Nanci L. Clarence was installed as the 94th president of The Bar Association of San Francisco (BASF) on December 14. At BASF's Annual Luncheon and Installation of Officers, Ms. Clarence addressed goals she hopes to achieve during her one-year term. Her goals include expanding BASF's ongoing diversity agenda, with more focus on lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender (LGBT) lawyers and lawyers with disabilities; launching a BASF College of Trial Advocacy for juvenile defenders; appointing a Standing Committee to Defend the Independence of the Judiciary; and working to find ways to guarantee that people who can't afford lawyers get meaningful representation.
"I am thrilled to be president of this great organization which is a leader in diversity and in providing legal services to low-income people in our community," Ms. Clarence said. "I love the fact that our progressive bar association on the West Coast lives as a true and authentic example of a 'thousand points of light' by providing over 8,000 hours of pro bono legal services to the underrepresented."
Ms. Clarence was named by the San Francisco Daily Journal as one of the "Top 75 Women Litigators" in the State of California in 2005 and 2006 and was recognized as one of the top 50 women lawyers in Northern California by San Francisco Magazine. In 2005, she was elected a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. She has taught extensively on courtroom advocacy and has been a lecturer on trial practice skills at the American Bar Association White Collar Crime Institute, the Association of Business Trial Lawyers, the Northern District of California Judicial Conference, the State Bar Litigation Section, California Attorneys for Criminal Justice and the Advanced Training Program for Federal Defenders.
Ms. Clarence is a native of Riverside, California. A member of Phi Beta Kappa, she graduated magna cum laude from the University of California at Berkeley in 1981 and received her law degree from Hastings College of the Law in 1985. After graduation, she served as Law Clerk to the Honorable Charles A. Legge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Before founding Clarence & Dyer LLP, she was a litigation associate at Morrison & Foerster LLP in San Francisco and then became an Assistant Federal Public Defender in the Northern District of California.
The Bar Association of San Francisco (BASF) is a nonprofit voluntary membership organization of over 8,000 attorneys, law students and legal professionals in the Bay Area. Founded in 1872, BASF is one of the largest metropolitan bar associations in the U.S., with a long and distinguished record of community action, public service and service to the legal profession.