President-elect nominee Steve Zack is determined that the American Bar Association (ABA) does not give in to ‘diversity fatigue.’ Zack will be the first Hispanic president of the American Bar Association in its 150 years. Not surprisingly, Zack has an ongoing passion for both the law and for the issue of diversity. Zack is currently a Miami lawyer and Partner with Boies, Schiller & Flexner. Presiding over the 410,000 member ABA, the largest voluntary bar association in the world, has been one of his lifelong goals.
Zack’s professional career reads like a case study in trailblazing. In 1988, he served as the youngest president of The Florida Bar as well as the first Hispanic president. His resume if full of powerful and influential positions including former chairman of ABA’s House of Delegates; former general counsel to Gov. Bob Graham and former chairman of Florida Ethics Commission.
Talking one-on-one with Steve and going beyond the impressive resume was a pleasure and an honor. We had a chance to explore how his experience as a Cuban American, Jewish immigrant shaped his career choices and interest in diversity. Given my own background of a Jewish family anchored in island life (Bermuda) we had much to discuss. Our grandfathers had both come from Russia to escape the pogroms, the state-sanctioned massacres of Jews during the late 1800s and early 1900s. My family came to America and ended up in Bermuda. Steve’s grandfather had ended up in Cuba. Steve joked that grandpa thought he was going to America but got on the wrong boat. Not knowing either Spanish or English, he already had a pushke going by the time he realized he wasn’t in the U.S. A pushke was a peddler’s cart, a common tool for Jewish immigrants to earn a living and start a family business.
My family started a dry goods store using a horse & buggy as its ‘pushke. Steve’s family business in Cuba was a tannery. The tannery was taken over by Castro in the 1961 revolution, as were many other businesses. Hundreds of Cuba’s Jews fled to the United States. Steve noted that for his grandfather, this was the second experience of being a refugee. He didn’t expect to ever have a third time as a refugee; if America failed, there would be nowhere else to go. The ‘Jubanos’ established a synagogue in Miami as they adjusted to their new home. Steve now belongs to a more modern Reform Jewish synagogue, a transition that my family also made from its early immigrant roots. » Read more: No Diversity Fatigue at the American Bar Association
