Talk Justice, an LSC Podcast: ABA President Deborah Enix-Ross
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Carl Rauscher
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WASHINGTON– American Bar Association (ABA) President Deborah Enix-Ross joins LSC President Ron Flagg to discuss her priorities in leading the ABA, the role of lawyers in preserving democracy and closing the justice gap on the latest episode of LSC's “Talk Justice” podcast, released today.
In addition to holding the role of ABA president since August 2022, Enix-Ross is a senior advisor to the International Dispute Resolution Group of Debevoise & Plimpton. She previously served as senior legal officer with the World Intellectual Property Organization Arbitration and Mediation Center in Geneva, Switzerland. She has served as chair of the ABA’s policymaking House of Delegates and as chair of the ABA Center for Human Rights. She co-founded the Women's Interest Network and worked with the International Bar Association to create its Women's Interest Group.
As a new lawyer, Enix-Ross got her professional start in legal aid at MFY Legal Services in New York. She says that this was a great way to begin a law career, both because of the fulfilling work and because of the experience she gained in managing a caseload on her own.
“It was challenging work, it was rewarding work, and it for me harkened back to, ‘why did I become a lawyer?’” Enix-Ross says. “I wanted to help people, and there is nothing more satisfying than being able to keep someone in their home, to be able to keep someone safe from domestic violence.”
On ABA Day each year, members of the organization take to Capitol Hill to advocate for robust funding of legal aid services. The event in March of 2023 marked the 26th annual ABA Day.
“It's important as the national voice of the legal profession that we go and we educate people in Congress on the importance of legal services funding, and always we find that there's bipartisan support,” says Enix-Ross. “They mostly understand that without equal access for all, then there is no equal justice, and what I found is when I explain the impact on their own constituents and why this is important, then people understand it.”
One of Enix-Ross’s passions is her Cornerstones of Democracy project, which she explains as the “three Cs: civics, civility, and collaboration.” She explains that if the public lacks understanding of the law, our legal system and the government, people don’t know how to engage.
“Civic literacy [and] civic engagement are really important for us to really protect these cornerstones of our democracy and civility is extremely important, because we've gotten to a point where we don't know how to be able to express ourselves and do it in a way that is positive and productive, and doesn't devolve into name-calling and chaos and some of the negativity that we've seen,” says Enix-Ross.
“We need to do this work certainly as lawyers leading the way, but we need to involve many stakeholders, including faith leaders and business leaders and journalists, educators, all of us working together, all of us collaborating to protect these cornerstones of democracy,” she continues.
Another one of Enix-Ross’s priorities is speaking with law schools and law students, especially at the six historically black colleges and universities that have law schools. She says that meeting today’s law students makes her incredibly optimistic about the future of the profession.
“I tell students all the time, law touches every aspect of what we do, and we need smart minds [and] dedicated lawyers to come join us in the profession, to join us in this work to make us a more just society, and we cannot do that without the diversity of thought and the diversity of talent that I see in these young lawyers,” Enix-Ross says.
Talk Justice episodes are available online and on Spotify, Stitcher, Apple and other popular podcast apps. The podcast is sponsored by LSC’s Leaders Council.
The next episode of the podcast will feature a discussion of whether child removals, particularly by the NYC Administration for Children’s Services, are being used excessively.