News Post

ALABAMA STATE BAR
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: TUESDAY, JULY 18, 2017

MONTGOMERY – The Alabama State Bar on Saturday swore in Birmingham attorney Augusta S. Dowd of White Arnold & Dowd P.C. as the 142^nd president of the 18,100-member organization.

“I am thankful for the support of those who considered me worthy of the task, and I will work hard every day of my term to honor the trust all of you have placed in me,” said Dowd. “Those who know me know how much I value relationships. One of my key impact areas for this year is to improve and solidify the relationships within our bar, the relationship between the bar and the judiciary, and the relationship between the bar and the general public we serve. I am looking forward to the year ahead, and I hope to meet and interact with as many of our members as possible along the way.”

Born and raised in Birmingham, Dowd graduated from the University of the South and Vanderbilt University School of Law, where she served as articles editor for the Vanderbilt Law Review. After graduating from law school in 1982, she clerked for the Honorable Judge Seybourne H. Lynne of the Northern District of Alabama. Dowd began her law practice in 1983 with Lange, Simpson, Robinson & Somerville of Birmingham, where she practiced until her third child was born in 1990. She spent most of the 1990s at home with her children before returning to the practice of law in 2000 to join the firm that eventually restructured in 2003 to become White Arnold & Dowd P.C. Dowd became managing lawyer when the firm restructured, and she continues to hold that position.

Committed to our state bar’s ideal that “lawyers render service,” Dowd has been involved in bar activities on both the local, state and national levels. She was a member of the Birmingham Bar Association’s (“BBA”) Executive Committee and Diversity Task Force and is a Fellow of the Birmingham Bar Foundation. She also served on one of the BBA’s grievance panels and as one of the co-chairs of the BBA’s Grievance Committee. Dowd created the original course template for and led the inaugural class of the BBA’s Future Leaders Forum. From 2009 until her election as president-elect in May 2016, Dowd served as an Alabama State Bar Commissioner representing the 10^th Judicial Circuit (Jefferson County) and on a State Bar Disciplinary Committee. In 2011, the Board of Bar Commissioners appointed Dowd to one of the two lawyer positions on the Judicial Inquiry Commission, where she served until March 2017. Dowd is a member of the Atticus Finch Society as well as a Fellow of the Alabama Law Foundation. She is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates, where she served as president (2015) of the Alabama Chapter. She is a member of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, a long-standing member of the American Bar Association, and a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. Dowd served as an adjunct professor at the University of Alabama School of Law, where she instructed students in advanced civil procedure.

Active in the Birmingham community, Dowd has volunteered on behalf of multiple charitable, educational and religious organizations, including the YWCA of Central Alabama, where she was a member of the Board of Directors from 2010 – 2016, and the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama, where she has served as assistant chancellor to the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama since 2009.

She and her husband, David D. Dowd, III, a corporate attorney and partner at Burr & Forman LLP, have been married since 1982. They have three children: Bevan, Grace and David, IV.

During the ceremony, Sam Irby of Irby & Heard P.C. (Fairhope) was installed as the bar’s president-elect. Irby will serve one year in this role before assuming the presidency in June 2018.