Jan. 25, 2014

Former Assembly speaker addresses bar trustees

Willie Brown Jr., the former speaker of the state Assembly and mayor of San Francisco, gave members of the State Bar Board of Trustees advice last week on how to be good leaders in the world of public policy and politics. Brown listed four key steps. Good representatives must acquire information and knowledge, understand their constituencies, listen to and be patient with all sides, and finally act. In a lunchtime address during the trustees' annual planning retreat in Newport Beach on Jan. 10, he urged the trustees to consider their first obligation not to be representing lawyers but all Californians. "We shouldn't be treated any differently in the regulatory process … just because we're lawyers," he said. "You'll be surprised how quickly people follow your recommendation if you have the knowledge, you rise above your own personal interests … and you have the supreme ability to listen." After all that, "you really have to act," Brown said. Most everyone tries to delay difficult decisions, but "the bar and the public are entitled to closure." However, Brown, who served as Assembly speaker from 1980 to 1994, said he couldn't be a bar trustee. "I'm not sure I could play by all those rules. … I'd wander off the reservation." — Don J. DeBenedictis