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Our failure to include any name above is, in fact, a result of the
inherently impossible challenge to include all deserving names. There
are, in fact, more names than be reasonably placed on this page. Unfortunately,
time and prudence does not allow us to account for every successful
lawyer of African American descent. Several upstanding examples can
be seen in your serving your local legal community. From the Prosecutor
or District Attorney, to the Defense Counsel, Civil Litigator, City
Council Member, Non-Profit Director, School Superintendent, Municipal
Court Judge, Circuit Court Judge, Administrative Law Judge, JAG Corp.
Officer, etc., etc., etc. In honor of those individuals, we have instead
elected to create a listing of other prominent Black Attorneys.
• Thurgood Marshall, head
of the Legal Defense Fund and Supreme Court Justice: When Professor
Vile asked his collaborators for the names of the greatest American
lawyers of all time, the lawyer named to the highest rank was Thurgood
Marshall. A native of Baltimore, Marshall graduated from Lincoln University
in Pennsylvania. Barred from the law school at the University of Maryland
because of his race, Marshall enrolled at the law school at Howard University,
where he studied under Charles Hamilton Houston. Marshall led the NAACP's
litigation effort to end racial segregation in American education. He
was later named by President Johnson as the first African American to
serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. Top
•
Charles Hamilton Houston, Dean
of the Howard Law School and architect of the legal strategy leading
to Brown v. Board of Education: Charles Hamilton Houston is
largely credited with formulating the legal strategy that led to Brown
v. Board of Education. Thurgood Marshall once said that all the
other NAACP lawyers "were merely carrying Charlie's bags."
As head of the Howard University law school, Houston trained a large
group of black lawyers who would lead the legal fight to end racial
segregation. Houston graduated as the valedictorian and member of Phi
Beta Kappa from Amherst College in 1914. After serving in World War
I, Houston enrolled at Harvard Law School, where in 1922 he graduated
in the top 5 percent of his class. Top
•
Hon. William Hastie, the first
African American to be named a federal judge: William Hastie was Charles
Hamilton Houston's cousin and as a young lawyer he worked in Houston's
Washington, D.C., law firm. Hastie was born in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Both of his parents were college graduates. He graduated from Dunbar
High School in Washington and then enrolled at Amherst College. There
he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and was the valedictorian of the Class
of 1925. He followed in the footsteps of his cousin Charles Hamilton
Houston and attended Harvard Law School, graduating in 1930. In 1937
Hastie was the first African American to be appointed to the federal
bench. Top
•
Marian Wright Edelman, founder
and president of the Children's Defense Fund: For the past several decades
Marian Wright Edelman has been an unwavering advocate of children's
rights. A native of Bennettsville, South Carolina, Edelman graduated
from Spelman College and Yale Law School. Top
•
Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., one of
the nation's premier defense attorneys: Johnnie Cochran came to national
prominence for his successful defense of football star O.J. Simpson
who had been accused of double murder. Cochran graduated from UCLA in
1959 and immediately enrolled at the law school of Loyola University
in Los Angeles, where he earned his law degree in 1962. Cochran is now
concentrating on civil rights law. Top
•
John Mercer Langston, first
Dean of the Howard University Law School and the first African American
to hold elective office in the United States: John Mercer Langston,
for whom Langston University in Oklahoma is named, entered Oberlin College
at the age of 14 in 1845. Because no law school would admit an African
American, Langston studied for the bar on his own, which he passed in
1854. His most noted courtroom case was the acquittal of the African-American
sculptress Edmonia Lewis, who had been accused of poisoning two of her
college roommates. Langston later served as the first dean of the Howard
University School of Law. He was the great-uncle of poet Langston Hughes.
Top
•
Hon. Leroy Rountree Hassell,
Sr., Chief Justice of the Virginia Supreme Court, is a native
of Norfolk, VA, graduating from Norview High School in 1973, where he
was a champion debater. He then attended the University of Virginia,
where he was on the Dean's List every semester and earned numerous honors
and awards. Later, at the Harvard Law School, he was on the Civil Rights-Civil
Liberties Law Review. In 1989, at the age of 34, Leroy Rountree Hassell
was appointed to the Supreme Court of Virginia by Governor Gerald Baliles
and was elected by the General Assembly. Justice Hassell was selected
by his fellow Supreme Court justices to be Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court of Virginia, the first time the position has not been awarded
automatically to the most senior justice. The General Assembly passed
legislation authorizing that change in 2002. This is the first time
it has been awarded to an African-American in the 224-year history of
the Court. Top
•
Hon. A. Leon Higginbotham
graduated
with honors from Yale Law School. Thereafter he clerked for Justice
Curtis Bok of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas and served for
a year in the office of Philadelphia District Attorney. With his law-school
classmate Clifford Scott Green, Higginbotham formed a law practice,
Norris, Green, Harris & Higginbotham, which specialized in serving
the needs of Philadelphia's African American community. In 1962, President
Kennedy appointed him to the Federal Trade Commission, and two years
later President Johnson appointed him as United States District Judge
for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania -- at 36, making him one of
the youngest persons ever to be appointed to the federal bench. Fifteen
years later, President Carter elevated him to the Court of Appeals.
He sat as a judge on that Court until his retirement in 1993. Throughout
most of that period, Judge Higginbotham maintained a killing schedule
as teacher, scholar, lecturer, consultant, and advisor. Judge Higginbotham
often spoke of the experiences of racial prejudice and exclusion that
had shaped his social vision resulting in his critically acclaimed books,
In the Matter of Color (1978) and Shades of Freedom (1996).
•
Hon. Constance Baker Motley, the
first black woman to serve as a federal judge: A native of New Haven,
Connecticut, Motley went to Fisk University but later transferred in
1942, New York University where she graduated with a bachelor's degree
in economics. Motley went on to continue her studies at Columbia Law
School where she met Thurgood Marshall. Mr. Marshall offered her a job
as a law clerk in the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund's New
York office. After receiving her law degree in 1946, she became a full-fledged
member of the legal staff. By early 1964, Motley's high-profile work
as a civil rights lawyer had drawn her into the world of politics. From
1964 to 1965 Motley served a full term in the New York State Senate
as the first African-American female senator. In 1966, President Johnson
appointed her a United States district judge, making her the first black
woman to be appointed to a federal judgeship. As U.S. District Court
Judge for the Southern District of New York, the largest federal trial
court in the United States, she was also the highest-paid black woman
in government. She was made chief judge in 1982 and senior judge four
years later. Top
•
Hon. Spottswood W. Robinson III,
member of Thurgood Marshall's Legal Defense Fund team and a long-time
federal appellate judge: Spottswood Robinson III is another of the group
of black lawyers trained by Charles Hamilton Houston at Howard University's
law school. A graduate of Virginia Union University, Robinson was considered
to have had a brilliant legal mind. After serving with Thurgood Marshall
at the Legal Defense Fund, Robinson served on the U.S. Civil Rights
Commission and later on the federal district court and federal appeals
court for the District of Columbia. Robinson died in 1998 at the age
of 82. Top
•
Hon. George L. Ruffin was the
first African American to earn a law degree from Harvard University.
He established a thriving practice in Boston and served as a judge.
Top
•
Conrad Harper, a current member
of the Harvard University Board of Overseers, was the first black president
of the New York City Bar Association. He is a partner at New York's
prestigious law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. Top
•
William T. Coleman served as
secretary of transportation in the Ford administration. A partner at
the prestigious law firm O'Melveny & Myers, Coleman also serves
as chair of the Legal Defense Fund. A graduate of Harvard Law School,
Coleman served as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter.
Top
•
Deval L. Patrick, a graduate
of Harvard Law School, is general counsel of Texaco. A former partner
at Day Berry & Howard in Boston, Patrick served as assistant attorney
general for civil rights. Top
•
Derrick Bell is a widely published
legal scholar and professor of law at New York University. He made headlines
in 1990 when he gave up his position at Harvard Law School in protest
of the school's inability to hire a woman of color to its faculty. Top
•
Vernon Jordan sits on 10 corporate
boards and is a perennial Washington powerbroker. Former head of the
National Urban League, Jordan was a confidant of President Clinton while
a partner at Washington's Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. He
now is a senior managing partner at investment banking firm Lazard Freres
and Co. in New York City. Top
•
Drew Days III is Alfred M. Rankin
Professor of Law at Yale University. He is the former assistant attorney
general for civil rights. He also served as solicitor general of the
United States. Top
•
Charlotte E. Ray is the first woman
to practice law in District of Columbia. Ray was admitted to the Howard
University School of Law in 1870, a year after it opened its doors to
educate future African-American lawyers. She was the second woman to
attend an organized law school in the country. In 1872, she became the
first woman and first African-American woman admitted to the District
of Columbia Bar. Top
•
Dennis Archer is another
accomplished black attorney. He was appointed to the Michigan Supreme
Court, where he served two terms before giving up that job to become
the first Black mayor of Detroit. Archer served two four-year terms
as mayor of Detroit from 1994 to 2001, and during his last year as mayor
was also president of the National League of Cities. Archer, as Co-Chair
of the Democratic National Committee, played a crucial role in carrying
Michigan for President Bill Clinton in 1996 and Al Gore for President
in 2000;After leaving the mayor's office, Archer was elected chairman
of Dickinson Wright PLLC, a two hundred person Detroit-based law firm
with offices in Michigan and Washington, D.C. During his career, he
has been president of the Wolverine Bar, the National Bar Association,
and the State Bar of Michigan. Archer is now the first African American
president of the American Bar Association (ABA). Top
•
Damon J. Keith has had
an illustrious career. He graduated from West Virginia State College
in 1943 and was then drafted into the military. His experiences in the
segregated Army strengthened his conviction to the cause of civil rights.
Keith received a J.D. from Howard University School of Law in 1949,
passed the Michigan bar exam in 1950, and earned an L.L.M. from Wayne
State University School of Law in 1956. In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson
appointed Keith to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District
of Michigan, where he served as chief judge from 1975 to 1977 before
President Jimmy Carter appointed him to the Court of Appeals for the
Sixth Circuit. Keith took senior status in 1995. In 1993, the Damon
J. Keith Law Collection, an archival resource devoted to the substantial
historical accomplishments of African American lawyers and judges as
well as the African American legal experience, was created at Wayne
State University and named in his honor. Top
•
Wade McCree
has always been known as a groundbreaker. He was a member of Phi Beta
Kappa and graduated summa cum laude from Fisk University in 1941. After
a four-year stint in the Army during World War II, he graduated from
Harvard Law School in 1948. At a time when some lunch counters wouldn't
serve black people, McCree became the first African-American judge appointed
to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit and the second African-American
solicitor general in the history of the United States. Top
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