Yolanda Bennett loves a good book.
When she arrives at the Lansing Public Library, she heads straight for the basement, where the entire lower floor is one large used book shop. She knows the woman running the place by her first name. She’s taken her foster kids there. It’s the kind of place an introvert — which is how she describes herself — can be expected to be found.
Bennett isn’t one for the limelight, but she is driven to make a difference. She said taking on leadership roles was never her plan, even if she’s turned out to be pretty darn good at it.
“I’m always willing to volunteer to be a soldier,” the 2023-2024 chair of the State Bar of Michigan Representative Assembly said with a quiet laugh. “I don’t like attention.”
Bennett’s leadership journey began in 2020, when she was tapped to head up the Representative Assembly’s then-new Diversity Committee, an issue she is passionate about.
Leading a committee wasn’t the kind of thing she was used to taking on, but Bennett, a woman of strong faith, said, “I felt God saying, ‘Step out there. What do you have to lose?’” And so she did.
The following year, another colleague suggested she throw her hat in the ring to be the RA clerk. She thought it seemed like a good role for her, a way to continue helping the RA while staying out of the spotlight. At the time, she said, she wasn’t thinking about the fact that becoming clerk put her in line to be chair in three years. Despite her humility on the subject, Bennett has proven herself to be a more than capable leader, one who still has her sights set on increasing the diversity in the RA.
“It’s going to be an ongoing thing. It’s not anything that was going to be fixed during my short tenure (as Diversity Committee chair), but we need more diversity in the RA,” she said.
While running the Diversity Committee, Bennett and her team organized events and other efforts to recruit a more diverse population to the RA “and all the different points of view that come with all of that, because I think we all have something to offer, and you can’t make any changes if you don’t have a seat at the table.”
During her time as clerk, Bennett continued to work with the Diversity Committee, both attending their meetings and offering her guidance. As chair, she hopes to work with the committee again and help them in their efforts.
Her other goal, she said, is increasing the visibility of the RA. In her experience, she said, Michigan attorneys are either very aware of the RA and all it does this — or just the opposite.
She, too, knew little about the final policymaking body for the State Bar of Michigan until she joined the Representative Assembly, and said she still talks to attorneys who are similarly in the dark. She wants to change that.
“That’s probably the first thing I need to tackle,” she said. “If people don’t know who you are or what you do, how are you going to join?”
By increasing outreach to the Michigan legal community, she hopes to see more interest from attorneys across the state wanting to get involved.
“I’m hoping if people understand more on how the RA fits into the State Bar structure, they will not only run for an RA officer position, but even [the] Board of Commissioners,” she said.
Bennett might describe herself as an introvert, but if you were to ask her family, she said, they’d probably tell you what they were telling her since she was a kid: She should be a lawyer.
“My family used to always tell me, ‘You should be an attorney because you love to argue,’” she said with a laugh.
There were also all those legal shows on TV. If it took place in a courtroom, Bennett was watching.
More than anything, though, she was driven by a purpose to protect the children and the elderly. She earned her bachelor’s degree in political science and government from Arizona State University and then, after a break from academia, worked primarily in insurance, including spending time as part of national catastrophe team, flying all over the country adjusting claims for victims of storm damage.
“I climbed roofs and comforted families that lost everything,” she said. “And everything in between.”
She later continued on the path of becoming a lawyer and entered Thomas M. Cooley Law School in 2002.
Still driven to help others, she joined the school’s public interest society, but upon graduating in 2005, she learned a hard truth: Public interest law doesn’t pay off student loans. She started looking for different areas of the law to practice but never lost that initial purpose. She spent six months as a substitute teacher for Lansing Public Schools while awaiting bar results and job hunting before beginning her legal career in 2006 as Lansing’s assistant city attorney, where she worked for the next decade. During her time there, she stayed true to her goal of helping others. She would work with people on the other side of the city’s civil and criminal cases, trying to help them rather than prosecute them.
“If you came to me and you had a suspended license and you went to jail for that, I’d ask them, ‘What are your goals? Do you want your license back? Well, what’s the plan? How are you going to do that?’” she said. “Because I was doing more for that person and society helping him get his license back than putting $180 in coffers and still having him suspended.”
Bennett’s dedication to community service is something she’s maintained her entire career. She’s volunteered in various capacities over the years including mentoring students, preparing taxes for low-income people, serving at expungement clinics, and helping with community events.
From the City of Lansing, she went on to serve as associate attorney for the Lansing Board of Water & Light for seven years. Now, in addition to heading into her new position as RA chair, Bennett has also started a new job as attorney advisor for the Social Security Administration. She’s still learning the ropes, she said. Among other things, there’s a lot of reading to do. But then, that’s never been a problem for Yolanda Bennett.