at the Detroit College of Law and the Wayne State University Law School; served as a Michigan Supreme Court Justice; and I keep a hectic schedule in my sixth year and second term as Mayor of Detroit. The return to me has far exceeded what I’ve put into ABA activities. I have made excellent contacts and worked on substantive issues. For instance, while chairing the ABA Commission on Opportunities for Minorities in the Profession, I befriended a lawyer by the name of Hillary Rodham Clinton. I subsequently met her husband, who happened to be the governor of Arkansas. Years later, my friendship with President Bill Clinton and the First Lady turned out to be the basis of a positive and productive relationship between the City of Detroit and the federal government in Washington. It is my strong belief that African-Americans and other people of color must also belong to the ABA. It is imperative that we make our voices heard within the nation’s largest and most prominent professional organizations for lawyers. It is also essential that we participate in the policy making of the ABA. The laws of this nation have had a profound effect on people of color, from the Constitution’s determination that African-Americans were only three-fifths of a person; to unbalanced treaties with Native Americans that were agreed to, the broken; from the Jim Crow laws that enforced segregation; to the civil rights laws that outlawed that system. Now that the doors of opportunity have open significantly, we must not pass up the chance to sit at the table and help shape the direction—and the complexion—of the American legal system." Find out more about joining