ACBA Member Spotlight
ACBA member Pauline A. Weaver, past president of California Women Lawyers and president of the Center for Civic Education Board of Directors, has been elected Secretary of the American Bar Association. She takes office for a three-year term at the end of the Annual Meeting in August, 2020. The ABA is largest voluntary association of lawyers in the world. As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law.
Originally from England, Pauline came to the U.S. at the age of eleven. She earned her Bachelor’s and law degree from University of Memphis in Tennessee. After passing the State Bar of California in 1980, she became a Public Defender in Alameda County and worked there until 2011. She then opened her own firm concentrating on criminal defense with a large pro bono practice.
She is a past president and co-founder of the National Conference of Women’s Bar Associations and a co-founder of the Association of Women Attorneys (Memphis, TN). She is the recipient of the Judith Soley Lawyer as Citizen Award from CWL. She was also a vice president of the California State Bar Board of Governors.
Pauline has worked for years as an advocate for health and human services for all of her home-town citizens (Fremont, CA). In May 2019, she was honored as a longtime advocate for affordable housing in California by having a low income, senior residential center named after her – Pauline Weaver Senior Apartments in Fremont. She has been on the Eden Housing Board of Directors since joining in 1988. Recently, she participated in Fremont’s first Emerging Leaders Program – a two-day retreat on Racial Equality Leadership. The breadth of her work and commitment also is demonstrated by her being a founding member of Interfaith Women of Peace, a group which works in the community for understanding and peaceful interaction among different religious faiths.
She has traveled twice to the Military Commission Hearings (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-defendants) at Guantanamo, Cuba as an observer for the ABA. Pauline has received numerous awards for her legal and civic work, including the ABA’s Nelson Award in 2013 which recognizes outstanding contributions to the ABA by a government or public sector lawyer. Previously, she has been honored for her work by being named a “Woman of Achievement” by Alameda County and was 1988 “Woman of the Year” in the 19th Assembly District.