List of first minority male lawyers and judges in Massachusetts
Appearance
This is a list of the first minority male lawyer(s) and judge(s) in Massachusetts. It includes the year in which the men were admitted to practice law (in parentheses). Also included are men who achieved other distinctions such becoming the first in their state to graduate from law school or become a political figure.
Firsts in state history
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/George_Lewis_Ruffin.gif)
Law school
[edit]- First African American male law graduate: George Lewis Ruffin (1869) in 1869[1][2][3]
Lawyers
[edit]- First African American male: Macon Bolling Allen (1845)[4][5]
- First African American male to try and win a lawsuit in Massachusetts: Robert Morris Sr. (1847)[6]
- First Chinese American male: Harry Dow (1929)[7]
- First Greek-born male: James Liacos (1952)[8]
- First Latino American male: Lazar Lowinger (1962)[9][10][11]
- First undocumented male: Antonio Massa Viana (c. 2014)[12]
State judges
[edit]- First African American male (justice of the peace): Macon Bolling Allen in 1847[4][5]
- First African American male (judge): George Lewis Ruffin (1869) in 1883[1][2][3]
- First Jewish American male: Abraham K. Cohen in 1912[13]
- First African American male (juvenile court): G. Bruce Robinson in 1948[14][15]
- First African American male (superior court): Edward Gourdin in 1958[16]
- First Syrian Lebanese American male: Elias Shamon during the 1960s[17]
- First Hispanic American male (Cuban American): Charles A. Grabau (1974) from 1979-1985[18][19]
- First African American male (Massachusetts Housing Court): John G. Martin in 1984[20]
- First Asian American male: Richard J. Chin (1974) from 1989-1993[21][22]
- First openly LGBT male: Dermot Meagher from 1989-2006[23][24][25]
- First African American male (Presiding Judge; district court): Elwood S. McKenney[26]
- First Greek American male (Chief Justice; Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts): Paul J. Liacos in 1989[27]
- First Haitian American male: Jacques Leroy in 1994[28]
- First African American male (Justice; Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts): Roderick L. Ireland (1975) in 1997 and 2000 respectively[29]
- First Portuguese American male (Massachusetts Appeals Court): Phillip Rapoza in 1998[30]
- First Albanian American male: Robert N. Tochka in 2002[31][32]
- First Jewish American (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court; Chief Justice): Ralph Gants in 2014[33]
- First Armenian American male (Massachusetts Superior Court): Raffi Yessayan in 2015[34]
- First Indian American male (Massachusetts Housing Court): Neil Sherring in 2018[35]
Federal judge
[edit]- First African American male (federal judge; United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts): David Sutherland Nelson in 1979[36][37]
- First Asian American male (federal judge; United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts): Myong J. Joun in 2023[38]
- First Jewish American male: George Fingold in 1952[39]
- First African American male: Edward Brooke (1948) in 1962[40][41][42]
Assistant Attorney General of Massachusetts
[edit]- First African American male: David Sutherland Nelson in 1971[36][37]
Assistant District Attorney
[edit]- First African American male: John W. Schenck in 1922[43]
- First African American male (president): Wayne Budd from 1979-1980[44]
- First openly LGBT male (president): Mark Mason in 2006[45]
- First Hispanic American male (president): Robert Harnais in 2015[46]
Firsts in local history
[edit]- Charles S. Tsouprake:[47] First Greek American male lawyer in New Bedford, Massachusetts [Bristol County, Massachusetts]
- Isaac Borenstein:[48] First Latino American male to serve as a Judge of the Lawrence District Court (1986) [Essex County, Massachusetts]
- José Ángel Navarro III:[49] First Latino male to graduate from Harvard Law School [Middlesex County, Massachusetts]
- George Lewis Ruffin (1869):[1][2][3] First African American male to graduate from Harvard Law School [Middlesex County, Massachusetts]
- Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr. (1994):[50] First African American male to serve as a faculty dean at Harvard University [Middlesex County, Massachusetts]
- Ralph C. Martin, Jr.:[51] First African American male to serve as the District Attorney for Middlesex County, Massachusetts (1992-2002)
- Andrew Manual Crespo:[52] First Latino American male to serve as the President of the Harvard Law Review [Cambridge, Middlesex County, Massachusetts]
- Takeo Kikuchi (1877):[41] First Japanese male to graduate from the Boston University School of Law. He would later co-found Chuo University in Tokyo, Japan. [Suffolk County, Massachusetts]
- Emanuel Hewlett (1877):[41][53] First African American male to graduate from the Boston University School of Law [Suffolk County, Massachusetts]
- Harry Elam (1951):[41][54] First African American male appointed as a Judge of the Boston Municipal Court (1971) [Suffolk County, Massachusetts]
- John Ward:[55] First openly LGBT male lawyer in Boston, Massachusetts (1977) [Suffolk County, Massachusetts]
- David Hall:[56] First African American male to serve as the Dean of Northeastern University School of Law (1993)
- Luis G. Perez:[57] First Hispanic American male judge in Worcester County, Massachusetts (1987)
See also
[edit]Other topics of interest
[edit]- List of first women lawyers and judges in the United States
- List of first women lawyers and judges in Massachusetts
References
[edit]- ^ a b c Sollors, Werner; Titcomb, Caldwell; Underwood, Thomas A. (March 1993). Blacks at Harvard: A Documentary History of African-American Experience at Harvard and Radcliffe. NYU Press. ISBN 9780814779736.
- ^ a b c Adams, Stacy Hawkins. "George Lewis Ruffin". Richmond Times-Dispatch. Retrieved 2018-01-11.
- ^ a b c "George Lewis Ruffin". Massachusetts Hall of Black Achievement. 2011-01-01.
- ^ a b Hornby, D. Brock (Spring 2020). "History Lessons: Instructive Legal Episodes From Maine's Early Years — Episode 1: Becoming a Lawyer." Green Bag 2d. 23: 195.
- ^ a b "America's first Black Lawyer, Macon B. Allen". African American Registry. Retrieved 2016-10-08.
- ^ Jaynes, Gerald D. (2005-02-01). Encyclopedia of African American Society. SAGE Publications. ISBN 978-1-4522-6541-4.
- ^ "First Chinese lawyer in Mass. honored at alma mater Suffolk University". sampan.org. Retrieved 2017-09-23.
- ^ "Liacos finishes family odyssey from Greece to the high court", The Boston Globe, April 15, 1989.
- ^ Shapiro, Marilyn (May 11, 2018). "A Grand Master in tennis and life—Lazar Lowinger" (PDF). Heritage: Florida Jewish News.
- ^ "Game, Set, Match | Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly". 2003-12-22. Retrieved 2024-05-31.
- ^ "Nuevas raquetas de Babolat: 4 Modelos Nuevos de "Pure Strike"". El Mundo Newspaper. May 14, 2014. Retrieved 2024-06-01.
- ^ Sacchetti, Maria (July 26, 2016). "He was a star law student. And an undocumented immigrant. He passed the Mass. bar, anyway. - The Boston Globe". BostonGlobe.com. Retrieved 2022-10-27.
- ^ Marsh, Daniel Lash (1938). The Story of Massachusetts. American historical society, Incorporated.
- ^ "Long Road to Justice". www.longroadtojustice.org. Retrieved 2023-12-27.
- ^ Périssol, Guillaume (2014). ""The Quality of Mercy is not Strain'd": Ideological and Repressive Modes of Juvenile Justice—A Comparison between Paris and Boston in the Mid-Twentieth Century". Journal of Social History. 48 (2): 289–312. doi:10.1093/jsh/shu082. ISSN 0022-4529. JSTOR 43306015.
- ^ "B.U. Bridge: Boston University community's weekly newspaper". www.bu.edu. Retrieved 2018-12-18.
- ^ Holloran, Peter C. (2017-05-01). Historical Dictionary of New England. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-5381-0219-0.
- ^ Nuestro. Nuestro Publications. 1980.
- ^ "GRABAU'S WILLINGNESS TO TAKE STANDS FINDS HIM IN SPOTLIGHT AGAIN". highbeam.com. The Boston Globe March 30, 1989. Archived from the original on 2015-04-02.
- ^ Kuznitz, Alison (2023-12-21). "Martin, In 1984, Was First Black Housing Court Judge". State House News Service. Retrieved 2023-12-27.
- ^ Asian-American Lawyers Association of Massachusetts. "AALAM's History". aalam.org.
- ^ Columnist, Adrian Walker-. "A judge's plea for justice - The Boston Globe". BostonGlobe.com. Retrieved 2018-12-18.
- ^ Chuck Colbert, A Judicial Orientation Archived 2011-04-27 at the Wayback Machine, Boston Spirit Magazine (November 18, 2008).
- ^ Loren King, Retired Judge Dermot Meagher shares tales from the inner sanctum in his new book, "Judge Sentences.", Provincetown Banner (September 18, 2010).
- ^ King, Loren. "Retired Judge Dermot Meagher shares tales from the inner sanctum in his new book, "Judge Sentences."". Wicked Local Provincetown. Retrieved 2018-12-18.
- ^ admin (2003-11-24). "Elwood S. McKenney". Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. Retrieved 2020-02-17.
- ^ "Paul Julian Liacos | Mass.gov". www.mass.gov. Retrieved 2022-05-05.
- ^ "Leroy Confirmed As Springfield Judge | Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly". 1994-08-29. Retrieved 2023-12-19.
- ^ "Roderick Ireland - College of Social Sciences and Humanities". College of Social Sciences and Humanities. Retrieved 2018-01-29.
- ^ "Chief Justice Phillip Rapoza | Mass.gov". www.mass.gov. Retrieved 2022-05-05.
- ^ "Judge Robert N. Tochka for Massachusetts Superior Court in Massachusetts". Trellis. Retrieved 2022-03-24.
- ^ "Albanian-American Bar Association Mission Statement & History". AABA. Retrieved 2023-12-20.
- ^ "Massachusetts court chief Ralph Gants remembered as a giant of justice, JTA". newengland.adl.org. September 18, 2020. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
- ^ Boyajian, David (2015-02-04). "Raffi Yessayan Now a Massachusetts Superior Court Justice". The Armenian Weekly. Retrieved 2018-12-18.
- ^ Making History:First Indian-American Judge, MA Housing Court, Neil Sherring's Journey, Chai with Manju / INE News & Multimedia, retrieved 2022-04-14
- ^ a b "About - Lynch School of Education and Human Development - Boston College". www.bc.edu. Retrieved 2019-06-22.
- ^ a b "THE HONORABLE DAVID S. NELSON". Long Road to Justice. Retrieved 2023-12-27.
- ^ Raymond, Nate (July 29, 2022). "Biden nominates abortion rights lawyer in U.S. Supreme Court case to federal judgeship". Reuters. Retrieved July 29, 2022.
- ^ "Massachusetts Jewish History". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
- ^ "Ed Brooke won and lost with grace". The Herald News, Fall River, MA. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
- ^ a b c d "A History of Diversity at BU Law | School of Law". www.bu.edu. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
- ^ Martin, Douglas (2015-01-03). "Edward W. Brooke III, 95, Senate Pioneer, Is Dead". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
- ^ YARBOROUGH, MARY H. (2013-10-03). "Learning to exhale: New municipal judge drawn to small town's peace, pace". The Times and Democrat. Retrieved 2023-11-30.
- ^ "Lawyers Journal-2011-June". www.massbar.org. Retrieved 2019-01-05.
- ^ "Mark Mason's Story of Endurance". www.massbar.org. September 2006. Retrieved 2019-01-06.
- ^ "Robert Harnais becomes first Hispanic president of Mass. Bar Association". masslive.com. September 2015. Retrieved 2018-12-18.
- ^ "Obituaries - Charles S. Tsouprake". www.brownalumnimagazine.com. August 2005. Retrieved 2023-12-19.
- ^ "ISAAC BORENSTEIN // Juez retirado de la Corte Superior de Massachusetts". El Planeta (in Spanish). 2011-08-09. Retrieved 2022-07-28.
- ^ Mendoza, Sylvia (December 2019). "A Voice At The Table". www.hispanicoutlook.com. Retrieved 2022-03-09.
- ^ Chotiner, Isaac (2019-03-07). "A Harvard Law School Professor Defends His Decision to Represent Harvey Weinstein". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2019-03-08.
- ^ Butterfield, Fox (1992-07-31). "Black Republican Is Appointed District Attorney for Boston Area". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-06-28.
- ^ "President Biden to Sign Executive Order Creating the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States". The White House. 2021-04-09. Retrieved 2022-02-20.
- ^ "DC Law Said African Americans Could Eat Anywhere. The Reality Was Different. | School of Law". www.bu.edu. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
- ^ Reporter, Bryan Marquard-. "Harry J. Elam Sr., 90, pioneering black jurist in Massachusetts - The Boston Globe". BostonGlobe.com. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
- ^ "A career spent fighting for the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals". Boston University. 5 December 2019. Retrieved 2020-06-13.
- ^ "SE: David Hall Returns for Landon Lecture, Reflects on K-State's Impact". Kansas State University Athletics. Retrieved 2022-03-15.
- ^ Snell, George (16 April 1997). "Space eyed for juvenile court". Telegram & Gazette. p. B2. ProQuest 268637340.