Alison Ashe-Card Elected to Serve as Next President of NALP
Alison Ashe-Card
serves as the inaugural Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the Duke University School of Law, a position she has held since 2023. She previously served as Associate Director of Diversity & Inclusion in the Office of Career and Professional Development at Wake Forest University School of Law and practiced law with Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice PLLC.
In the following interview, Ashe-Card discusses her work with NALP, which was established in 1971 as the National Association for Law Placement. She currently serves as president-elect of the 3,000-member organization, which serves legal career professionals who advise law students, lawyers, law offices, and law schools, primarily in the United States and Canada. Ashe-Card will assume the position of president in April 2025 at the conclusion of the organization’s annual meeting in Cleveland.
How did you get involved in NALP, and what inspires you to assume this leadership role?
When I first started working in law school career services, I quickly learned that NALP was the premier organization for legal career professionals advising law students and lawyers in the areas of career services, recruitment, diversity, equity and inclusion, and professional development, and I think as I became involved, I just found ways that I feel have not only had an impact on the profession, but hopefully makes the profession better for students and young lawyers who are entering the profession. It’s just been a wonderful opportunity for me to be involved.
It sounds like your membership has enhanced your work at both Wake Forest and now Duke.
Absolutely! My involvement in NALP has provided me with the opportunity for continued education and professional development, collaboration and information sharing, and networking with peers through our annual educational conference and other meetings that we do throughout the year. This allows me to stay up-to-date on best practices and trends in the profession and, quite frankly, it is a great way to connect with other professionals at other law schools and at law firms who are doing similar work.
Another strength of the organization is the data that we collect and publish on employment outcomes of law school graduates and the advancement of representation of individuals from various demographics in keeping with our common beliefs that all law students and lawyers should benefit from a fair and ethical hiring process and that a diverse and inclusive legal profession best serves clients and our communities. Quite frankly, I’ve had the privilege of becoming really good friends with folks who are doing great work, so I feel like I’ve benefited from my participation not only professionally but personally.
Judging from the organization’s description on its website, your broad range of experience in career services and private practice are a perfect match for NALP.
NALP members come from a variety of professional backgrounds; however, the trend that has developed in law school career services has been to hire individuals who have law degrees and some practice experience. It really is helpful when you are advising law students about their legal careers and professional development to have that legal background, and I think the same thing can be true for NALP members who are working at law firms. Certainly, there are individuals in law firm recruiting, DEI and professional development departments and even in some law school departments who don’t necessarily have a law degree, but I do think you’re beginning to see more people with law degrees who are being attracted to the legal career profession.
In that vein, how has your experience at Wake Forest and Duke helped you to be a better member of the organization?
I think my hands-on, day-to-day experience dealing with either law students or dealing with law firms has helped me to be a better member and to bring value to the organization. We have members who represent law schools all across the country and law schools of different sizes. I think it’s helpful to be able to provide that input so that we can share from our experiences. One of the things that I worked on last year, for example, was a task force charged with looking at the process of applying for diversity fellowships that some law firms offer, and examining the challenges that law students have in completing those applications, and the timing of when these applications are available. As a result of our work, we developed a best practice guide to help law firms and law students understand both sides of how that process works and hopefully provide some guidance around that process that can make it better for both law students and law firms.
As the inaugural Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion at Duke, and previously with your diversity and inclusion duties at Wake Forest, you have undoubtedly been a valuable resource for NALP members as well as law students who come in contact with the organization.
I hope so. One of the first places where I really became plugged in was in our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Section – and being able to talk to individuals who are working at law schools and law firms about best practices and trends that we are seeing in the profession. The first leadership role that I had in NALP was when I was appointed as chair of the section, and it actually coincided with the murder of George Floyd and the racial reckoning that followed.
NALP sections are similar to the sections we have at the Bar Association, where people can join and be involved in multiple sections. It is just really a great opportunity for us as DEI practitioners to come together and figure out ways that we can best serve the law students and lawyers we are working with, particularly with everything that was going on with the racial reckoning that was happening in 2020 and beyond.
That’s a perfect segue into your involvement in the six-part series, “Making Noise: Doing Our Part to Dismantle Racism and White Supremacy in the Legal Profession,” that was published in the NALP Bulletin.
The series really came about in response to what happened with George Floyd and the aftermath.
At that time, each section was proposing articles related to the areas that they are working in for our monthly publication. I was chair of the DEI Section and there were two white women who proposed wanting to write an article but they questioned if they were really the right people to write this article. And I told them that I absolutely thought they should be a part of that conversation, and that maybe having someone else, a person of color, author the article with them might be the best way to feel a little better about it. So that just ended up being me, and honestly, when we first started talking about it, it was going to be one article. And then we said maybe we’ll just do a series of three articles.
When we initially started talking about writing three articles, I thought that I was going to write one article and then another person would write an article and then the third person would write one. But we ended up writing all of them together. We had some thoughtful and deep conversations about race and racism and sexism, and we focused primarily on black and brown students and lawyers because of what was happening in the world.
Through the process, we became really good friends, and we still continue to talk about these issues all the time, and thinking of ways to see what else we can do. We finalized the plan to write three articles, but the work for us was just so impactful that we ended up doing six articles over the course of a two-year period. We presented a workshop based on our articles at one of our annual meetings, and someone reached out to me from the Immigration Section of the Federal Bar Association who came across the articles, so we also presented to them. It’s work that we are passionate about, and we continue to meet almost monthly to talk about ways we can continue to have the conversation and do the work that was really meaningful to all of us.[1]
What do you see on the horizon for the rest of your year as president-elect and what are some key issues that you might be dealing with as president?
Each president develops a business plan. Part of that business plan revolves around the work that many of the sections and committees are doing, so some of that plan is member-driven, and there are some things that happen every year in those sections. Sometimes there are sections/committees that want to carry those projects forward, so I have the responsibility of finding people to be in leadership roles for all of the various sections that we have. And with our conference planning, I get to select individuals who will lead the planning for our annual education conference and other conferences that take place throughout the year.
But I think really one of the highlights of being president is the opportunity to set your business plan for the year. Because of my passion for diversity, equity and inclusion, and because of the Supreme Court ruling[2] and some of the changes that have occurred as a result in our profession, I’m certain that DEI is going to be an integral part of my plan. Between now and April I will be honing in on what I think is important to us.
April 2025 will be here before you know it, but you sound very excited about the coming year.
Like with any other organization – like being involved with the Bar Association – you have the opportunity to meet a lot of people that you may not otherwise have met. I feel like I’ve made some really great friends along the way, lifelong friends, who are not only colleagues but also people I can call upon if I have questions or just want to get insight on what other people are doing. It is an honor and a privilege to have been selected by my peers and I look forward to continuing the great work of those who have come before me.
It sounds like a two-way street, in which Duke Law has benefitted too, and is very supportive of your involvement at the national level.
Both of the employers I’ve worked with (Wake Forest and Duke) have been very supportive of my involvement in NALP. When I was considering the position at Duke, that was an important conversation that I had with my dean (Dean Kerry Abrams) because I was getting ready to roll off the NALP board, and at that point had my sights set on continuing in other leadership roles. I shared with the dean how important my involvement was to me personally and professionally, and how I felt it enhanced my knowledge and my ability to be effective in my new role. And it was really clear to me that my dean was going to be very supportive, so much so that after my family, she was one of the first people I told when I learned I would be slated for this office. I think she was just as excited for me as I was!
Russell Rawlings is director of external affairs and communications for the North Carolina Bar Association.
[1] In addition to Alison Ashe-Card, the authors of Making Noise: Doing Our Part to Dismantle Racism and White Supremacy in the Legal Profession are Molly Stafford, former Assistant Dean of Career Development & External Relations at the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law, and Nicole Netkin-Collins, current Director for Government & Public Interest at the University of Colorado Law School.
[2] Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina