Local Lawyer Hopes Supreme Court Nomination Will Inspire Others

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – According to the American Bar Association, only five percent of lawyers in the U.S. are Black and even fewer are Black women.

A young lawyer hopes Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court will change that.

“People of color are still underrepresented in the legal profession in this nation, and so its extremely important for the highest court in our nation to look like America, to look like the people that it serves,” says Charlotte attorney Timaura Barfield.

Barfield has worked as an attorney for three years at Shumaker, Loop, & Kendrick in Uptown Charlotte.

She says the nomination of Brown Jackson to serve on the nation’s highest court is significant, because there are so few Black women who practice law.

“It is extremely rare. There’s often times where I will look around, and I reflect and I see the lack of representation, people that look like me,” she says.

She hopes the nomination will change perceptions about what lawyers look like.

“There’s often times where I would walk into a courtroom or a deposition and I am confused to be someone other than the attorney,” Barfield says.

She says it’s something that’s made her doubt herself more than once.

“And sometimes it will make me second guess myself, am I supposed to be here, right? And is this somewhere I’m supposed to be and seeing Judge Brown Jackson at the high court is a sure reminder that this is where I’m supposed to be,” she says.