Monica Parham serves as Crowell & Moring LLP's Diversity Counsel, with full-time responsibility for coordinating the firm's implementation of its diversity initiatives. She works closely with the firm's Diversity Council, and Recruiting and Lawyer Development Committees, to address and enhance the firm's recruitment, retention and promotion of attorneys from groups traditionally underrepresented in the legal profession. She also facilitates communications regarding client expectations and assists in coordinating client development efforts, focusing on diversity and inclusion.
Prior to serving as Crowell & Moring's Diversity Counsel, Monica spent twelve years in the firm's litigation practice, where she litigated in numerous venues across the country, including federal and state courts, and at the trial and appellate levels.
Monica received her law degree from the Yale Law School, where she was Finals Chairman of the Yale Moot Court Board and Senior Editor of the Yale Law and Policy Review. She joined the firm in 1994, following a judicial clerkship with the Honorable T.S. Ellis III of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. She is a 1990 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was a Morehead Scholar and was elected Phi Beta Kappa. Monica is a member of the Bars of North Carolina and the District of Columbia, as well as various federal district and appellate courts.
Monica has served on a number of firm committees and is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Crowell & Moring Foundation. She is also an active participant in the firm's pro bono program, frequently serving as Guardian Ad Litem in disputed child custody matters. For her firm activities, Monica received a firm Pro Bono award in 2001 and Crowell & Moring Firm Citizenship Awards in 2005 and 2006.
Monica has spoken widely in the area of diversity generally and diversity in the legal profession specifically. She is currently President of the Women's Bar Association of the District of Columbia for the 2011-2012 Bar year, having previously served on the WBA's Board of Directors and as Co-Chair of the WBA's Litigation Forum. Monica also serves on the Board of Advisors of the Project for Attorney Retention and on the Diversity and Membership Committees of the ABA Section of International Law. In 2010, she was named to the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession's Women of Color Research Initiative Advisory Board, and in 2011 she was named a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. Monica is also a member of the Association of Law Firm Diversity Professionals, Inc. Under her leadership, the firm has received several diversity awards, including the Minority Corporate Counsel Association's Thomas L. Sager Award for the Mid-Atlantic Region (2010) and the Drucilla Stender Ramey Award, awarded to the CMCP majority-owned law firm member that has demonstrated the strongest commitment to diversity, from the California Minority Counsel Program (2011).