By Tiffanie Clausewitz and Jackson Williams February 25, 2020
“Behind every successful woman is a tribe of other successful women who have her back.” This statement has been proven true over and over throughout the development and launch of the Bexar County Women’s Bar Foundation LEAD Academy.
I served as President of the Bexar County Women’s Bar Association and Foundation in 2014. The group had such a rich and storied past, including an incredible track record of developing programs benefitting women and children in our community. I was charged with figuring out the BCWB’s “next big thing” – no small feat when there was so much to live up to. I decided to reach out to leading women in our legal community to gather their ideas about what might be next for BCWB.
During several sessions with past presidents and women in the judiciary, our conversations inevitably turned inward to the needs of women in our profession. In particular, we discussed the dismal and stagnant attrition rates of women in the practice— a survey by the National Association of Women Lawyers had just revealed that while 50 percent of law school graduates had been women for many years, only about 15 percent of law firm equity partners and chief legal officers were women, a number that hadn’t appreciably changed in almost 10 years—and the unshrinking compensation gap between women and men in the field. To that I added the fact I was personally unable to find any leadership development programs geared toward women in the law, and few for women in leadership generally.
Thus, the Bexar County Women’s Bar Foundation’s LEAD Academy (fondly referred to as just LEAD) was born. Beginning in 2015, I gathered a group of strong, accomplished, and dedicated women leaders in our legal community to serve as the program’s Steering Committee, and we began planning what would become LEAD. LEAD ’s mission is to assist women attorneys in attaining the highest level of success in their firms and organizations, in their communities, and in the legal profession. We aim to achieve this goal by teaching participants to lead in a way that is authentic and effective; empower themselves and others with awareness and confidence; advance professionally & personally; and develop robust professional networks. The program spans a calendar year, and our first class began in 2017. We graduated our third class this past December and our fourth class kicked-off in January.
Relying on a well-founded curriculum taught by preeminent national and statewide speakers, we were confident the content offered to our select class members would promote self-reflection and growth as attorneys and leaders. What we did not initially anticipate was the incredibly strong bonds that would develop between each set of class members, and throughout the LEAD community. From advice to encouragement to referrals and more, women involved with the LEAD Academy work together to lift each other up and empower all to succeed. It’s a beautiful thing.
In 2018, LEAD was awarded an Outstanding Program Award from the National Conference of Women’s Bar Associations, and a Star of Achievement Award from the Texas State Bar. We have been the recipient of a Texas Bar Foundation grant and incredible support from the legal community. We sponsor an annual Empowered Women Leaders Luncheon each May, bringing together women leaders in the legal, business, and medical community to network together and learn from a national speaker on relevant leadership issues. To say I am proud of the program our Steering Committee has put together would be a gross understatement.
Beginning January 1, 2020, I stepped down as Director of the LEAD Academy to focus on further development and refinement of the program’s curriculum. Lucky for all of us, Elena Villaseñor Sullivan, a founding Steering Committee member who has been integral to the program’s success, is stepping up to serve as Director of the program. Elena is an amazing and proven attorney, leader, mentor, and advocate of women—as such, she is ideally situated to continue LEAD’s growth and development as a preeminent program for women in the legal community. I can’t wait to see what happens next! Tiffanie S. Clausewitz
Elena Villaseñor Sullivan Sat Down With Attorney At Law Magazine To Discuss Her Role As The Incoming Director Of LEAD Academy
Elena Villaseñor Sullivan is an executive director of Compliance at USAA. She leads a team of compliance analysts and risk managers to help corporate clients understand, operationalize, and comply with the laws applicable to their business. Prior to joining USAA, Sullivan was a partner and commercial trial attorney at Jackson Walker LLP.
Sullivan is a graduate of Boston College and the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. She grew up in San Antonio, and is committed to giving back to the community that has given so much to her. She is the 2020-2021 Director of the Bexar County Women’s Bar Foundation LEAD Academy and Co-Leader of a Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas Troop.
She is married to Boston-native, Chris Sullivan, and they have a daughter, Lucia, who is just as independent as her mom. She enjoys traveling, arts and crafts, strength training, and yoga.
AALM: How would you describe the main goal of the Bexar County Women’s Bar Foundation LEAD Academy in your own words?
EVS: LEAD strives to foster the next generation of leaders within the San Antonio legal community, the greater community, and across the nation. LEAD is paving the way for attorneys of all practices and backgrounds to build a successful career in a way that is authentic to them. The program gives women attorneys the opportunity to understand and leverage their strengths, build their confidence, create a vision of their career path, and develop the tools needed to get there. Perhaps the most rewarding benefit of LEAD is the professional relationships that are organically forming. We are witnessing LEAD participants referring business to one another, being promoted, overcoming obstacles, and helping one another make career transitions. It is a place to build trust, find a sense of belonging, seek advice, and build yourself up by building up others. For that reason, we are affectionately calling the LEAD leadership and participants our “Tribe.”
AALM: Who should go through the LEAD program?
EVS: Women attorneys with a desire to develop themselves professionally and a demonstrated potential for leadership are the perfect LEAD candidates. Under the leadership of Tiffanie Clausewitz, the founders of LEAD set forth a mission – to assist women attorneys in attaining the highest levels of success in their firms and organizations, communities, and in the legal profession. To achieve that mission, we want to ensure that our participants are diverse and our program is inclusive so that we are truly building leaders across all spectrums of our diverse profession—Big law, mid-size firms, solo practices, government positions, in-house departments, nonprofit organizations, the business world, or, legal services agencies—and across all areas of practice. Because we don’t need to be stuck in these silos and are more powerful when we collaborate, LEAD strives to make connections crucial to our participants’ personal and professional success.
AALM: What kind of programming does LEAD offer?
EVS: Each year-long LEAD program kicks off with a two-day symposium dedicated to empowering the participants with self-awareness and confidence. It follows with three quarterly seminars focused on how to advance professionally and personally through self-promotion and effective communication, developing a network of peers, mentors, and sponsors, and effectively leading projects and teams. Our faculty includes successful lawyers, businesswomen, and academics from across the nation to facilitate interactive and engaging leadership training sessions. We have also offered informal programming such as mentorship circles, book clubs, and social events. Now that we have three classes that have graduated, we’ll be adding alumni events in 2020. Another important component of the program includes candid discussions with successful women practitioners and judges who serve on the LEAD advisory committee and who continuously offer their time and talent to mentor the LEAD class members and alums.
AALM: How did you get involved in LEAD?
EVS: Christine Reinhard, Judge Renee Yanta, and I met to prepare for our William S. Sessions Inns of Court group presentation. We were talking about women in leadership, and I mentioned my work as the San Antonio Chair for JW2 and Entrepreneurial Connections. As we were leaving, Christine invited me to lunch with Tiffanie to talk about joining the LEAD steering committee.
At the first steering committee meeting I attended, I was hesitant. Everyone else in the room had been a president or on the board of the Woman’s Bar, and they were all very close friends. I had very little involvement in the Women’s Bar many years prior. I never felt like I belonged in the Women’s Bar. But I stepped up, volunteered to take on some key tasks to plan the first LEAD class symposium, and I followed up on my commitments.
One of my favorite leadership books, “The Go-Giver,” teaches that when you put others’ interests first and add value to their lives, it ultimately leads to unexpected returns. Four years later, fellow steering committee members have become some of my closest friends and colleagues who regularly engage in long text chains about everything from business referrals to working mom guilt. I am honored that these successful San Antonio attorneys have entrusted me to lead them through the next two years of the LEAD program. This is the kind of network we aspire to create among all the LEAD classes.
AALM: As the new director of the Bexar County Women’s Bar Foundation LEAD Academy, what are your goals for the next two years?
EVS: The 2020 LEAD Steering Committee is committed to: (1) Providing LEAD class members with a top-notch curriculum and program that fulfills the LEAD Mission; (2) Enhancing LEAD’s network of potential and current participants, alumni, advisors, faculty, and donors; and (3) Developing a long-term planning and succession strategy so that LEAD will outlast its founders and become a legacy in the San Antonio legal community. I am honored to follow in Tiffanie Clausewitz’s footsteps. She created the vision for this program and brought together the founding steering committee to make it happen. LEAD’s success is a direct result of the countless hours and commitment brought by a group of local leaders who serve on the steering committee. Together, much is accomplished. With a solid foundation, now, is the time to continue building on that success.
AALM: What lessons have you learned from your predecessor?
EVS: Tiffanie’s superpower is transforming ideas into action. She had a vision to help our legal profession, and she brought people together with different talents to collaborate to make it happen. And, she is an amazing gift-giver— literally and figuratively. Last year, she gave the LEAD Steering Committee a framed print with the quote, “Empowered women, empower women.” That’s exactly what Tiffanie has inspired me and many others to do—help our legal community by helping the women in it define their own visions of success, and take action to achieve it, all while building their network. My goal is to sustain her vision because our legal community is stronger when we all raise the bar.
The LEAD Academy would like to thank The Sporting District at the Historic Pearl Brewery for the use of their retail store for this photoshoot.
