BAR ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE JULY/AUGUST 2009
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 Servant Leader
VICTORIA M. ALMEIDA, ESQ.
President, Rhode Island Bar Association
I agree with Alfred Lord Tennyson: “I am part of all that I have met.” [1]
As I officially begin my term as your President, I am keenly aware of all that I have met in my life both before and after I became a lawyer. The experiences that were and are most profound involved persons with a commonality of virtue.
Recently, I had the honor to host the annual Rhode Island Bar Association Dinner in honor of the Bar’s Past Presidents. I wanted to offer a toast to them, and I searched for simplicity of language that would pinpoint with accuracy these splendid individuals, each of them, irrespective of their ages, dates of service or areas of practice. I recalled a concept I first heard while I was in college in the early seventies that resonated with me on my drive back from the Cape one Sunday afternoon. The concept is servant leadership. It was popularized in the 1970s by Robert Greenleaf and represents an approach to leadership that stresses the leader’s role as steward of the resources of an organization, namely, the financial, the human and every other aspect of institutional viability. It seeks to encourage leaders to serve others in achieving goals while remaining faithful to the organization’s mission and values and preserving the organization’s integrity. It is the ability of a leader to do nothing out of selfishness or vain glory, but rather to humbly regard others as more important than oneself. This concept predates the 1970s (although my generation thought we invented everything) and is said to be rooted first in the East, in China, Circa 600 B.C. in the words of Lao Tzu who said:
The greatest leader forgets self
And attends to the development of others.
Good leaders support excellent workers.
Great leaders support the bottom ten percent.
Great leaders know that
The diamond in the rough
Is always found “in the rough.”
In the course of human events, Lao Tzu’s words were lived in the memorable lives of Moses, Jesus, Mohamed, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Theresa and others who changed the course of the world. While we cannot change the course of history, as few have, we can and must change the course of how we treat each other.
I am your servant leader and, as Clarence Darrow said in his closing argument in his defense of Henry Sweet in April, 1926, I believe in the law of love. I promise to serve you in our love of our glorious profession and in our love for each other. In these interesting times, civility is no longer the appropriate benchmark. We need a higher calling - a calling to be good and not just civil to one another. I can be fair and civil in my professional relationship with a lawyer I may not like, but to be good to that lawyer, to care for that lawyer, to find the “diamond in the rough” now, that’s a challenge. But, Justice William Robinson reminds us of the words of Philo of Alexandria, “Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a greater battle.”
As lawyers we are good “technicians”. The word “technician” comes from the Greek “teknikus” meaning “of the art”. But we have to be more than good legal technicians of the art of law. We must be good people and literally take care of each other. Lawyers experience a great deal of second-hand trauma in handling a myriad of client matters. As a reminder, we have the highest rate of depression and associated risks of any other profession.
So, may I ask you to join me as a servant leader in caring for each other and to leave a colleague a little bit better than she or he was before you entered the courtroom, the office, the coffee shop or the elevator? Civility is a lesser and included virtue in the greater virtue of what it means to be good. If we are good to each other, civility will take root when we are in right relationship with one another. I think you will agree with me that service to others, and being good to others, in and of itself, is rewarding and good for the spirit.
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