Editorial
Front Page - Friday, November 13, 2009
Attorney appointed as German Marshall Fund Fellow
David Laprad
Miller & Martin attorney Chantelle Roberson has been chosen as a German Marshall Fund Fellow for 2010. Roberson was selected from hundreds of applicants to represent the U.S. in fostering transatlantic relations with Europe.
The German Marshall Fund of the United States is a nonpartisan American public policy and grant-making institution dedicated to promoting greater cooperation and understanding between North American and Europe. Each year, the Fund invites a small number of people to build networks of policymakers and analysts in the Euro-Atlantic community. Roberson, along with the other 2010 Fellows, will work on questions of foreign policy, international security, economic development, immigration and other topics important to transatlantic cooperation.
Roberson, who concentrates on civil litigation matters in federal and state courts and serves on the boards of several nonprofit organizations, answered questions about her appointment as well as her reasons for becoming an attorney.
Did you apply or were you nominated?
Beverly Cosley, of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, nominated me. Then I went through an application process that involved writing essays.
What did you write about?
They asked why I was applying for the program. I told them I was shocked I was even nominated. Once I started looking at the impact of the program on a global scale, I was overwhelmed with whether or not I had the ability to go over there and represent my country and my city. I also wrote about my experience as a Chattanooga native, and how we were closed off from the rest of the world throughout my childhood, and now that I’m an adult, I see how much we impact everything around us.
What can you tell us about your agenda?
Our goal is to foster transatlantic relations between Europe and the U.S. We’ll go over there with certain best practices on how we do things in this country and talk with the equivalent of our state senators, mayors and presidents. And then we’ll get their best practices on things like civic engagement, community development, health care and other grand issues.
My passions have always been civic engagement and community development, so I’m interested in learning how they get their citizens and communities engaged in the political process.
What will you be offering in return on those topics?
Once we took ownership of where we live and realized we have to be the change we’re seeking — that if we want our neighborhoods to be cleaner we need to get out there and clean them — Chattanooga changed. Ever since we became more engaged civically, there’s been an underlying excitement to every new thing.
Have you talked with any past Fellows about what to expect?
I don’t want to know too much going in because I want the experience to be fresh. The main thing the people who’ve gone over there have stressed is how life changing it is, that when you come back from that experience, you’ll know how small this world is, how we’re all connected, how we all experience the same things and how we all have the power to change our surroundings.
What do you hope to bring to the table?
I believe I’m the first African American woman from Chattanooga to go. I hope that allows me to offer another perspective. The more diverse a group is, be it race, background, upbringing, what have you, the better-rounded the solution to whatever problem you’re trying to solve will be.
The Chattanooga experience is unique, too. I can’t say I would’ve taken such ownership of my hometown if I’d lived in Atlanta or Charlotte, and I want to share that sense of ownership with my European brothers and sisters.
How did you become a lawyer?
I was a business economics major at Sewanee. I wanted to take my degree and become the first black president of a major bank in Chattanooga. It seemed you were really somebody if you worked around money. And since I wanted to go into the banking industry, I thought I should get a job as a teller. But no one would hire me.
So I went to the career center, and I was crying because I felt like a failure, and in the trashcan was a balled up fuchsia piece of paper. I picked it up and looked at it, and it said “Tennessee Pre-law Program for African American Students.” It was for a program in Memphis that introduced African American students to law school. It was past the deadline, but I applied anyway and was accepted. God had different plans for me.
Why did you go for that instead of continuing to pursue a career in banking?
I’ll tell you when I knew I was going to go to law school. One of our assignments in the program was to argue before a Supreme Court justice, and the justice who came to the school was Adolpho Birch, who was on the Supreme Court of Tennessee. I was petrified. I just couldn’t do it. But he looked at me and said, “I see something in you, and if you don’t go to law school, you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life.” When he said that, I knew what I was going to do.
Are you glad you made that choice?
I love being a lawyer. I can’t see myself doing anything else for a living. It can be stressful, but also rewarding.
Do you have any closing thoughts?
People don’t realize how much of an impact they could have on this world. I know that seems big, but who would’ve thought somebody from Chattanooga would be traveling to Europe to have real discussions with real people about real issues? People can see things in you that you don’t necessarily see.
Working for a law firm like Miller & Martin, I’m surrounded by greatness, so the small things I do don’t seem that big. But being accepted into this program helped me to realize the things we do can potentially affect the world.
For more information about the German Marshall Fund of the United States, visit www.gmfus.org.
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