Title
Honoring and recognizing Paulette Brown, Esquire for her recent election as the first African-American woman to become president-elect of the American Bar Association.
Body
WHEREAS, Ms. Brown has served on the ABA House of Delegates since 1997 and from 2007-2010, she served on the Board of Governors. She has also served various other positions in the ABA such as chair of the Coalition on Racial and Ethnic Justice and co-chair of the Commission on Civic Education in the Nation's Schools; and
WHEREAS, Ms. Brown has received numerous awards from various state and national bar associations. She has been honored by the National Bar Association with its Equal Justice Award and its Gertrude Rush Award. Additionally, Ms. Brown received the American Bar Association's prestigious Spirit of Excellence Award. In 2011, she was honored with the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award by the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession. She also recently received the New Jersey Women Lawyers Association's Women's Initiative and Leaders in Law Platinum Award and the New Jersey State Bar Association's Excellence in Diversity Award. Additionally, Ms. Brown has received the Thurgood Marshall Award from the Garden State Bar Association; and
WHEREAS, Ms. Brown has held many positions throughout her career including as house counsel to several Fortune 500 companies and as a municipal judge. She earned her J.D. from Seton Hall University School of Law and her B.A. at Howard University. She is a partner with the law firm of Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP. For more than 20 years, she has focused her practice on labor and employment matters. She has successfully litigated a variety of employment matters, including class actions, sexual harassment, marital status, worker adjustment and retraining notification, race and age discrimination and issues pertaining to the Family and Medical Leave Act; and
WHEREAS, Ms. Brown is considered as one of the 50 most influential Minority Attorneys in the United States by the National Law Journal and as one of the most prominent women and minority attorneys in the state of New Jersey by the New Jersey Law Journal. She has been named as a New Jersey Super Lawyer and by US News as one of the best lawyers in America in the area of commercial litigation; and
WHEREAS, Ms. Brown is past president of the Association of Black Women Lawyers of New Jersey and the past president of the National Bar Association. Among her many accomplishments with the NBA, Ms. Brown led a delegation to monitor the first free and democratic elections in South Africa. She has also served on the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, where she co-authored the nationally acclaimed study, Visible Invisibility: Women of Color in Law Firms. That project inspired her to form a group comprised of women of color associates in New Jersey to provide them with a safe environment to discuss issues affecting them in their firms; and
WHEREAS, On August 12, 2014, Ms. Brown was sworn in as President-Elect of the American Bar Association at the conclusion of the ABA Annual meeting in Boston. She will serve a one-year term as president-elect before becoming ABA president in 2015; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the Council of the City of Philadelphia hereby honors and recognizes Paulette Brown for her recent election as the first African-American Woman president-elect of the American Bar Association.
FURTHER RESOLVED, That an Engrossed copy of this resolution be presented to Paulette Brown, Esquire as evidence of the sincere sentiments of this legislative body.
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