Newsroom & Articles

Dear State Bar of New Mexico Members,

The State Bar of New Mexico’ s Committee on Diversity in the Legal Profession has reported on the status of diverse members in the legal profession for several decades now. More recently, our Committee on Women and the Legal Profession began reporting on the status of women attorneys. As we progress as a community and commit ourselves to equal access to justice in our profession, we see the need for specific programming and education to address inequities in the legal profession. As part of our commitment to our members-all of our members- the State Bar of New Mexico hired our Equity in Justice Program Manager, Dr. Amanda Parker, during the fall of 2021.

Dr. Parker earned her doctorate focused on race studies and educational inequities from University of New Mexico in 2020. She has an MA in Educational Thought and Sociocultural Studies where she focused on the school to prison pipeline, and a BA in History. She is from New Mexico and has taught at the K-12 and college levels and is still involved in the academic community as a writer, presenter, and educator on issues of race and gender. She brings the knowledge that is needed to build this programming, a collaborative spirit, and extensive experience educating people and building community.

We recognize the commitment that it takes to build and sustain a diverse, inclusive and equitable legal community. Many of our goals are related to research, education, accountability for established policies, and recruiting youth from underrepresented groups into the legal profession. We have launched our Equity in Justice webpage: www. sbnm.org/eij. We encourage you to check it out and stay tuned for our CLEs and other programming this spring. Our CLEs are targeted toward lawyers who want foundational knowledge, more specialized topics, and will offer opportunities for lawyers who are involved in social and racial justice work to workshop and problem-solve as a community. We can also offer training for individual law firms and legal organizations.

We hope you will join us in our efforts. There is a place for everyone in this work and it will take a long-term commitment and sustained effort to transform our profession. If you have any ideas or would like to get involved, please email Dr. Parker at amanda.parker@sbnm.org.

             Carolyn A. Wolf                                Richard B. Spinello

             2022 President                                 Executive Director

      State Bar of New Mexico                    State Bar of New Mexico