Alan Bryan is a nationally-renowned, award-winning attorney, certified professional coach, certified mediator, and law school professor. His most important role and title, however, is that of “Dad.” It was through his widely-recognized work in legal operations and in diversifying the legal profession as an advocate for women (and other marginalized groups) in the legal profession, Alan introduced the world to his children, and particularly to Toughie.
Alan became widely known in the legal profession and beyond through leadership and membership in numerous organizations. There are few male attorneys in the nation who have done more speaking on diversity in the profession and the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women lawyers than Alan Bryan. Indeed, “Toughie” and the concept of “Toughies” have been introduced to a variety of professional organizations and women lawyer advocacy groups across the country and internationally.
Alan Bryan is also a law professor, certified professional coach, and certified mediator reaching thousands of students and attorneys through his work with students, teaching, and mediation practice outside his work as in-house counsel for an international company. His national coaching practice focuses on lawyers and corporate leaders, and likewise gives him a large audience through connections within the executive coaching community.
Professional Speaker Biography for Toughie’s Dad
Alan Bryan is Senior Associate General Counsel for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. where he leads the Office of Outside Counsel Management and Legal Operations, overseeing certain internal operations and processes, as well as the relationship with all company law firms throughout the United States. He also serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Arkansas School of Law, where he created and teaches the first known law school course dedicated solely to the operation of corporate legal departments. Mr. Bryan previously managed litigation at the Fortune 1 company for its approximately 5,000 Walmart stores and Sam’s Clubs across the United States. Before joining Walmart, he was a litigation partner with Arkansas’s then-largest law firm.
Alan is also a certified professional coach who helps executives, lawyers, and other professionals achieve professional excellence and personal satisfaction. He is the President & CEO of Alan Bryan & Company and AB&C Advisors, a coaching practice and consultancy focusing on the legal profession.
The Federation of Defense and Corporate Counsel (“FDCC”), which limits international membership to approximately 1400 attorneys, initiated Mr. Bryan into membership in 2013. He is a member of FDCC’s Diversity, Corporate Counsel, Premises & Security Liability, and Trial Tactics, Practice, & Procedure Committees. He has served as Program Co-Chair and overall Co-Chair for FDCC’s Corporate Counsel Symposium. He is likewise an elected Fellow in the Litigation Counsel of America, limited to 3,500 attorneys in the country.
In 2014, Mr. Bryan co-developed an “International Integration” program to incorporate best practices of Walmart’s U.S.-based legal department in its Latin American markets. An extraordinary and simultaneous opportunity arose allowing Mr. Bryan and two colleagues to create a diversity initiative aimed at improving diversity for the legal profession in Latin America. In October 2014, he helped Walmart announce a development program for underrepresented members of the Chilean legal community which was a direct result of these efforts. The pilot program won Walmart’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Visionary Award and was nominated for the Minority Corporate Counsel Association’s 2015 George B. Vashon Innovator Award.
Mr. Bryan serves on the board of DirectWomen, a national non-profit organization that works to increase the representation of women lawyers on corporate boards. He serves on its Advisory Council, as well as its Strategic Planning, Steering, International, and Development Committees. He additionally supports the 30% Coalition through his work on its Chief Legal Officer initiative.
sustainable action plans. Practical tools were produced that will help move the needle on diversity and inclusion in an impactful way, including through a Model Diversity Survey developed by its Economic Case Working Group. Bryan served as Co-Chair of the 360 Commission’s Economic Working Group. Continuing the 360 Commission’s mission, Mr. Bryan served a year as the Co-Chair of the Corporate Counsel Sub-Committee to the ABA’s Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Legal Profession. Through this work, he led an effort that saw dozens of Fortune 1000 companies agree to use the ABA’s Model Diversity Survey. He currently serves on the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession.
Mr. Bryan is an active member of the National Association of Women Lawyers (“NAWL”) and has served on its Annual Meeting and GCI Committees, as well as participating in its mentorship program. He was a founder of the NAWL Challenge Club, designed to help meet the NAWL Challenge and increase to at least 30% the number of women equity partners in our nation’s law firms. Mr. Bryan is an active participant in the National Association of Minority and Women Owned Law Firms (“NAMWOLF”) where he serves on the NAMWOLF In-House Advisory Council, as a NAMWOLF Practice Area Committee liaison, and as a mentor in its Emerging Leaders Program. He also serves as his company’s representative in the Inclusion Initiative, a collaborative effort of companies committed to an immediate and measurable increase in the retention and utilization of minority and women owned law firms by America’s corporations.
Mr. Bryan is a frequent speaker, panelist, and moderator for his company, bar organizations, and affinity groups. The Association of Corporate Counsel, a global legal association representing more than 35,000 in-house counsel employed by over 10,000 organizations, named him one of its “Top Ten 30-Somethings.” In 2015, the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal named Mr. Bryan one of its “40 Under Forty,” an annual honor for individuals under the age of 40 nominated as best in class by their peers in all industries. In July 2016, he received the Lead By Example Award, the highest honor bestowed upon a male lawyer by the National Association of Women Lawyers, for his role as a leader and advocate for the advancement of women in the profession. In March 2017, he received Ms. JD’s “The Incredible Men” (TIM) Award given to male lawyer in the U.S. who is an active champion for women’s advancement in the legal profession, and who not only values equality and diversity in the profession, but earnestly and enthusiastically supports women and women’s initiatives. In August 2017, he received a First Chair Award for Top Assistant General Counsel. In 2018, the Association of Corporate Counsel named him the Legal Operations Attorney of the Year and Buying Legal Council awarded him its National Process Improvement Award. His initiatives have won him the ACC Value Challenge Award and twice won Financial Times Innovative Lawyer awards.
In the past, he has served in the Arkansas Bar Association House of Delegates, as an officer of the Arkansas Association of Defense Counsel, as a committee member for the Defense Research Institute, and as a barrister of both the W.B. Putman and William Overton Inns of Court. Mr. Bryan participates in Walmart’s Medical-Legal Pro Bono Partnership with Arkansas Children’s Hospital and is a past United States District Court pro bono attorney.
Mr. Bryan graduated cum laude from the University of Arkansas School of Law after serving as Managing Editor of the Arkansas Law Review. He now serves as an adjunct professor for the law school. He was a Phi Delta Theta International Graduate Fellow and a Charles Pearson Fellow while in law school. Prior to law school, he graduated as a J. William Fulbright Senior Scholar and Phi Delta Theta International Fellow from the University of Arkansas.
Over the course of 2015-16, Mr. Bryan served on the American Bar Association’s Diversity & Inclusion 360 Commission. Created by ABA President Paulette Brown, the Commission formulated methods, policy, standards, and practices to best advance Goal III of the ABA. The Commission reviewed and analyzed diversity and inclusion in the legal profession, the judicial system, and the ABA, with a goal of developing