By Rachel Kipp
The Philadelphia Bar Association’s 97th Chancellor, Jen Coatsworth, discussed the organization’s agenda for 2024 Wednesday, including continuing its focus on growing diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging within the profession; advancing access to justice, and elevating professional excellence and civility while growing the reputation and influence of Philadelphia lawyers.
“Our Association has done so much to advance diversity within our organization, in our profession and in the community at large,” Coatsworth said. “We serve our community by supporting the robust network of our pro bono partners. We serve our members by providing them resources they need for their respective practices. I am incredibly proud of our Association, but we have more to accomplish.”
The 2023 Annual Meeting held at the Ballroom at the Ben also included a discussion of the Association’s accomplishments during the past year, including a 12.5% growth in membership, in part driven by new institutional partnerships with the City of Philadelphia Law Department, the District Attorney’s Office and the Defender Association of Philadelphia. The increase puts membership at more than what it was in 2019 prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition, the Association’s Commission on Judicial Selection and Retention had a successful year, with a third election cycle in a row in which voters elected only candidates who were rated Highly Recommended or Recommended by the Commission. The Association also held well-attended mayoral forums with most of the Democratic candidates before the primary and then with David Oh and Mayor-Elect Cherelle Parker prior to the general election.
“We plan to celebrate 2024 as the year of the woman,” said Coatsworth, partner at Margolis Edelstein. She noted that in 2024, in addition to Philadelphia having its first female mayor in Parker, women will lead all three appellate-level state courts, as well as
the two largest Courts of Common Pleas in the Commonwealth, in Philadelphia and Allegheny counties. In addition, in Pennsylvania women currently serve as Speaker of the House, Leader of the Senate, U.S. Attorney and Attorney General. The Bar Association will also have women leaders in 2024 and 2025.
“We will celebrate the leadership at all levels and talk about the challenges that women still face in a number of respects, including access to reproductive rights in light of the Dobbs decision, access to justice and access to pay equity,” Coatsworth said.
Earlier this year, the Association’s Board of Governors adopted a new three-year strategic plan. In 2024, the Association will be working on a number of initiatives directly tied to that plan, including advancing its long-standing commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion through the creation of a new Diversity Division or Section, and through a Diversity Summit in February or March, which will focus on how the legal profession can continue to advance diversity in the face of the Supreme Court’s recent decision overturning affirmative action and the subsequent legal challenges expected for corporate diversity programs.
“There will be a keynote speaker who will also facilitate our discussions, and attendees will be divided into smaller groups to brainstorm measurable solutions that will advance diversity in different types of legal organizations, as well as in the community at large,” Coatsworth said. “The groups will begin their work at the Summit, but will continue throughout the year under the leadership of their team leaders.”
With regard to access to justice, “we will continue to work on our advocacy for criminal indigent defense legislation,” Coatsworth said. “This has long been a policy our Association has advanced, and we will continue to work to bring this legislation across the finish line. Additionally, thirty-three states have Access to Justice Commissions which promote access to justice for vulnerable families and communities. I am hoping to work with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to add Pennsylvania to that list.”
The Association will also continue to further programs for law students and young attorneys, including continuing a trial skills program for young attorneys that was launched this year, and by reinvigorating its law school outreach program, with a goal to hold in-person events at each area law school in 2024. Coatsworth said the Association also looks forward to working with Mayor-Elect Parker on her “safer, cleaner, greener” initiatives, which can help to make Philadelphia a more attractive place for recent law school graduates to seek employment.
With another contentious Presidential election on the horizon, the Association will also seek to highlight the importance of respect for the rule of law, Coatsworth said. “As former President Barack Obama said, ‘One of the challenges of a democratic government is making sure that even in the midst of emergencies and passions, we make sure that rule of law and the basic precepts of justice and liberty prevail,’” Coatsworth said. “I know that in the year to come we will face unprecedented challenges, and together we will face those tests and continue to be a beacon so that the rule of law can prevail, as it must.”
The Annual Meeting also honored the winners of the 2023 Citizens Bank Achievement Award, the 2023 Justice Sandra Day O’Connor Award and the 2023 Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg “Pursuit of Justice” Writing Competition.
The O’Connor Award, which honors outstanding women in the legal profession, recognized Hon Stella M. Tsai of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. Tsai was appointed to the Court of Common Pleas in 2016 and then elected in 2017. Prior to joining the judiciary, Tsai was a business litigation partner at Archer & Greiner and chair of administrative law and policy at the City of Philadelphia Law Department. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School and Penn State University, she has chaired or held leadership positions with APABA-PA, the Women’s Law Project, Philadelphia VIP, the Philadelphia Diversity Law Group, Legacy Youth & Tennis Education and the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia.
“I’m proud and humbled to be in the company of the exceptional people who have earned this award previously and I thank them for their leadership and inspiration,” Tsai said. “… I also thank Justice O’Connor, who blazed a trail for other women lawyers with her courage, her independence and her prodigious capacity for bridge building.”
The Citizens Bank Achievement Award recipient is Susan M. Lin, partner at Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing, Feinberg & Lin. Lin is current president of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Pennsylvania (APABA-PA) and also serves as co-chair of its Marutani Committee, which awards summer fellowships to law students interested government and public interest careers. A graduate of Yale Law School and Swarthmore College, Lin previously served as a clerk for U.S. District Court Judge Anita B. Brody, as a local public defender at the Defender Association of Philadelphia, and as an assistant federal defender at the Federal Community Defender Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
“I am one of the lucky people who gets to do work that I think is both interesting and challenging, but also work I think is worthy,” Lin said. “The only reason I am able to do that work is that there are people who walked that path before me.”
The winner of the Ginsburg competition was Sara Connolly, a third-year law student at Temple University’s James E. Beasley School of Law, for her submission, “Lifelong Burdens: Older Americans and the Discharge of Student Loan Debt in Bankruptcy.”
Rachel Kipp is director of communications and marketing at the Philadelphia Bar Association. Photos by Kara Foran.
