By Angela Morris (Texas Lawyer, March 2019)
Although the female attorneys of Texas, just like their nationwide peers, are still limited in their ascent to the upper echelon in law firms and corporations, their counterparts within local bar associations are finding better leadership opportunities.
All five of the Lone Star State’s biggest metropolitan area bar associations are currently run by women executive directors. Two of them, Kay Sim of Houston and Delaine Ward of Austin, have been at their posts for 30-plus years, while the remaining three—Alicia Hernandez of Dallas, Megan Cooley of Tarrant County and June Moynihan of San Antonio—all took over after longtime leaders retired within the past few years.
“It’s wonderful we have them, because they deserved it. They are all qualified, but more than anything, they all have that spirit of caring about the community and its needs and searching with their boards on ways they can, as a profession, help those communities be better,” said Sim, executive director of the Houston Bar Association, the longest-serving of the bunch.
