BASF, My Presidency, and the Number Four

The Bar Association of San Francisco in 2006
by Joan Haratani, 2006 BASF President

When I became the first woman of color, and first Asian American woman, named president of the Bar Association of San Francisco in 2006, I experienced one of the proudest moments of my life, not just as a lawyer, but as a person. I was well aware that our country was only a few decades removed from the repeal of the notorious Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, passed into law ten years after BASF’s founding.

In the audience at my swearing-in were two of the closest possible reminders of the historic treatment of Asian Americans in our society, my mom, and my Aunt Aya. As 14- and 21-year-old US citizens, they had been held prisoners in incarceration camps, including a lengthy posting in a reeking horse stall at a Southern California racetrack, as part of the mass displacement of Japanese Americans during World War II. They lost their property and home in Mountain View, their trust in the government, their beloved animals including Patty, their faithful dog, their church, their community. And they were beaming with pride as I took the podium to make my inaugural comments as the Leader of the SF legal community.

Today, as hate crimes against Asian Americans tragically continue to be on the rise, stoked by similar forces of ignorance-fueled racism and fear, it’s clear we still have much work to do. However, I am also gratified that I had the opportunity to take some small steps toward progress from my position as BASF President.

In my new role, I had four objectives. The first was to support diversity, equity, and inclusion by reinvigorating our BASF Goals and Timetables for Minority Hiring and Advancement. These established objectives and promoted methods—such as creating mentorship programs—for law firms to increase the hiring and retention of minorities and women, and to promote underrepresented lawyers to positions of leadership. My intent was to help prod firms into setting, and achieving, measurable standards—not just feel-good expressions of support—that would result in material increases in women and minorities in firm leadership positions.

The second was to address the needs of the homeless by shining a light on the great work that superstar Tanya Neiman had started. Once a person experiences homelessness, it’s very difficult to get out of that state. Tanya realized that as a bar association we needed to do whatever we could to make sure members of our community did not slip into homelessness. For instance, we could help set up rent autopay, if paying rent on time was an issue. We could also make sure the appropriate medical needs were met to allow people with health issues to earn a living.

Third, I wanted to take a hard look at the billable hour, to see if we could shift the focus instead to project based/alternative fee arrangements. This was something my then new firm, Morgan Lewis, had helped pioneer as the first law firm to innovate in this area. I wanted to study this issue because I was tired of seeing my friends who were parents drop out of the profession because of the stress of achieving the requisite billable hours.

Finally, as a nod to my ancestry, I wanted to strengthen the bar’s sister city relation with the East, by way of meeting with the leaders in Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Osaka. Even a delegation of lawyers from Iceland , learning about my initiative, visited my Morgan Lewis office in San Francisco to learn about the state of women lawyers in the profession, and to learn about how San Francisco lawyers worked day to day.

Personally, I have always been aware that, whether I ever signed up for the part or not, I am a role model for other women of color, and specifically Asian American-Pacific Islanders. Given that fact, I have always sought out ways to push forward an agenda of inclusion and equity in the legal profession, and my leadership roles in organizations such as BASF or the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area, the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, or the American Bar Association, or Morgan Lewis (I am on the firm’s Advisory Board), among others, gave me that opportunity.

My term at BASF also provided me an opportunity to quickly hone my organizational skills because we had in quick succession lost both our executive director and Tanya, our innovative director of the Volunteer Legal Services Program, now known as JDC. While incredibly difficult, it also was incredibly gratifying to steer the organization through that period and I have often said it allowed me to grow a spine of titanium (although I’m sure my mom gets some credit for that). At any rate, I hope to utilize the toughness and energy that BASF helped me find within myself and put them in service to creating a better, more just world, which I think is a fitting tribute to this great organization.

Finally, the most gratifying aspect of my BASF presidency was developing the habit of mentoring others. Recently, meaning in the last decade, I have had the privilege of mentoring so many rising stars: Kevin Benedicto, who was just appointed as an SF Police Commissioner; Minna Naranjo and Michelle Park Chiu, both superstar partners in my SF office; and Rishi Satia, also in Morgan Lewis’s SF office, as well as others. Paving the way for the next generation of talent, always with an eye towards helping others, is a wonderful feeling. I am so grateful to BASF for believing in me, for the talented staff who supported me 100 percent throughout my year, to my amazing and hard-working board, and to all of you, for keeping our bar at the forefront of society’s most pressing issues.

Thank you for allowing me to pay it forward. You all ROCK!