ABA president-elect Dennis Archer on breaking down barriers

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Born: Jan. 1, 1942, Detroit

Education: Detroit College of Law, J.D., 1970; Western Michigan University, B.S., 1965

Professional Experience: Chair, Dickinson Wright PLLC, Detroit, 2001-present; mayor, city of Detroit, 1994-2001; President, National League of Cities, 2001; Justice, Michigan Supreme Court, 1985-90; previously was engaged in the private practice of law, served as an associate professor at Michigan State University Detroit College of Law and as an adjunct professor at Wayne State University Law School, 1970-85

Bar Activities: President-elect, American Bar Association; president, National Bar Association, 1983-84; president, State Bar of Michigan, 1984-85; president, Wolverine Bar Association, 1979-80; life member of the Fellows of The American Bar Foundation and the National Bar Association; fellow of the International Society of Barristers; life member, 6th Circuit Judicial Conference

Honors: 2000 Public Official of the Year, Governing magazine; 1998 Newsmaker of the Year and Award of Excellence, Engineering News-Record magazine; one of 25 Most Dynamic Mayors in America, Newsweek magazine; 100 Most Influential Black Americans, Ebony magazine; 100 Most Powerful Attorneys in the United States, National Law Journal; most respected judge in Michigan, Michigan Lawyers Weekly

Corporate Boards: Johnson Controls, Inc, Compuware Corporation, and Covisiant

Personal: Married to Hon. Trudy DunCombe Archer, judge of Michigan 36th District Court; two sons

Dennis W. Archer, president-elect of the American Bar Association (ABA), will deliver a keynote address at the Minnesota State Bar Association’s annual convention on Thursday, June 19. Archer, the chair of Dickinson Wright PLLC in Detroit, Mich., will be the first person of color to serve as president of the ABA, when he assumes office on Aug. 1. Previously, Archer was the mayor of Detroit for two terms and a justice on the Michigan Supreme Court for four years prior to that. Earlier this month, Archer was awarded an honorary Doctor of Law degree from William Mitchell College of Law.

The incoming ABA president recently met with Minnesota Lawyer Associate Editor Barbara L. Jones to discuss issues that the ABA is concerned about and his priorities as the group’s president.

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You recently delivered the commencement address at William Mitchell College of Law. What did you tell the graduating law students?

I talked about judicial independence and how important that is to America. We should not take the freedoms that we enjoy for granted. The drafters of the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution as amended have given us our civil liberties and our rights. The war in Iraq should remind us how fortunate we are that we have the basic freedoms here in the United States, when you consider that those who live in Iraq and other countries do not enjoy freedom.

Then I reminded students to embrace public service and to provide pro bono service to others who are in need. By giving back in that way you fulfill the obligations of representing the oppressed and the defenseless that we undertake when we raise our hand and take the oath to practice law.

Then I closed by reminding everybody to maintain a balanced life and not become so important that you ignore your family, your friends, or yourself.

Why did you leave the Michigan Supreme Court?

Because I thought that I could contribute more as mayor of Detroit. So I took the risk and offered myself as a candidate and I was fortunate enough to be elected. I saw that in the city of Detroit children were killing each other over jackets and gym shoes, businesses were leaving the city, jobs were leaving the city, and I thought that I might have the skill set to improve the quality of life for the citizens of the city. I certainly had the passion.

I resigned from the Supreme Court and I took a year to see if I couldn’t find solutions to the problems. I went to the University of Michigan and talked to the president. I asked him if he would talk to his faculty to see if it had an interest in working with me to see if we couldn’t find some solutions. If we could do that, while I couldn’t promise that I was going to run for mayor, if I did I would certainly give [the faculty] the recognition and the credit for having helped me find the solutions.

Judicial independence is one of the priorities of the ABA. Why is judicial independence particularly an important issue now?

Frankly, we had some very important challenges that have been set forth by the [former] presidents of the American Bar Association. We’re only able to serve for one year. So, rather than start a new initiative on my own, I went back to the years of [other presidents]. William Paul was president from 1999-2000. His year was devoted to diversity. Martha Barnett’s bar year was devoted to moratoriums on the death penalty.

The third plank is loan forgiveness, which is an issue that was put forward by Robert Hirshon, who was president 2001 to 2002. Hirshon’s view and the view of the ABA was that we ought to try to find a way to have loan forgiveness for law students who enter legal services or public interest law. We find ourselves [despite all the efforts of law schools and law firms] only meeting 20 percent of the unmet legal need of this country. … Many students, because they love the law, borrow money to enter our profession, despite the fact that there is no promise that they will be successful.

Judicial independence is [current ABA President] A. P. Carlton’s issue. We find that we have a number of judges or justices, state or federal, who make decisions on the law and the facts and come under ridicule. That should not happen when they are operating in good faith and their decisions are based upon the law.

Also, we’re promoting making sure judges are compensated fairly. [For example,] Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Sam Hanson, who is the chair of the Board of Trustees at William Mitchell, has been practicing law for 34 years. [He has had an] outstanding career. He will have brilliant law clerks who will work for him for one or two years. When those law clerks leave his service they will make more money starting out than he will make as a justice. That’s fundamentally wrong.

What is the ABA position on the death penalty?

The ABA has no position pro or con on the death penalty, but we have had two [narrower] positions. One that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court is th
at people who are mentally retarded should not be executed.

Our second position is that we believe a person under the age of 18 should not be executed. Someone under 18 cannot sign a contract, buy alcohol, buy tobacco or join the armed services. It is our feeling that their understanding of right and wrong does not deserve the death penalty.

If each state would adopt a moratorium [on the death penalty], it would give them the opportunity to determine for everybody who is on death row whether or not they have had competent counsel and if there’s any DNA evidence that would rule them in or out. If everything has been done properly, then they can proceed. …

In relation to the population, there are a higher number of people of color on death row than persons who happen to be white. We want to make sure as we go forward that if that phenomenon continues, it is a rational decision based upon the crime that is committed rather than an arbitrary decision, where someone gets a pass on the death penalty and someone else always gets the death penalty.

You are president-elect of an organization that didn’t even admit persons of color until 1943 — and you will be the first person of color to head it. How does that feel to you personally?

What I think back to on the issue of diversity is about William Henrie Hastie, Charles Hamilton Houston, and Constance Baker Motley, 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Damon Keith and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall when they were in their prime. If they could have joined the New Lawyers Section, now Division, of the ABA, and if they could have come through the ranks and participated in the great debates on the issues that were facing America, I believe we’d be so much further ahead on the issue of race relations. Race may not have been a problem in terms of how we deal with this issue today.

But having said that, I think that our future in the ABA is so much brighter despite its past, which is not a proud past.

What happened in 1943 is that they stopped using race on the application for membership as a condition to join. Before that, somebody would come by your law firm to check to make sure that you were not a person of color if they didn’t know who you were.

It was about 1948 when the first person of color joined the American Bar Association. There are several who joined about the same time. William T. Coleman, Jr., the former transportation secretary from 1975-77, was the first person of color, I believe. He was the first person of color who was a law clerk on the United States Supreme Court — he clerked for Justice Felix Frankfurter. It was his work as a law clerk and the determination of those who were working with him that encouraged him to join the ABA.

What I do find interesting today is not only am I coming in as president-elect, but that a lawyer from Richmond, Va., by the name of Robert J. Grey, out of the law firm of Hunton and Williams, is coming right behind me. Robert Grey is [also] an African American.

The last person to be president of the ABA to come out of the state of Virginia was the former Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell.

This is what I’m seeing all across the United States. In Alabama, for example, Fred Gray, who represented Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King, is finishing up his year as the first African American president of the Alabama Bar Association. Pennsylvania and Maryland have just elected [African American] president-elects of their bar association.

Is there still a place for minority bar associations?

There is an absolute need for specialty bars of color whether Hispanic, Asian, Native American. We have 1,050,000 licensed lawyers in the United States as of the last estimate. Just over 10 percent of us are lawyers of color. That is not even close to the population that we represent.

How does it feel to be the ABA president-elect?

I’m excited about it. It is a great opportunity. I stand on the shoulders of so many people who preceded me. It is my intent to work as hard as I can to demonstrate that the choice was wise to elect me. I ran unopposed. If you look at my background and credentials, I don’t think anybody who has any interest in running could match my credentials. It was not a gimme, it was not a layup. This was all earned.

I want to be able to work as hard as I can and travel as many places as I can to see if we can’t break down those barriers that still remain. There are still barriers there and I think that people of goodwill can [break them down].

— Barbara L. Jones