Augusta S. Dowd ‘82 was sworn in as the 142nd president of the Alabama State Bar July 16. Dowd is a shareholder and managing lawyer at White Arnold & Dowd in Birmingham. She will serve a one-year term as president of the Alabama Bar, which has 18,100 members.
Dowd has practiced trial law in Birmingham since 1983, when she joined Lange Simpson Robinson & Somerville after earning her law degree at Vanderbilt and serving as a law clerk for Judge Seybourne H. Lynne of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. She has over 30 years of experience as a litigator in federal and state courts.
Dowd is a former member of the Birmingham Bar Association’s Executive Committee and Diversity Task Force, served on one of the BBA’s grievance panels, and also served as co-chair of the BBA’s Grievance Committee. From 2009 until her election as the Alabama State Bar’s president-elect in May 2016, she served as the group’s commissioner for Alabama’s 10th Judicial Circuit and on an Alabama State Bar Disciplinary Committee.
In 2011, Dowd was appointed to the Judicial Inquiry Commission, where she served until March 2017. She is a member of the Atticus Finch Society, the Alabama Law Foundation, the American Board of Trial Advocates, the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, the American Bar Association, and the American Bar Foundation. She has also taught on the adjunct law faculty at the University of Alabama.
“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,” Dowd said. “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.”
Dowd earned her undergraduate degree Phi Beta Kappa at Sewanee-The University of the South before attending Vanderbilt Law School, where she was articles editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review. She met her husband, David Dowd ’82, while they were students at Vanderbilt Law. David Dowd is a partner at Burr & Forman. The Dowds have been married since 1982 and have three children.
