Though she’s miles and decades from
her Midwestern youth, McClure has kept
close the lessons she learned in her
grandfather’s sitting room in Kansas
City, Kan. When she was honored as
one of 2009’s Women Worth Watching
by Profiles in Diversity Journal, McClure
wrote of her grandfather: “He taught me
the value of being able to articulate a
well-reasoned opinion and to never back
down when my position is challenged. I
learned to speak up for the things that are
important to me.”
McClure honed her arguing skills as a
young teen when she took a speech class
in school, with a teacher who emphasized
the art and science of debate. Soon after,
she was imagining for herself a future as a
great trial attorney.
Then she had her Hallmark moment.
McClure’s dad, Louis Plummer Jr.,
worked for Hallmark Cards, based in
Kansas City, Mo., just across the state line
from the family’s home in Kansas City,
Kan. Through a program called INROADS,
which creates internship opportunities for
minority youth, she worked there for five
summers, including one in the corporate
legal department.
“That was my introduction to labor-employment and corporate law,” McClure
says. “They allowed me to see some [Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission]
cases, let me go to an EEOC hearing, gave
me a glimpse of what it was like to work in
a legal department at a large corporation.”
The experience gave her an appreciation
of what it was like to practice the law in a
boardroom instead of a courtroom.
“I know it’s corny,” she says, “but in my
law school application, I really did write
that I was interested in using the law to
help companies operate in a profitable
manner while complying with all the laws
and rules that govern them.”
She earned a bachelor’s degree
in marketing and economics from
Washington University in St. Louis, Mo.,
then decided on Emory University School
of Law.
“In the 1980s, being an African-American
woman, Atlanta’s environment seemed
interesting to me,” she says. “Kansas is
something like 2 percent African-American,
but I’d been to Atlanta before. After my
grandmother died, I drove my grandfather
there for a bridge tournament.
McClure serves on the board of the
Atlanta Legal Aid Society and is former
co-chair of the Georgia Supreme Court’s
Committee on Civil Justice. “That kind of
pro bono work is so important,” she says.
“In the legal profession, you typically have
resources available for criminal defense.
But lately, more than ever, there’s a
great need for civil representation. You’ve
seen that play out in the economy, the
challenges of the last few years—people
dealing with credit-related issues, housing
issues, health-related issues, evictions.
There’s a critical need for legal advice or
guidance in addressing those things.”
It remains an uphill battle, especially
in Georgia, which, she says, “does not rise
to the level of most states in providing
legal representation,” making pro bono
assistance all the more critical.
“To have the general counsel of a
Fortune 500 firm affirming that access to
justice for all Americans is vital just can’t
be overstated,” says Leah Ward Sears, who
was chief justice of the Georgia Supreme
Court when McClure co-chaired the
Committee on Civil Justice. “Teri is one of
the most committed lawyers I know, one of
the business types that really gets it.”
In addition to serving on the board
of the Annie E. Casey Foundation (an
organization started by UPS founder
Jim Casey that aids vulnerable children
and families), McClure is a founding
member of the Leadership Council on
Legal Diversity (LCLD), and serves on
its board. So, it was no great surprise
that UPS’ legal department received a
2011 Employer of Choice Award from the
Minority Corporate Counsel Association. It
was an affirmation.
“We always want our workforce to be
representative of the community that we
serve,” she says. But there’s still plenty
of work to do in the legal profession as a
whole, she adds. Her advocacy work with
groups like LCLD addresses, she says, “the
reduced numbers of minorities that are
getting into law school, and ultimately, in
legal departments. The numbers aren’t
increasing the way they should, within law
firms or in-house departments, certainly
not to the level you’d expect to find, given
the maturity of the profession.”
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