Fort Lauderdale/Davie, FLA., April 08, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nova Southeastern University’s (NSU) Shepard Broad College of Law will feature Paulette Brown, Past-President of the American Bar Association and National Bar Association as its Commencement Speaker and recipient of an honorary doctorate during spring ceremonies on Thursday, May 9. 

Brown currently serves as chief diversity and inclusion officer with Locke Lord LLP in New York, NY, where she is a senior partner of the firm. Throughout her distinguished career, she has been a champion for inclusion, diversity, and an equitable legal system. According to college of law Dean Jon M. Garon, “Ms. Brown exemplifies the ideals we would wish for all our law graduates. She is a person of great integrity who has committed her career to improving the justice system.” Ms. Brown will be congratulating 61 Master of Science in Law students and 192 juris doctor students from the NSU Shepard Broad College of Law that will be receiving their degrees. 

Ms. Brown has held a number of positions, including in-house counsel to a number of Fortune 500 companies. For the past 30 years, she has engaged in the private practice of law, focusing on all facets of labor and employment, and commercial litigation. 

In 1984, Brown co-founded Brown & Childress in East Orange, New Jersey and later expanded it to a 13-lawyer firm: Brown, Lofton, Childress & Wolfe. It became the largest minority law firm in the state. Brown’s first tenure as head of a legal organization occurred in 1983 when she was elected to a three-year term as president of the Association of Black Women Lawyers of New Jersey. In 1993, she was elected president of the National Bar Association (NBA), an organization that represents the nation’s African American lawyers, judges, law professors, law students, and paralegals. As NBA president, she took a delegation to South Africa to monitor its first democratic, multiracial post-apartheid election. She then served for fifteen years as a municipal court judge in Plainfield, New Jersey. 

Since 1976, Brown has been an active member of the American Bar Association (ABA), one of the world’s largest voluntary professional associations with over 40,000 members. She soon moved up the ranks by first starting as a state delegate in the Young Lawyer’s Division, chaired 

the ABA’s Council on Racial and Ethnic Justice, and was co-chair of the Commission on Civic Education in the Nation’s Schools in 2010. In 2015, she became the first African American woman and the third African American president of ABA. 

Ms. Brown has been recognized by the New Jersey Law Journal as one of the prominent women and minority attorneys in the State of New Jersey and by the National Law Journal as one of "The 50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America." Ms. Brown also received DRI's Pioneer Diversity Award and the NJ State Bar Association's Excellence in Diversity Award, and she was honored with the Spirit of Excellence and Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Awards by the American Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession. In 2014, Ms. Brown was honored by the Rutgers Law-Camden Black Law Students Association for exemplifying the values advocated by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In 2016 Brown was named 2016 Top Women in Law, New Jersey Law Journal. 

Brown graduated from Howard University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science in 1973. She received her J.D. from Seton Hall University in 1976. For additional information, contact Kathleen Perez at Kperez1@nova.edu or 954 262-6295. 

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Shepard Broad College of Law: Nova Southeastern University’s College of Law offers a cutting edge, skills-centered academic program in three-year full-time and four-year part-time divisions. With its recently redeveloped clinical programs, every NSU Law student is guaranteed a live-client experience. In-house clinical studies are supplemented by full-time field placement opportunities practicing law in Florida, across the United States, or select locations throughout the globe. To solidify student success after graduation, NSU Law pioneered a curriculum on the business of lawyering through the NSU Law Leadership Academy. NSU Law students have a myriad of curricular opportunities, including a rich, diverse curriculum, concentrations in International Law, Health Law or IP, Technology and Cybersecurity; dual degree programs abroad in Rome, Barcelona, or Prague; dual degree programs at many of NSU’s other 17 colleges; and much more. For more information, please visit www.law.nova.edu. 

About Nova Southeastern University (NSU): Ranked among U.S. News & World Report’s Top 200 National Research Universities and located in beautiful Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Nova Southeastern University (NSU) is a dynamic research institution dedicated to providing high-quality educational programs at the undergraduate, graduate, and first-professional degree levels. A private, not-for-profit institution, NSU has campuses in Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Jacksonville, Miami, Miramar, Orlando, Palm Beach, and Tampa Bay, Florida, as well as San Juan, Puerto Rico, while maintaining a presence online globally. For more than 50 years, NSU has been awarding degrees in a wide range of fields, while fostering groundbreaking research and an impactful commitment to community. Classified as a research university with “high research activity” by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, NSU is 1 of only 50 universities nationwide to also be awarded Carnegie’s Community Engagement Classification, and is also the largest private, not-for-profit institution in the United States that meets the U.S. Department of Education's criteria as a Hispanic-serving Institution. Please visit www.nova.edu for more information about NSU.

Kevin Boyd
Nova Southeastern University 
954-288-9509
kevinboydpr@comcast.net

Kathleen Perez
Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad College of Law
954-262-6295
kperez1@nova.edu