“I am a business lawyer who understands money and lawyers routinely say that they don’t, which is not actually true,” Behnke said with a smile. “But it gave me an opportunity to learn an awful lot about the association. I thought I knew a lot already. But it gave me more of an opportunity. When you watch an organization spend its money, you could write what its mission and its goals are based on watching what it spends its money on. But in addition to learning that, the practical work that is done within the ABA kind of reinvigorated me.”

Behnke remained on board at the ABA to serve as the chair of the Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession.

As chair, Behnke is guiding the ABA in a self-examination of why African American and other underrepresented people are still underrepresented in the legal profession, especially within the partnership ranks.

“Accountant is more diverse than the legal profession,” Behnke said. “In trying to figure out the why, when you look at those things, part of you wants to examine the why because you think part of that might be part of the solution. Part of you is just plain frustrated because you think, ‘These are smart, educated people. If you have an issue, we should be able to solve it.’ And even back when I graduated from law school, at that time, when people talked about diversity in the profession, everyone focused on pipeline. There are more people of color, more diverse people coming into law school, so over time, they will work their way through. But now what we see is, ‘Yes there are lots of people of color coming into law school, but they are not staying in the profession.’”

And so retention is the question and Behnke and her commission are working to determine what the barriers are to underrepresented people remaining in the profession. It comes down to one word: Access.

“We’ve seen, for example, if you are an African American woman, the likelihood of you being made an equity partner is different than if you are a white male,” Behnke said. “If you go into firms, are you getting the same opportunities as someone whose dad golfs with the other partners? Are you getting the same shot at challenging work? Do you have the network of people to be able to generate new clients? When you’re in a firm and you are watching that happen, we see some people exiting before that partnership decision gets made. You don’t want that ‘No’ decision. But you can see that you may not have that same client base or you may not have had the same number of trials or some of those other things that you know are going to be the deciders. So some people are exiting. It’s not a scarlet letter, but you’re going to go someplace else and they are going to wonder why you didn’t make partner there. You’re going to have to talk about it. And you may or may not know definitively why that is. But you know that you aren’t going to match up with someone else who has more clients and has had more trials, etc. And that is hard.”

Behnke loves the legal profession and working with her clients. But volunteering at the ABA just rings her bell and motivates her because she can impact the profession that she loves. And so on January 1^st of this year, she threw her hat in the ring to elected ABA president. She would be the second from Wisconsin and the first from Madison.

“The process is one of self-nomination,” Behnke said. “The process is a yearlong. You announce your intention to seek the office. And then at our mid-year and our annual meeting, we have a candidates’ forum and you have the opportunity to speak to the nominating committee and ABA members more broadly about the issues that you are interested in. And then we have a nominating committee of 69 people. I’ve done the first speech at our mid-year in February. And then I followed that up with calls to the members of the nominating committee. And I’m asking them about what they think about the issues facing the association. And I’m asking them about the issues that I presented, that I would be interested in working on. And I am trying to get enough input to be educated about what I ought to be focused on to help the association. I have calls almost every day, sometimes multiple calls with people. Ultimately I am hoping to get their support. The nominating committee meets in February 2024. They will nominate. And then the House of Delegates, which is a little better than 500 members will vote in August 2024. If I am elected, I would become the president-elect in August 2024. You take office at the close of that meeting. I would be president-elect from 2024 to 2025 and I would become president from 2025-2027. It’s a long process.”

It may be a long process, but the opportunity to have a positive impact on the legal profession on a national level is huge and well worth the wait.

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