Utah Bar Journal

I first want to thank Chrystal MancusoSmith and the officers of the Utah Minority Bar Association for inviting me to speak tonight. I consider it a great honor to do so.

I see so many wonderful friends as I look around the room. The friend I’ve known the longest is Judge Valdez, who has been my tennis partner starting about 45 years ago, and who still shows me no mercy on the tennis court, but was most generous with his introduction.

Judge Valdez’s introduction reminds me of one of the Utah Minority Bar Association dinners (in 1994) that I’ll never forget. The keynote speaker was a famous criminal defense lawyer from San Francisco. Before our out-of-town guest was introduced to speak, Judge Valdez was asked to say a few words as one of the evening’s honorees.

I remember how he was entertaining, inspirational, and charismatic; how he so completely mesmerized the audience and stole the show that there was no need for a keynote speaker, and we were all ready to go home.

And so, I hope you understand that although I am very thankful to Judge Valdez for introducing me tonight, I was a bit worried when I learned that I would follow him and might have the same experience as our keynote speaker did that night many years ago!

I’ve been coming to this dinner since it started. I have an almost perfect attendance record, but there have been some close calls. One year I was looking at my calendar, and suddenly I had this sinking feeling that I had missed the dinner. I was relieved to learn a few days later that it had been postponed for several months into early the following year.

Then there was the time during the 2004 election campaign when I was scheduled to debate Jon Huntsman, Jr., at KUED right when the dinner started. When the debate was over, Robyn and I rushed to the Law & Justice Center and made it in time for dessert. The UMBA officers assured me that the perfect attendance record was still intact.

Three years ago, though, when I was based in Washington, D.C. for the year, I was tempted to fly out for the dinner, but it didn’t happen, and for that I apologize and ask your forgiveness.

So why do I think this event is so important? Well, it’s not just because the food has been so great over the years, and the food has been great. Remember the potluck years when everyone was invited to bring a favorite dish? We all enjoyed an ethnic food smorgasbord topped off with the annual tradition of Phil Uipi’s roasted pig.

But as good as that was, it’s not about the food. It’s about the minority community and all parts of the legal community coming together to celebrate diversity, to recognize accomplishments, and to address challenges. For a long time I have thought, and I continue to think, that no other event for the legal community is more important and more significant than this one. And I would like to use my time to explain why.

While these remarks are for all of you, they are especially for the students with us tonight. The theme of this year’s banquet is “Diversity as a Foundation for Excellence.” In keeping with this theme, I have decided to entitle my remarks, ”The Utah Minority Bar Association and Ripples of Hope.” I take this title from a phrase in Robert Kennedy’s famous Day of Affirmation Speech that he delivered in Capetown, South Africa in 1966. On that day he issued the following call to action:

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time [someone] stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, [this] sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

When I think of the Utah Minority Bar Association and what its members have done over the years, I think of ripples of hope, ripples that have formed a current of opportunity and a river of accomplishment. Because when we look back together, we can see where this organization started, where it has come, what it has accomplished, and the reservoir of continuing and unfinished business that lies ahead.

Each student scholarship, each successful mentorship, each breakthrough career opportunity, each act of pro bono service, and each accomplishment have sent out ripples of hope. I believe this event, the Utah Minority Bar Association Banquet, which has brought us together year after year, has been a key tributary.

I want to acknowledge how much UMBA works throughout the year on many important projects. I believe this dinner is a key organizing force, where important issues of our time are discussed. That’s what I wish to talk about tonight.

Some of you have been coming to the annual banquet for a long time, and you probably have memories of significant things that have happened here over the years. Let me mention a few that stick out in my mind.

I don’t think anyone who was there that night in 1993 will forget when Fred Korematsu was the keynote speaker. We spent the evening with an extraordinary historical figure who stood up to the massive deprivation of civil liberties imposed by the United States government on over 100,000 individuals of Japanese descent, including Judge Uno, who were evacuated and interned during World War II (and my wife’s grandmother was detained). That night of this banquet, Fred Korematsu represented the victims of pervasive government infringement based on racial discrimination and a misplaced assessment of national security risk.

Another banquet that stands out for me was when Chief Justice Robert Yazzie of the Navajo Supreme Court was the speaker in 1996. Thanks to Judge Thorne and Mary Ellen Sloan and others for making that happen. Chief Justice Yazzie provided us a perspective on the connection of Navajo courts with longstanding cultural understandings and traditions. He explained the Peacekeeping System, a contemporary version of traditional Navajo justice that has been successful in dealing with social problems in the Navajo nation and has contributed to our understanding of restorative justice.

I recall the dinner on September 14, 2001. Why? Because three days before, terrorists flew two planes into the World Trade Center buildings, one into the Pentagon, and another crashed in Pennsylvania, altogether killing over 3,000 people, an attack and a tragedy of unthinkable and horrific proportions. My brother was supposed to speak but had to send a video and stay in Washington to vote on emergency legislation.

I recall that dinner as an appropriately somber evening, but also as an importantly successful event because all of us were deeply shocked and saddened. The dinner brought us together to recognize the importance of respect, of mutual support, and of commitment to ideals of equality, freedom, and nonviolence.

A milestone for UMBA was the conception and implementation of the Diversity Law Pledge – the Utah Pledge to Racial and Ethnic Diversity for Utah’s Legal Employers. UMBA presidents Clayton Simms and Trystan Smith and others took the lead, and the diversity pledge was unveiled at the annual banquet. The Diversity Pledge launched a dialogue on diversity and its benefits for the legal profession, and it continues to serve an important role in the Utah legal profession.

Those attending in 2003 will recall an interesting speaker with an interesting message. Then UMBA President Ross Romero brought in Chris Johnson as the keynoter. He was the Vice President and General Counsel for General Motors North America. He talked about the growing recognition in major corporate circles that a diverse workplace is important for businesses, including law firms, to function successfully in a diverse society and a global economy.

Thanks to UMBA Presidents Sean Reyes and Cheryl Mori, along with Yvonne Hogle, Kristen Vasquez and many others, this event reached new heights in 2005 with the recognition of the first 50 minority lawyers in the State of Utah – one of the best legal events in our state’s history.

What an inspirational evening! What a hall of fame of pioneering lawyers who faced obstacles and challenges that they should never have had to face and overcome, but face and overcome them they did. Their hard work and sacrifice helped make it possible for following generations of minority lawyers to pursue opportunities and fulfill their dreams.

And then, two years ago, Judge Valdez, as the keynote speaker, having just published his outstanding book entitled No One Makes It Alone, told his inspirational story of having literally been rescued from the streets of Salt Lake City, introduced to a sport he came to love, and mentored in lessons of life that have enabled him to make an important difference for young people and our community every single day.

I can remember other banquet nights when important and inspiring things happened as well:

• The welldeserved recognitions of both minority and non-minority attorneys and also of non-attorneys for their accomplishments and contributions to advancing opportunity and diversity – what a great honor for anyone to be recognized by UMBA.

• The growth of UMBA membership and participation and the partnerships that have been forged with many individuals and groups in the legal community – just look at the range and depth of sponsorship support for this event and other UMBA activities.

• The scholarships for law students – I can’t begin to tell you, as a law professor and a dean, how appreciative and proud I am of this organization for supporting students.

Not only have the scholarships helped make it possible for the recipients to fulfill their dreams of a legal education, the recognition of a scholarship also builds confidence and commitment. Every time you bestow a scholarship on a student, you are saying, “We know you can do it, and we want to help.”

Beyond that, we want our students to feel welcome in the Utah legal community and to know they can have a very satisfying and successful career in Utah while serving the profession and the community.

Over the years, UMBA and the growing number of scholarship sponsors have invested tens of thousands of dollars in a large number of students, an investment that is paying off in producing new leaders for UMBA and some of the most accomplished members of the Bar.

We have seen a pattern over the years. UMBA scholarship recipients have become law school graduates, who in turn have become new members of UMBA, who then have become officers in UMBA, and who have become leading members of the Utah Bar. They have done much on their own, but, as Judge Valdez has taught us, no one makes it alone, and it is UMBA that has helped make so much of this happen.

Just look around the room and see UMBA leaders like Narda Beas Nordell, Yvette Donosso, Marlene Gonzalez, and Karthik Nadesan. They and many other UMBA leaders have worked tirelessly for this organization and for the community.

Let me say a few words about the founders of the UMBA. It was back in the late 1980s and early 1990s that Raymond Uno, Robert Archuleta, Robert Flores, Glenn Iwasaki, John Martinez, Tyrone Medley, Bill Thorne, Dane Nolan, Jimi Mitsunaga, Ken Hisatake, James Esparza, Solomon Chacon, and a number of others had the vision and commitment to bring all minority attorneys together.

They joined together for the common purpose of seeking equal justice and equal opportunity – opportunity to attend law school, opportunity to practice in law firms and government offices, opportunity to serve as judges and legislators, and opportunity to be leaders in all of these areas.

They and many others dedicated themselves to achieving these goals. And they did this by encouraging and mentoring minority students and attorneys, by advocating for minority hiring and appointments, and by making the case for the critical role that diversity plays in our society. Judge Uno was the first president, followed by Robert Archuleta, and the list of UMBA officers through the years reads like an honor roll of service.

At the very beginning, the annual banquet was conceived and organized. It was seen as a way to recognize minority lawyers’ accomplishments, to award scholarships to students, and to raise funds to support UMBA’s goals. But just as important was the opportunity this event has provided every year for us to come together, to affirm old friendships and make new ones, to reaffirm the value of diversity, and to rededicate ourselves to the principles and goals of UMBA.

For the founders like Ray Uno, they can look around this room and see the UMBA members who are partners in leading law firms, top attorneys in government offices, members of the legislature, judges on various courts, law professors, leaders of the Utah Bar, including, in recent years, the first minority President of the Utah State Bar, Gus Chin, and the ABA’s first Outstanding Young Lawyer Award winner, Sean Reyes. UMBA has been an active and effective agent of change in helping to make these things possible.

As a Utah lawyer and a citizen of this state, I salute all of you for these accomplishments. From the classroom to the courtroom, from the law firm to the legislature, from ripples of hope to realization of dreams, the Utah Minority Bar Association has enhanced our profession and our community, and for that we should be deeply proud, and deeply grateful.

I know the path has not been easy, that not every effort has succeeded, that in a diverse group dedicated to diversity there will be debate and different opinions, and that there is much work to be done. But after less than twenty years, the founders of UMBA can be proud of what they started and know that their vision was clear, their voice was heard, and their cause was just.

I said at the beginning that I took my title for these remarks from Robert Kennedy’s Day of Affirmation speech. I take my inspiration from the following statement by Martin Luther King, Jr.: “We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.”

Infinite hope – that’s what the founders and their successors brought to the Utah Minority Bar Association, that’s what this organization is all about. Infinite hope – hope for equal opportunity, hope for equal justice, hope for a better future founded on diversity and mutual respect.

As each of you works toward those goals, you send out ripples of hope, ripples that converge into a current of opportunities and a river of accomplishment. And when we meet again each year at this great banquet, we celebrate diversity as a foundation for excellence, and we leave with a sense of infinite hope.

It has been my great honor to share these thoughts with you tonight, and I look forward to seeing all of you again next year, and the year after that, and the year after that, and the years after that! Thank you very much.