State Bar President Anthony Jenkins

By Tom Kirvan Legal News In eighth grade, Tony Jenkins thought he had found his musical calling as a cellist. But one day, walking the school hallway as a gangly eighth-grader, Jenkins was stopped in his tracks. "A teacher approached me and looking at me eye-to-eye asked, 'Young man, why have I not seen your 6-foot, 4-inch frame in gym class,'" Jenkins recalled. "I explained as respectfully as I could, 'Sir, I am a cellist, and my orchestra class convenes at the same time as gym class.' "After a brief conversation, the teacher convinced me to start working out with the basketball team after school hours. I assure you, I was not an instant success." "I had no skills, no understanding of the game, no appreciation for offensive patterns or defensive maneuvers," he said. "But, I persevered. I played as hard as I knew how. I listened, watched, and learned as much as I could as quickly as I could." "One day, to my delight and surprise, during a basketball game against Knudson Junior High School, enlightenment arrived," Jenkins said with a smile. "I remember that I was able to contribute to the success of the team, that game and for the rest of the season, and that someone had given me an opportunity to do so by learning a sport and developing my skills to try to become as good a basketball player as my knowledge of the game and my talents would allow." Two of his Detroit basketball buddies from Kettering High School, point guard Joe Johnson and center Lindsay Hairston, were bound for U-M and MSU, respectively, and each hoped they could count Jenkins among their Big Ten teammates. But Jenkins had more than basketball on his mind when he was mulling his college choices. "I knew that basketball fame was fleeting and that I needed to have a real plan for the rest of my life," Jenkins said. "That's what made playing in the Ivy League so appealing - the opportunity to obtain a Harvard education." During his playing days at Harvard, Jenkins was a three-time All-Ivy League performer, earning a tryout with the Boston Celtics following graduation, eventually spending several years in the professional ranks in Europe and South America. "What matters most in all of this is not the awards and the trophies and the like, rather, it is that I was given an opportunity to step outside of my old neighborhood and to experience a bigger and more diverse slice of life," Jenkins said. "Someone reached out, on faith, and said, 'Here, let's see what you can do.'" He aims to do as much - and more - as the head of the State Bar, urging his legal brethren to ramp up their commitment to pro bono work in the year ahead and to embrace continuing efforts to promote racial and ethnic diversity in the profession. Jenkins earned his B.A. degree from Harvard in 1974, his master's in public administration from Princeton in 1979, and his law degree from New York University Law School. He is a partner with Dickinson Wright in Detroit, serving as its Chief Diversity Officer. He is sixth member of the firm to head the State Bar. A past president of the Detroit Metropolitan Bar Association, Jenkins has served on the board of the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Detroit Medical Center, and as a member of the City of Detroit Board of Police Commissioners. For good measure, he has served on the American Bar Association Board of Governors and the ABA House of Delegates. In other words, he thrives on community and professional involvement. His wife, Sondra, a fellow graduate of Harvard, earned a degree in applied mathematics from the school in Cambridge, Mass. before pursuing graduate studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She spent the bulk of her career as an industrial hygienist with Borg Warner Chemicals and the former Bendix Corp., later working in the field of human resources. A native of North Carolina and the oldest of four children, she currently is director of Organization Development and Human Resources for the Detroit Institute of Arts. Published: Thu, Dec 9, 2010

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