Paulette Brown is an American lawyer who was the president of the American Bar Association for a one-year term from August 4, 2015 to August 2016. She was nominated for the presidency and was later confirmed by the organization's House of Delegates as president-elect in August 2014. She thus became the first woman of color and third African-American person to be president of the ABA. Brown was educated in Baltimore, where she attended segregated schools. She earned a B.A. from Howard University and a J.D. from Seton Hall University School of Law. She started her law practice in 1976.