vo-ca-tion /vo-ke-shun/[voh-kay-shuhn] noun—a particular occupation,business, or profession; calling.
Michele Wong Krause
The goal of this column is to enlighten our readers about the private endeavors of attorneys who are part of the MCCA network. By examining lawyers and their work practices by day in contrast to the personal interests that they pursue outside of the office, it is our hope that this series of articles allows our readers to see the other side of lawyers who manage to pursue unique interests despite their demanding careers.
Michele Wong Krause
Very few legal practitioners belong to more than one distinct ethnic minority bar. Even more rarely does she hold the top leadership position in those two organizations. Michele Wong Krause is that unusual lawyer.
Soon after graduating from Southern Methodist University Law School in 1985, Wong Krause joined the Dallas Bar Association. “At the time very few Asians were practicing law in Texas, so whenever the majority bar needed someone to deal with Asian-related matters, the young attorney with the Asian name was asked to lend a hand,” she recalls. “In those days I was frequently asked, ‘Do you speak Cantonese or Mandarin?’, and I’d reply, ‘Neither, but I can speak Spanish.’ My father is Chinese/ Japanese/Hawaiian and my mother is Mexican from Monterrey, so I am both Asian and Hispanic. Because I am half Asian, I still qualified to assist.”
Throughout her early career, Wong Krause continued to encounter and pursue leadership opportunities in Dallas’s Asian legal community. By the mid-1990s, she was president of her first affinity group, the Dallas Asian American Bar Association, where she worked hard to raise the profile of the budding organization. As her stock among Dallas attorneys and the Dallas Bar Association rose, Wong Krause simultaneously became better known within Dallas’s Hispanic legal community; in 2002, she was voted president of the Dallas Hispanic Bar Association.
“It’s interesting just how different the groups actually are—the Hispanic attorneys are generally more activist and expressive with regard to change, whereas the Asian lawyers are typically more conservative and tend to deal with matters more quietly among themselves,” observes Wong Krause, a career-long personal-injury and worker’s compensation attorney. “I identify with both groups. My parents split when I was ten, and I lived with my mother in Texas, where I was more exposed to my Hispanic relatives. But as I became older and got to know my father’s family better, I realized that I thought and behaved a lot like them, too.”
Over the years, Wong Krause has made sure to keep a well-placed foot in both of her ancestral worlds, chairing the Asian and Hispanic sections of the State Bar of Texas. She recently finished a three-year term representing all Dallas attorneys on the board of the State Bar of Texas. Wong Krause was the first elected Hispanic attorney (who had not been appointed to finish out a prior term), as well as the first Asian attorney to represent Dallas on the State Bar Board.
A solo practitioner, Wong Krause devotes a lot of time to the business aspects of her firm (Wong Krause Law Firm). “In a perfect world, I wouldn’t have to worry about salaries, insurance, and the price of paper clips. I’d only be practicing law,” she dreams. “Handling the business stuff didn’t come easily to me—it’s something that I’ve really struggled with over the years.”
As an outgrowth of her own experience, Wong Krause created the Dallas Minority Attorney Program (DMAP) in the mid-1990s. The free, ABA award-winning program is a one-day seminar designed to meet the unique challenges facing solo, small-firm, minority, and female attorneys by focusing on business development, marketing, office management, technology, guardians ad litem, and court appointments.
“I started DMAP by myself with just $200 out of my own pocket,” recalls Wong Krause. “At that first seminar, about 25 women and minority attorneys showed up—about the same number of judges who were on our first panel. Judges have been supportive of the program from its inception, and have used DMAP as a tool to get acquainted with participating attorneys.” Today, seminars typically attract 150 to 200 attendees, and the program has expanded outside of Dallas and rebranded as TMAP, serving women and minority attorneys in cities like Houston, San Antonio, and El Paso.
Wong Krause explains, “The mainstream CLE didn’t ignore minority issues purposely; our issues simply weren’t on their radar screen. That’s why it’s so important for minorities to have a place at the table at majority bar associations.” As a “baby lawyer” in 1985, Wong Krause was shocked to learn from an older Hispanic attorney that, prior to 1970, the Dallas Bar refused to accept Hispanic attorneys. Because there is a lot of “catching up to do,” Wong Krause recognizes the tremendous hurdles that faced minority attorneys in Dallas by inviting veteran women and minority attorneys to share their experiences with young minority attorneys at DMAP. More than once, veteran lawyers Adelpha Callejo and L. A. Bedford have spoken at DMAP about what it was like to practice before a judge who was also the grand dragon of the local Ku Klux Klan in Dallas.
(L to R) Patrick Keating, Michele Wong Krause, Marc Taubenfeld, and Elizabeth Davey performed in the 1998 production of 101 Damn Motions.
As a little girl in Fort Worth, Wong Krause was extremely introverted. She describes herself as a shy, quiet bookworm who hid behind thick lenses. But things changed in high school: “I started doing plays—Jessica in The Merchant of Venice, the baroness in The Sound of Music, the back end of a cow in Jack and the Beanstalk—and it prompted a real metamorphosis. Suddenly I was outgoing and comfortable in front of people. I loved everything about being on stage.”
In college, Wong Krause seriously considered an acting career. As a freshman at Texas University at Arlington, she appeared in a production alongside classmate Lou Diamond Philips and received some nice notices in the student newspaper. Sometime during her second year, however, Wong Krause reassessed her future and decided to major in political science, with the idea of eventually attending law school. “I could act and dance passably, but there was no getting around that I wasn’t a singer. To make a living, I felt that I needed to be a triple threat,” she remembers. “When I started thinking about alternate career paths, law struck me as a viable option. My great uncle in Mexico, whom I admired greatly, was a respected lawyer, and I was certain that the skills I’d learned in acting class would translate to litigation.”
Two months of every year, Wong Krause returns to her first love—the stage. For the past eighteen years, she has performed in “Bar None,” an annual variety show sponsored by the Dallas Bar Association and Dallas Bar Foundation. The shows are written, directed, and performed by Dallas-area attorneys, judges, paralegals, legal secretaries, law clerks, and others in the legal community. The performances gently (mostly) spoof the legal profession through song and skits. Past “Bar None” titles include “Suing Miss Daisy,” “Mrs. Reasonable Doubtfire,” and “My Big Fat Greek Lawyer.” The next production’s (running June 10 — 13, 2009) timely title is “Scumbag Billionaire.”
“‘Bar None’ is my passion. Those eight weeks of rehearsal and handful of performances literally keep me sane,” shares Wong Krause. “Solo practitioners, as the name suggests, spend a lot of time alone, so for me to have an opportunity to spend time with judges, other attorneys, and paralegals is very special. Sure, I do a little networking [through that] but, more importantly, I’ve forged some lasting friendships. And the fact that all this terrific bonding happens while working on a show is simply icing on the cake for a ham like me.”
“And it gets better,” she says. “The show’s proceeds go to a cause near and dear to my heart.” Since its debut performance 23 years ago, “Bar None” has raised over $1 million for the Sarah T. Hughes Diversity Scholarships at SMU’s Law School. Under the program, full tuition scholarships are awarded to first-year minority law students, and are renewed for the second and third years under condition of satisfactory academic performance.
av-o-ca-tion /ævo-ke-shun/ [av-uh-key-shuhn] noun—something a person does in addition to a principal occupation, esp. for pleasure; hobby.
Wong Krause’s other far-flung avocations include collecting model trains and pricey wines. “After my first son was born in 1989, I wanted to have a real family Christmas, and in my head that meant having a model train circling the tree,” she laughs. “I rarely do things halfway, as my friends will tell you. So over the years I’ve put together an extensive collection of finely crafted trains and track. Each year, the collection can be found all over the house during the holiday season.”
After acquiring a taste for the grape on a trip to Paris in the mid-1980s—“A soft drink costs more than a glass of wine, so I tried the wine and liked it”—Wong Krause began collecting Château Mouton Rothschild, the world-famous claret from France’s Bordeaux region. “If my mutual fund had increased in value as much as my modest wine collection, I’d be in great shape,” she quips.
From time to time, Wong Krause’s husband (also a lawyer) asks his wife why she volunteers so much time to furthering the prospects of minority attorneys. “My answer is simple,” Wong Krause explains. “I’ve been incredibly lucky. Despite being brought up by a single mother in tight financial circumstances, it was understood that I’d go to college. Without any mentors who looked like me, I’ve been able to map out a law career. Slowly, I see things changing for minority attorneys, and I’m a part of that. As far as I’m concerned it’s a no-brainer—I have no choice but to give back.” DB
Do you have an interesting pastime that you want to share in this space, or do you know other attorneys whose away-from-work activities might be showcased in this column? Please send your recommendations to robtruhn@mcca.com, and we’ll consider your submissions for upcoming issues. Thanks!
Patrick Folliard is a freelance writer based in Silver Spring, Md.
From the May/June 2009 issue of Diversity & The Bar®