Orlando attorneys learn leadership skills in diversity program

Pregnant with her seventh child, attorney Rosalind Johnson chuckles at the thought of not working when her stomach grows to the size of a watermelon. Wearing a polka-dot suit jacket, she rests her long French manicured nails on a table in her new office, conveniently around the corner from the Orange County courthouse.

“I told my doctor, ‘I don’t even need you!'” the 42-year-old joked this week.

She wasn’t always this carefree. When Johnson had her first child at age 15 back home in Richmond, Va., she said she lived in a crack house while her drug-addicted mother was out of state with an ex-boyfriend.

After giving birth to her fourth child the same weekend as law school graduation, Johnson failed the bar exam because she didn’t have enough time to study with a newborn.

But Johnson said she never considered giving up. In time she persevered to run her own private law firm and a nonprofit called Big Sis, Inc., which connects single young mothers with resources to better their situations.

Now Johnson joins an elite group of 40 attorneys from across the state as a fellow in The Florida Bar’s leadership academy, which seeks to empower minority attorneys with the skills they need to ascend the legal field.

“I’m just kind of one of those people who pushes through stuff,” Johnson said. “I do what I have to do to make things happen. And my focus has always been my children and making sure that they don’t have to go through what I had to go through and providing a better future for them.”

Johnson said she thinks her determination will serve her well in the leadership academy, which is in its fourth year. Eugene Pettis, a former president of The Florida Bar and the first African-American in that role, established it.

“I stepped back and looked at what I thought were some of the obstacles that were challenging meaningful, permanent inclusion,” and leadership stuck out, Pettis said.

The yearlong curriculum kicked off in June and includes training to help fellows run an effective meeting and deal with a conflict at work. It also seeks to educate attorneys on pressing issues in the field, such as judicial diversity, Pettis said.

The program is important, he said, because it brings diverse perspectives and broader backgrounds to the field’s decision-makers, whether judges or heads of the boards of legal organizations.

Johnson said she’s seen a need for diversity in her 12 years practicing law in Florida. She recalled a case she worked on as a public defender that challenged the judge and prosecutor to evaluate a situation they had never experienced.

Johnson represented a woman who was sentenced to community service after a petty-theft arrest. The woman, however, said she couldn’t complete it because it was too expensive to find child care while she was away from home.

“They just didn’t understand that you have to pay for someone to keep your kids so you can go work for free,” Johnson said. “And if you already don’t have money, and you are already stealing diapers to make sure you can provide for your kids, how do you expect this woman to do that?

Now married, Johnson has six children ranging in age from 3 to 26.

Five other Orlando lawyers were selected to participate in this year’s academy with Johnson. They are: Camara A. Williams, Mallory R. Widgren, Onchantho Am, Allison R. Bekavac and Jared A. Brooks.

Of the 40 incoming class members, 60 percent are female and 65 percent are either African-American, Hispanic or Asian.

echerney@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5735