Africa - Board Members
- Dianna P. Kempe, Chair
- Bob Alsdorf
- Vanita Banks
- Jamir Couch
- Marsha Simms
- William Reece Smith, Jr.
Dianna P. Kempe
Chair
The International Bar Association is the world's largest international organization of Law Societies, Bar Associations and individual lawyers engaged in international practice. Founded in 1947, it has 16,000 individual lawyer members in 183 countries and 178 Law Societies and Bar Associations together representing more than 2.5 million lawyers - and Dianna Kempe QC is the President of the IBA.
Dianna Kempe is proud and pleased to be the first woman to be so honored and views it as an important milestone for the IBA, as well as for women everywhere who aspire to become leaders of the organizations that they serve.
Dianna Kempe is the Senior and Managing Partner of the Bermudian law firm Appleby Spurling & Kempe (AS&K) which employs 65 lawyers and 350 staff with offices or affiliations in Hong Kong, Cayman, Jersey, British Virgin Islands, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.
She has specialized particularly in cross border insolvencies for the past 16 years was the founder of the IBA's Women's Interest Group ("W.I.G."). As President of the IBA she came to the Women and Law Conference in Dublin Castle in November 2000 and has been an inspiration, mentor and friend, to all us in the formation of the IWLA. We are honored that she is here to announce that Her Excellency Judge Maureen Clark SC, International Criminal Tribunal will formally launch the Irish Women Lawyers Association on Friday 7th June 2002 in Dublin Castle.
Always a ground-breaker Dianna Kempe was the first woman to become President of the Bar Council of Bermuda 1987 - 1990 In 1992 she became the first woman in Bermuda to be appointed a Queen's Counsel.
In 1998, the National Association of Women Lawyers in the United States named her as their Outstanding Member of the Year. She was the first non-American to be given the award.
As President of the IBA she brought together over 900 women lawyers for the first ever World Women Lawyers Conference, which she organized in 2001.
Dianna Kempe, born in London, England, was called to the Bar of England and Wales on November 24, 1970. She was a Pupil at AS&K through 1971, and was appointed as an Associate Lawyer with the firm in January 1972. She became a Partner of the firm in December 1979 and was appointed Managing Partner in December 1990 and then Senior Managing Partner April 1999. She is married and has two adult children.
Jamir R. Couch
Jamir R. Couch is currently the President/Founder of Knowles Hall Consulting Inc. Knowles Hall’s primary focus is to assist financial firms with their business development efforts before various entities. She is currently representing private equity, real estate and hedge funds managers, many of whom are “emerging managers.” Prior to starting Knowles Hall, Ms. Couch served as a vice president at M. R. Beal & Company in its corporate finance and institutional sales departments. Immediately before joining M.R. Beal she served as senior counsel in the Washington, D.C. office of Miller Canfield Paddock & Stone. Before returning to private law practice, Ms. Couch served as the first executive director of the Wall Street Project (WSP) an initiative of RPC. She played an instrumental role in the first WSP conference on Wall Street in January 1998.
Ms. Couch has developed a broad array of public sector expertise through federal government appointments and private sector assignments. Her public sector experience includes executive level government management, policy development, legislative strategy, regulatory enforcement and litigation management. In addition, as a consultant in the private sector, she has served as an advisor to businesses with complex, and often proprietary, issues pending before various domestic and international bodies of government. During the Clinton Administration, she served as a special assistant and acting deputy general counsel at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). There she advised the general counsel on all major litigation and policy issues. She also served at the U.S. Department of the Treasury as the deputy to the assistant secretary for legislative affairs, where she handled banking and international trade matters. Prior to her involvement in the Clinton Administration, she practiced law in private practice.
William Reece Smith Jr., Esquire
Member
One of this nation’s finest and most respected leaders of the law, whose contributions have benefited not just the law but also education, the arts, and his community. During his career, which spans over 50 years, Mr. Smith has been a leader as a lawyer, an educator, a mentor, a community servant, and an outstanding citizen of this nation. The mantle of leadership, it seems, rests comfortably upon his shoulders.
After graduating from public schools in Plant City, Florida, he attended the University of South Carolina where he lettered as the starting quarterback of the Gamecocks varsity football team, and also served as Regimental Vice Commander of the Naval ROTC Unit. He received a Bachelor Degree in Naval Science, and then he served his country honorably as an ensign in the United States Navy.
After military service, Mr. Smith attended the University of Florida College of Law where he graduated first in his class and was selected as Editor In Chief of the University of Florida Law Review, President of the Student Bar Association and a member of the University Executive Council. He was also selected for membership in the prestigious Florida Blue Key fraternity and the University Hall of Fame.
After graduation from law school, Mr. Smith was selected as a Rhodes Scholar and did post-graduate work in private international law at Oxford University, England. While at Oxford, he received varsity letters in lacrosse and basketball. Upon his return from Oxford, he joined the faculty of law at the University of Florida as a full-time member.
Shortly thereafter, he began practicing law in Tampa with the law firm that is now known as Carlton, Fields, where, he specialized in trial and appellate practice. Mr. Smith has served in all principal leadership positions at Carlton Fields, and is now the Chair Emeritus of the firm, and maintains an active involvement in its affairs.
Reece Smith is not only an accomplished trial and appellate lawyer; he is a legal scholar, having published extensively in learned journals, professional publications and newspapers on matters of law, the legal profession and higher education. He is an Adjunct Professor at Stetson University College of Law in St. Petersburg, and since 1991 he has been distinguished professorial lecturer, teaching legal ethics and professional responsibility.
His commitment to education extends beyond that of legal education. In 1976-77, he was asked to serve as Interim President of the University of South Florida, and served in that capacity with great distinction. However, he declined to become a candidate for the permanent post in order to seek the presidency of the American Bar Association, where he served as president-elect in 1979 and president in 1980. In addition, for nearly 10 years, he served as City Attorney for the City of Tampa, during which time he also continued his practice with his firm.
Mr. Smith has served as president of the Florida Bar Foundation, The Florida Bar, Florida Legal Services, Inc., The International Bar Association, vice-chair and member of the Executive Committee of the Council on Legal Education Opportunity, co-chair of the Task Force on Mission and Goals of the University of South Florida, chair of the State of Florida’s Joint Legislative-Executive Commission on Post-Secondary Education, and is currently a member of the Board of Trustees of Stetson University. Mr. Smith was chair of the ABA’s Section on Legal Education & Admissions to the Bar committee that recently published a two-volume work entitled Teaching and Learning Professionalism.
Although Mr. Smith is also noted for his leadership in advancing many charitable and civic causes, most would agree it is his support for legal services to the poor, which is most prominent. In the early 1980’s, his ABA presidency coincided with congressional efforts to significantly cut funding to the Legal Services Corporation in a way that would result in a diminution of legal services to the poor around the country. He championed the effort to resist that undertaking by organizing and rallying lawyers around the country to lobby Congress to halt that effort. Through his efforts and leadership, the measure was defeated. His support for legal services was not limited to the year that he served as president; it was a project that he demonstrated a commitment to long before his service, during his service, and one that he continues to support today.
In his distinguished career, Mr. Smith has received the American Bar Association Medal of Honor; the Florida Bar Foundation Medal of Honor; the Tampa Civitan Club Award for Outstanding Citizen of the Year; the Legal Aid Defender Association’s Arthur Von Briesen Award; the Alvin J. Arnett Award of the National Client’s Council, Inc., and the Herbert Harley Award of the American Judicature Society. In addition, the American Bar Association and the National Association of Pro Bono Coordinators established the William Reece Smith, Jr. Special Service to Pro Bono Award in his honor, and named him as the award’s first recipient; and, in his honor, Stetson University College of Law established the William Reece Smith, Jr. Public Service Award, naming him as the first recipient.
William Reece Smith continues to be a leader in civic affairs as well. He served for six years as president of the Tampa Philharmonic Orchestra Association and became the founding president of the Florida Gulf Coast Symphony Association, which is now the Florida Orchestra. He was chair of the Hillsborough County Mental health Association; president of the Tampa Chapter of United Cerebral Palsy; and a director of the Tampa Chapters of the American Red Cross, the American Cancer Society, Muscular Dystrophy and the Visiting Nurses Association. He was president of the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce; vice-chair of the Commission to Revise the Charter of the City of Tampa; chair of the Governor’s Commission on Protection and Advocacy for Persons with Developmental Disabilities; and a member of the Board of Directors of the Bay Area Chapter of the National Conference of Christians and Jews.
