National leader of African-American attorneys maintains KU law ties

When Malcolm Robinson, l'75, attended KU's School of Law, he several times had the chance to talk with Elmer Jackson Jr., c'33, l'35, a prominent Kansas City, Kan., attorney who from 1959 through 1960 served as president of the National Bar Association, an international organization of African-American lawyers, judges, legal scholars and law students.

Brian Robinson, second-year law student from Dallas, talked with his dad, Malcolm Robinson, at a recent KU forum sponsored by the National Bar Association. Malcolm Robinson is the second KU alumnus to lead the group as president. Courtesy of Lawrence Journal World; photo by Terry Rombeck

"He was a true gentleman," recalls Robinson, who last summer was sworn in as the NBA's 60th president. Robinson returned to KU Oct. 25 for the opening session of the NBA's annual Wiley A. Branton Symposium, which examined the impact nearly 50 years later of the 1954 U.S Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. At the forum, Robinson presented to Jackson's son, Elmer III, c'62, a Wiley Branton Award in memory of his father's leadership among African-American attorneys.

Robinson, co-founder and partner in the Dallas law firm of Robinson & Hoskins, returns to KU more regularly now that his son, Brian, is a second-year KU law student. As an alumnus, father and professional leader, he feels an obligation to check in on his alma mater. While he boasts "there's no better law school," Robinson monitors the school's progress in increasing diversity and plans to attend the annual diversity symposium in March 2003.

The NBA is the nation's oldest organization of color and now includes more than 20,000 members. "Our main goal is to push to make sure there's real diversity within the legal profession, which I don't think exists today," he says. True parity will exist, he adds, "when you can look at the top 200 law firms in the nation, and see the percentage of African-American owned and operated firms relates to the overall percentage of African-Americans in the general population."

To work toward its goal, Robinson says, the NBA will file a brief in support of the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upholding the use of race-conscious admissions policies at the University of Michigan's Law School and chief undergraduate college. The U.S. Supreme Court announced Dec. 2 that it would consider an appeal of the Sixth Circuit's ruling.

And, on a more personal level, Robinson will continue to encourage alumni to create opportunities for young people to participate in the profession. "When he was younger, Brian would go to the NBA conventions with me, and many other members always bring their families," Robinson says. "He had a lot of opportunity to be exposed, and I guess that may have had something to do with convincing him to study law."

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