Brittnie T. Watkins JD/PhD '14, LL.M. '17

What recent accomplishment are you most proud of?

I am proud to be a newly elected representative on the State Bar of Nevada Board of Governors. I am particularly honored and humbled to be the first African American woman elected as a governor in the bar's nearly 100-year history, and I will work to ensure that I am not the last. The honor is a testament to change and a reminder of its possibility. Amid this historic time of social unrest, I attended my first official meeting, and contributed to a unanimous vote to issue a statement on diversity, inclusion, and justice for all. In it, the state bar recommits to the oath we take as attorneys to support the Constitution and promote the administration of justice: "The State Bar of Nevada stands for justice for all and against racism and the systematic abuse of the justice system."  I am honored to be a governor, enthusiastic about the bar's direction, and looking forward to serving the legal community, including the future lawyers of Boyd.

What does being an attorney mean to you?

Being an attorney means that I get to use my pen to persuade and advocate for the overlooked, while setting precedent for my family's coming generations. For some of us, an attraction to writing may appear to arise from the process itself, requiring a negotiation of ideas that will be perfectly placed for coherence and anchored by precise diction that allows a competent reader to assess the habits of our minds. In concrete terms for attorneys, that competent reader is a judge and her assessment is a ruling—motion granted or denied. Thus, our attraction to writing may be more aptly characterized as an attraction to winning. I get that. I am there with you. But on a more basic, often unappreciated level, the power of the pen first comes from the power to pick it up. It is not lost on me that my ancestors did not have that power. So, I write because I can. I write to pay homage.

That also means that I use the power that being a lawyer embodies for good. For me, that means advocating for the overlooked, but admittedly, it is not all altruism. The feeling of fulfilment from justice exacted is personal. And the pride that accompanies a win for my pro bono client because my opponent underestimated the amount of effort I was willing to expend, priceless. Being underestimated is not all bad. It comes with the territory of progress.

As the first lawyer in my family, I am the precedent for generations to come. I have already begun to see how this first in time is shaping prospects for the next generation. My thirteen-year-old brother now has his sights set on becoming an attorney who is "better than his sister." In that alone, I see the progress my foremothers envisioned.

What historical figure(s) do you admire most and why?

I admire Maya Angelou and Harriet Tubman because their courage provokes my ambition. Maya had the courage to write. Harriet had the courage to run. To write the way Maya wrote is to pour mind to paper to compete in a marketplace of ideas from which she was previously excluded. It is to exploit cadence to lure listeners to confront unpopular truths about racism, sexism, and discrimination. To run the way Harriet ran is to risk life for liberty and to hope beyond fear. It is to risk everything, again, and again, for change.
When I reflect on what Maya and Harriet overcame, my ambition is renewed.

How do you hope to be remembered? 

I hope people will say, "She was courageous."