Influential Black Lawyers and Legal Scholars
Our list of influential Black lawyers and legal scholars is composed of leaders in the field who are paving the way for future lawyers. They are doing groundbreaking work in areas such as civil rights, critical race theory, and public activism.
Top 10 Black Lawyers and Legal Scholars from the Last 30 Years
You can also see where the most influential Black scholars and leaders studied, regardless of their field, with a look at The Colleges with the Most Influential Black Graduates.
According to the American Bar Association, a lawyer is a licensed professional who advises and represents others in legal matters. A lawyer has two main duties: to uphold the law while also protecting a client’s rights.
These 45 influential law and legal scholars are lawyers, legislators, judges, politicians, and professors working in the field of academia. They are essential in helping to set legal precedent and shift mindset in areas such as such as civil rights, critical race theory, Black feminist legal theory, race, racism, and public activism. As many of the other influential Black scholars we have ranked in other fields have demonstrated, these are the change makers, those who not only are working to shift mindset on glaring areas of inequality and injustice, but are also champions of the under-represented and wrongly convicted.
Diversity in the legal profession is a critical concern. According to the American Bar Association’s Profile of the Legal Profession, in 2020, approximately 5% of lawyers were Black, while the population of African Americans overall in the United States overall was 13.4%. The percentage of Black lawyers has remained the same for the last decade.
Black Lawyers and Legal Scholars Making Important Contributions to the Field
- Civil Rights activist Derrick Bell was critical in helping to desegregate schools in Mississippi.
- Marian Wright Edelman is a champion for children’s rights.
- Stephen L. Carter, professor of law at Yale, does research and teaches on contracts, just war theory, religion and culture, and American slavery law, among other areas.
- Bryan A. Stevenson, professor at New York University School of Law, is also the executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, which
litigates on behalf of condemned prisoners, juvenile offenders, people wrongly convicted or charged, poor people denied effective representation, and others whose trials are marked by racial bias or prosecutorial misconduct.
- Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, perhaps the most prominent African American lawyer of the last 30 years, is noted for being a constitutional originalist.
Influential Black Lawyers and Legal Scholars
The Black scholars in our list were identified as highly cited and searched people using our machine-powered Influence Ranking algorithm, which produces a numerical score of academic achievements, merits, and citations across Wikipedia, wikidata, Crossref, Semantic Scholar and an ever-growing body of data.
Find out more about our Methodology.
Influence is dynamic, therefore some of the law and legal scholars listed are contemporary while others may be more historical figures. In either case, according to our AI, these are the most cited and searched Black law and legal scholars over the past 30 years.
Note: Scholars are arranged alphabetically
Anita L. Allen
1953 - Present (71 years)Dennis Archer
1942 - Present (82 years)Dennis Wayne Archer is an American lawyer, jurist and former politician from Michigan. A Democrat, Archer served as Justice on the Michigan Supreme Court and as mayor of Detroit. He later served as president of the American Bar Association, becoming the first black president of the organization, which, until 1943, had barred African-American lawyers from membership.Derrick Bell
1930 - 2011 (81 years)Derrick Albert Bell Jr. was an American lawyer, professor, and civil rights activist. Bell worked for first the U.S. Justice Department, then the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, where he supervised over 300 school desegregation cases in Mississippi.Robert M. Bell
1943 - Present (81 years)Robert Mack Bell is an American lawyer and jurist from Baltimore, Maryland. From 1996 to 2013, he served as Chief Judge on the Maryland Court of Appeals, now known as the Supreme Court of Maryland, the state’s highest appellate court. He was the first African American to hold the position.Janice Rogers Brown
1949 - Present (75 years)Janice Rogers Brown is an American jurist. She served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 2005 to 2017 and before that, Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court from 1996 to 2005. She is a member of the Federalist Society and frequently features at events hosted by the organization.Stephen L. Carter
1954 - Present (70 years)Stephen Lisle Carter is an American legal scholar who serves as the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He writes on legal and social issues. Early life and education Carter was born in Washington, D.C., the second of his parents’ five children. He was raised in a family committed to public service. His mother worked as an executive assistant for Julian Bond and M. Carl Holman of the National Urban Coalition. An attorney turned administrator, his father was executive director of the Washington Urban League, and later a vice president at Cornell University. Carter’s gr...J. Michelle Childs
1966 - Present (58 years)Julianna Michelle Childs , known professionally as J. Michelle Childs, is an American lawyer and jurist serving as a U.S. circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She was a U.S. district judge of the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina from 2010 to 2022, as well as previously a state court judge of the South Carolina Circuit Court from 2006 to 2010.Johnnie Cochran
1937 - 2005 (68 years)Johnnie Lee Cochran Jr. was an American attorney best known for his leading role in the defense and criminal acquittal of O.J. Simpson for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. He often defended his client with rhymes such as “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit!” during the Simpson trial.William Thaddeus Coleman, Jr.
1920 - 2017 (97 years)William Thaddeus Coleman Jr. was an American attorney and judge. Coleman was the fourth United States Secretary of Transportation, from March 7, 1975, to January 20, 1977, and the second African American to serve in the United States Cabinet. As an attorney, Coleman played a major role in significant civil rights cases. At the time of his death, Coleman was the oldest living former Cabinet member.Kimberlé Crenshaw
1959 - Present (65 years)Christopher Darden
1956 - Present (68 years)Christopher Allen Darden is an American lawyer, author, and lecturer. He worked for 15 years in the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office, where he gained national attention as a co-prosecutor in the O. J. Simpson murder case.Bernice B. Donald
1951 - Present (73 years)Bernice Bouie Donald is an American lawyer and former judge who served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit from 2011 to 2023. She previously served as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee from 1995 to 2011.Carl E. Douglas
1955 - Present (69 years)Carl Edwin Douglas is an American civil rights, wrongful death, personal injury, employment, and criminal defense attorney specializing in police misconduct cases. He is best known for being one of the defense attorneys in the O. J. Simpson murder case, who were collectively dubbed the “Dream Team”. Douglas was the managing attorney at the law office of Johnnie Cochran Jr., before leaving to establish The Douglas Law Group in 1998. The practice is now known as Douglas / Hicks Law. Douglas’ other notable clients have included: singer Michael Jackson, actors Jamie Foxx and Queen Latifah, and f...Allyson K. Duncan
1951 - Present (73 years)Allyson Kay Duncan is a former United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. She was the Fourth Circuit’s first female African American judge. Background Duncan received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Hampton University in 1972 and a Juris Doctor from Duke University School of Law in 1975. She was an associate editor at the Lawyers Co-Operative Publishing Company from 1976 to 1977. Duncan then served for one year as a law clerk to Judge Julia Cooper Mack of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals from 1977 to 1978.Marian Wright Edelman
1939 - Present (85 years)Marian Wright Edelman is an American activist for civil rights and children’s rights. She is the founder and president emerita of the Children’s Defense Fund. She influenced leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr.Larry Elder
1952 - Present (72 years)Laurence Allen Elder is an American conservative political commentator and talk radio host. Elder hosts The Larry Elder Show, based in California. The show began as a local program on Los Angeles radio station KABC in 1993 and ran until 2008, followed by a second run on KABC from 2010 to 2014. The show is nationally syndicated, first through ABC Radio Networks from 2002 to 2007 and then Salem Media Group from 2015 to 2022. He maintains ties to The Epoch Times, a far-right newspaper published by the Falun Gong movement.Mablean Ephriam
1949 - Present (75 years)Mablean Deloris Ephriam, Esq. is an American television personality and former Los Angeles prosecuting attorney. She is best known as the adjudicator of the courtroom series Divorce Court for seven seasons from 1999 to 2006. She was replaced by Judge Lynn Toler in the show’s 2006-07 season. Ephriam is also known for her judge roles in Tyler Perry’s Madea films.Anthony Foxx
1971 - Present (53 years)Anthony Renard Foxx is an American lawyer and politician who served as the United States Secretary of Transportation from 2013 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Foxx had previously served as Mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina from 2009 to 2013. First elected to the Charlotte City Council in 2005, his 2009 mayoral victory made him the youngest person to serve as Charlotte’s mayor, as well as the second African American to hold the role.Lawrence Otis Graham
1961 - 2021 (60 years)Lawrence Otis Graham was an American attorney, political analyst, cultural influencer and celebrated New York Times best-selling author. Early life and education Born on December 25, 1961 to Richard and Betty Graham, the story of the life of Lawrence Otis Graham began rooted in the segregated Jim Crow era of the south, where his Memphis, Tennessee-born parents were raised and his grandparents owned and operated a trucking company.Roger Gregory
1953 - Present (71 years)Roger Lee Gregory is an American lawyer who serves as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Background Gregory was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania but grew up in Petersburg, Virginia. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree summa cum laude from Virginia State University in 1975 and his Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan Law School in 1978. He worked as an associate for Butzel Long and Hunton & Williams from 1978 until 1982. He co-founded the Richmond, Virginia law firm of Wilder & Gregory in 1982 with L. Douglas Wilder , and bec...Lani Guinier
1950 - 2022 (72 years)Carol Lani Guinier was an American educator, legal scholar, and civil rights theorist. She was the Bennett Boskey Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and the first woman of color appointed to a tenured professorship there. Before coming to Harvard in 1998, Guinier taught at the University of Pennsylvania Law School for ten years. Her scholarship covered the professional responsibilities of public lawyers, the relationship between democracy and the law, the role of race and gender in the political process, college admissions, and affirmative action. In 1993 President Bill Clinton nominated...Angela P. Harris
1961 - Present (63 years)Angela P. Harris is an American legal scholar at UC Davis School of Law, in the fields of critical race theory, feminist legal scholarship, and criminal law. She held the position of professor of law at UC Berkeley School of Law, joining the faculty in 1988. In 2009, Harris joined the faculty of the State University of New York at Buffalo Law School as a visiting professor. In 2010, she also assumed the role of acting vice dean for research and faculty development. In 2011, she accepted an offer to join the faculty at the UC Davis School of Law, and began teaching as a professor of law in th...Thelton Henderson
1933 - Present (91 years)Thelton Eugene Henderson is an inactive senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. He has played an important role in the field of civil rights as a lawyer, educator, and jurist.Eleanor Holmes Norton
1937 - Present (87 years)Eleanor Holmes Norton is an American lawyer and politician serving as a delegate to the United States House of Representatives, representing the District of Columbia since 1991. She is a member of the Democratic Party.Sherrilyn Ifill
1962 - Present (62 years)Sherrilyn Ifill is an American lawyer and the Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Esq. Endowed Chair in Civil Rights at Howard University. She is a law professor and former president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. She was the Legal Defense Fund’s seventh president since Thurgood Marshall founded the organization in 1940. Ifill is a nationally recognized expert on voting rights and judicial selection. In 2021, Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world on its annual Time 100 list.Brian A. Jackson
1960 - Present (64 years)Brian Anthony Jackson is an American lawyer who serves as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana. Early life and education Born in New Orleans, Jackson earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Xavier University of Louisiana in 1982 and a Juris Doctor in 1985 from Southern University Law Center. He also earned a Master of Laws degree in international and comparative law from Georgetown University Law Center in 2000.Ketanji Brown Jackson
1970 - Present (54 years)Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson is an American lawyer and jurist who is an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Jackson was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Joe Biden on February 25, 2022, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate and sworn into office that same year. She is the first black woman and the first former federal public defender to serve on the Supreme Court.Valerie Jarrett
1956 - Present (68 years)Valerie June Jarrett is an American businesswoman and former government official serving as the chief executive officer of the Obama Foundation since 2021. She previously served as the senior advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama and assistant to the president for public engagement and intergovernmental affairs from 2009 to 2017. Before that, she served as a co-chair of the Obama–Biden Transition Project.Wallace B. Jefferson
1963 - Present (61 years)Wallace Bernard Jefferson is a former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Texas, who served from 2004 until October 1, 2013. In October 2013, he joined the law firm Alexander Dubose & Jefferson LLP as a name partner and now practices appellate law.Jeh Johnson
1957 - Present (67 years)Jeh Charles Johnson is an American lawyer and former government official. He was United States Secretary of Homeland Security from 2013 to 2017. From 2009 to 2012, Johnson was the general counsel of the Department of Defense during the first years of the Obama administration. Before joining the Obama administration, he was a federal prosecutor, the general counsel of the Department of the Air Force, and an attorney in private practice.Vernon Jordan
1935 - 2021 (86 years)Vernon Eulion Jordan Jr. was an American business executive and civil rights attorney who worked for various civil rights movement organizations before becoming a close advisor to President Bill Clinton.Randall Kennedy
1954 - Present (70 years)Randall LeRoy Kennedy is an American legal scholar. He is the Michael R. Klein Professor of Law at Harvard University and his research focuses on the intersection of racial conflict and legal institutions in American life. He specializes in contracts, freedom of expression, race relations law, civil rights legislation, and the Supreme Court.Sheila Jackson Lee
1950 - Present (74 years)Sheila Jackson Lee is an American lawyer and politician who is the U.S. representative for , having served since 1995. The district includes most of central Houston. She is a member of the Democratic Party, and served as an at-large member of the Houston City Council before being elected to the House.Lori Lightfoot
1962 - Present (62 years)Lori Elaine Lightfoot is an American politician and attorney who was the 56th mayor of Chicago from 2019 until 2023. She is a member of the Democratic Party. Before becoming mayor, Lightfoot worked in private legal practice as a partner at Mayer Brown and held various government positions in Chicago. She served as president of the Chicago Police Board and chair of the Chicago Police Accountability Task Force. In 2019, Lightfoot defeated Toni Preckwinkle in a runoff election for Chicago mayor. She ran again in 2023 but failed to qualify for the runoff, becoming the city’s first incumbent mayor...Raymond Lohier
1965 - Present (59 years)Raymond Joseph Lohier Jr. is a Canadian-born American lawyer who serves as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Formerly, he was an assistant United States attorney for the Southern District of New York and a senior trial attorney in the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. He was the chief of the securities and commodities fraud task force in the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney’s office. He was recommended by New York Senator Charles Schumer for nomination to the seat on the Second Circuit that was vacated by...Thurgood Marshall
1908 - 1993 (85 years)Thoroughgood “Thurgood” Marshall was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1967 until 1991. He was the Supreme Court’s first African-American justice. Prior to his judicial service, he was an attorney who fought for civil rights, leading the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Marshall was a prominent figure in the movement to end racial segregation in American public schools. He won 29 of the 32 civil rights cases he argued before the Supreme Court, culminating in the Court’s landmark 1954 decision i...James Meredith
1933 - Present (91 years)James Howard Meredith is an American civil rights activist, writer, political adviser, and United States Air Force veteran who became, in 1962, the first African-American student admitted to the racially segregated University of Mississippi after the intervention of the federal government . Inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, Meredith decided to exercise his constitutional rights and apply to the University of Mississippi. His goal was to put pressure on the Kennedy administration to enforce civil rights for African Americans. The admission of Meredith ignited the Ole M...Patricia Millett
1963 - Present (61 years)Patricia Ann Millett is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She formerly headed the Supreme Court practice at the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. Millett also was a longtime former assistant to the United States Solicitor General and served as an occasional blogger for SCOTUSblog. At the time of her confirmation to the D.C. Circuit, she had argued 32 cases before the United States Supreme Court. In February 2016 The New York Times identified her as a potential nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia.Adrienne Nelson
1967 - Present (57 years)Adrienne Camille Nelson is an American lawyer who is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon. She previously served as a judge on the Multnomah County Circuit Court from 2006 to 2018 and a justice of the Oregon Supreme Court from 2018 to 2023.Barack Obama
1961 - Present (63 years)Barack Hussein Obama II is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African-American president in U.S. history. Obama previously served as a U.S. senator representing Illinois from 2005 to 2008, as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004, and as a civil rights lawyer and university lecturer.Morris Overstreet
1950 - Present (74 years)Morris L. Overstreet is a judge. He is the first African-American elected to a statewide office in the history of the State of Texas. He was twice elected to serve on the state’s highest criminal appellate court, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, from 1990 to 1998. As a member of the court, he authored over 500 opinions.Charles B. Rangel
1930 - Present (94 years)Charles Bernard Rangel is an American politician who was a U.S. representative for districts in New York City from 1971 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the second-longest serving incumbent member of the House of Representatives at the time of his retirement, having served continuously since 1971. As its most senior member, he was also the Dean of New York’s congressional delegation. Rangel was the first African American Chair of the influential House Ways and Means Committee. He was also a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus.Leah Ward Sears
1955 - Present (69 years)Leah Ward Sears is an American jurist and former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia. Sears was the first African-American female chief justice of a state supreme court in the United States. When she was first appointed as justice in 1992 by Governor Zell Miller, she became the first woman and youngest person to sit on Georgia’s Supreme Court.DeMaurice Smith
1964 - Present (60 years)DeMaurice F. “De” Smith is the former executive director of the National Football League Players Association . He was elected unanimously on March 15, 2009. He was replaced by Lloyd Howell Jr. on June 23, 2023. As executive director of the NFLPA during the 2011 NFL lockout, Smith played a major role in helping the players and NFL owners come to terms on a new collective bargaining agreement.Bryan Stevenson
1959 - Present (65 years)Bryan Stevenson is an American lawyer, social justice activist, law professor at New York University School of Law, and the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, he has challenged bias against the poor and minorities in the criminal justice system, especially children. He has helped achieve United States Supreme Court decisions that prohibit sentencing children under 18 to death or to life imprisonment without parole. He has assisted in cases that have saved dozens of prisoners from the death penalty, advocated for the poor, and develope...Carl E. Stewart
1950 - Present (74 years)Carl E. Stewart is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He was appointed by Bill Clinton in 1994, and previously sat as a judge of the Louisiana Circuit Courts of Appeal from 1985 to 1994.Emmet G. Sullivan
1947 - Present (77 years)Emmet Gael Sullivan is an American attorney and jurist serving as a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. He earned his undergraduate and law degrees from Howard University. He worked in private practice for more than a decade at Houston & Gardner, becoming a name partner in 1980. He was appointed to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan, to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals as an Associate Judge in 1992 by President George H. W. Bush, and to the federal bench in 1994 by Preside...Clarence Thomas
1948 - Present (76 years)Clarence Thomas is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to succeed Thurgood Marshall and has served since 1991. After Marshall, Thomas is the second African American to serve on the Supreme Court and has been its longest-serving member since Anthony Kennedy’s retirement in 2018. Since Stephen Breyer’s retirement in 2022, he is also the Court’s oldest member.Kenneth P. Thompson
1966 - 2016 (50 years)Kenneth P. Thompson was an American lawyer who served as the District Attorney of Kings County, New York, from 2014 until his death from cancer on October 9, 2016. Early life and education Kenneth Thompson’s parents, William and Clara Thompson, divorced in his early childhood. William was a city highway worker. In 1973, Clara became one of the first patrolwomen in the New York City Police Department.Paul J. Watford
1967 - Present (57 years)Paul Jeffrey Watford is an American lawyer who served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 2012 to 2023. In February 2016, The New York Times identified Watford as a potential Supreme Court nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia.Robert L. Wilkins
1963 - Present (61 years)Robert Leon Wilkins is an American lawyer and jurist serving as United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He previously served as a judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia from 2010 to 2014.Ann Claire Williams
1949 - Present (75 years)Ann Claire Williams is a retired United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a former United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. She is currently of counsel at Jones Day.Patricia J. Williams
1951 - Present (73 years)Patricia J. Williams is an American legal scholar and a proponent of critical race theory, a school of legal thought that emphasizes race as a fundamental determinant of the American legal system. Early life Williams received her bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College in 1972, and her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1975.
This list is far from exhaustive; if you have a suggestion for someone to add, please contact us.
Associations for Black Legal Scholars
- National Bar Association, founded in 1925, is the nation’s largest network of Black attorneys and judges.
- National Black Law Students Association, a national organization formed to protect and promote the needs and goals of Black law students.
- National Conference of Black Lawyers, formed in 1968, is a bar association dedicated to fighting racism and the inequities it creates.
- National Black Prosecutors Association, an organization dedicated to the advancement of Black prosecutors.
- Black Entertainment and Sports Lawyers Association, and organization dedicated to the advancement of lawyers in the entertainment, sports and related industries.
For more the most famous Black scholars of the last 30 years, visit our Influential Black Scholars page.
Other Influential Black Scholars by Academic Discipline
Featured Image Credits Include:
- Clarence Thomas, By Steve Petteway, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States - Clarence Thomas - The Oyez Project, Public Domain
- Stephen L. Carter, By fourandsixty - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,
- Lani Guinier, By John Mathew Smith from Laurel, Maryland, USA - Lani Guinier, CC BY-SA 2.0
- Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, By Mohamed Badarne - Kimberlé CrenshawHeinrich-Böll-Stiftung from Berlin, Deutschland, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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