m boulette is a partner at Taft law firm, where they practice family law. On July 1, they began their term as HCBA president for the 2024-2025 bar year.
What’s something you never get tired of talking about?
Joy—because it’s such a real conversation. We’ve all done the happy hour networking circuit, and for me those conversations have a formula: each of us talk about where we work, how busy we are, and whatever work we’re doing that sounds most impressive. But just a few times, someone has led me off-script and shared something real, something that brought them joy. Maybe something simple (a funny cat video) or something big (a sense of meaning or a vision of a better world). Either way, the shift in those conversations is so honest. It makes you want to be fully there.
You’re president of the Hennepin County Bar Association for the upcoming bar year. What do you think makes an effective leader? How would you describe your leadership style?
I’m not sure I am an effective leader so much as the beneficiary of folks generous enough to give me a chance and patient enough to bear with me when I mess up.
I also don’t have a good sense of my own efficacy or style, but I can say what kind of leader I want to be. I want to be honest, generous, empathetic, and open. I want to create opportunities for folks to succeed under their own definition of success. I want people to feel valued for who they are, not what they do. I want to contribute to a shared community that tries to leave things better than we found them. Of course, I fall short most of the time; like everyone, I’m a work in progress.
What is your favorite HCBA event or program?
The Judges Social—which is weird because I’m an introvert and after-work events aren’t usually my bag. But the chance to see so many friends in one place, to catch up in ways I don’t get to very often, and just to get off Zoom and into our community—it’s a great use of my limited extrovert reserves. Also, seeing judges out of court is still just so wild to me, like when I was a kid and I’d see my teacher in the grocery store. I just feel kinda giddy.
What are you looking forward to during your term?
Thinking (out loud and with others) about what professional community means in 2024. For me, bar associations are a type of community—one we build around a shared profession. But that idea of community is becoming so much more fraught, and places where we can feel it are harder to find. The question is especially interesting when we think of “community” together with “belonging.” As in: “what communities do we belong in?” or “what lets us belong to a community?”
To be a vibrant bar association, we must be intentional about fostering belonging and community. How can we nurture our professional community and, in turn, let it nurture us? What makes us feel like we belong? What must change for our community to feel welcoming and nurturing to others? I get it; weighty stuff. I’ve got no illusions here, and I’m not trying to get one right answer. But I want to raise those questions this year.
What led you to family law?
I get this question all the time, and I still don’t have a good answer. I have a few "cocktail party replies," all of which are partially true.
In some ways it was an accident. I graduated in a down economy and found a mentor kind enough to offer me a job. I also went to law school thinking I might want to work in legal services, and family law was clearly a high-need area. I’m also just genuinely interested in people’s lives: how they live, who they love, what they value. Then there’s Tolstoy’s line from Anna Karenina: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” So true—at least the second half.
But what it most often comes down to is that I’m never bored. I’m always learning something: about the law, about people, about how to work with strong emotions. There’s always another level. That’s probably not what led me here, but it’s what keeps me doing this. (Well, that and my children’s ongoing demand to be fed, clothed, and housed.)
What is one risk—professional or personal—that you’ve taken? What did you learn from taking that risk?
I came out as non-binary last fall. That felt like kind of a big deal. What did I learn? It’s great to share a wardrobe with your spouse! Having gorgeous nails is a full-time commitment! Waiting for your bangs to grow out is torture!
Also: that authenticity counts for more than faux-success. That living the life I want to live feels so much better than trying to stay safe. And that even the things that have gone worse than I thought are still okay. I’m still here.
What are some considerations that can help attorneys better serve the LGBTQ+ community?
Unlike many of my LGBTQ+ siblings, I didn’t do the hard thing and go through high school as an out bi or trans kid. I didn’t come out to my family when I was dependent and couldn’t be sure of their reaction. I didn’t try to build a family or a career with a marginalized sexuality or gender. And I’ll never have the lived experience of queer people of color.
Really, I only mustered the courage to come out a hot second ago—and with a heck of a lot of privilege. While I’m not saying all that time in the closet was fun, I don’t think I could speak with any authority on systemic changes an attorney could make for the whole queer community.
What I can say is what I’ve appreciated from the legal community. I’ve appreciated the courtesy of judges who asked my honorific or just used “Attorney boulette.” The colleagues and opposing counsels who used my name and pronouns without missing a beat. My firm who made changes to my bio, nameplate, email, and all the rest with real affection. And I’ve appreciated the lawmakers and advocates who have made it clear that who I am isn’t up for political debate. Those things have all really mattered.
What is a great piece of advice you’ve received?
About 6 years into practice, I was tying myself in knots about taking time away from work. I was managing most of my own cases, but my practice wasn’t big enough to have a paralegal or associate. So, if I left, there wasn’t really anyone to manage things. My mentor, wonderfully blunt, told me, “You’re not that important.”
I was so mad. But also, she was right (and still is); I’m not that important. I try to show up for my clients in an effective and empathetic way, but at the end of the day I’m such a small piece of the puzzle.
I always heard a lot about how our egos get in the way of doing good work. I’d never thought about how our egos get in the way of taking care of ourselves.
The best part has been that remembering “you’re not that important” isn’t the same thing as not caring. You care just as much; it’s just not all about you.
What’s a favorite activity to do with your family?
Reading. I’m a nerd. I married a nerd (who won’t mind me saying so). And we seem to be raising three little nerds—of varying sizes. I love reading with them: doing the voices, white-knuckling the cliffhangers, definitely not crying at the end of Charlotte’s Web or The Birchbark House. Right now, my 4- and 6-year-old are reading The Eyes and the Impossible. If you need a reminder of how true children’s literature is, I’ll give you this: “God is the sun. Clouds are her messengers. Rain is only rain,” and “the Sun only wants you to bask; that is truly all she wants; it pleases her to no end.”
What is something that you’ve been enjoying lately?
I’ve thought of like five ways to answer this and can’t pick one. So here’s a few: slightly smutty fantasy books. I’m looking at you, Rebecca Yarros, Leigh Bardugo, Piper CJ, and Sarah J. Maas. They’re fun, they’re engrossing, and they are utterly unlike the practice of law.
All podcasts by Michael Hobbes: You’re Wrong About, Maintenance Phase, If Books Could Kill. I’m particularly all-in on the three-part series on gender affirming care that Maintenance Phase just did and would call it required trans literacy.
Finally, I just asked some of the associates in my group to listen to Glennon Doyle’s interview with Devon Price on We Can Do Hard Things. Price is the author of Laziness Does Not Exist, and said all the things I wish 25-year-old m could have heard (and felt) about how hustle culture is a fraud and a false promise. It forces us to conflate our self-worth with our productivity—which is some straight-up nonsense.