Hispanic and Latinx Lawyers You Should Know

Today is the final day of National Hispanic Heritage Month, and we are highlighting prominent attorneys of Hispanic or Latin American heritage. “According to statistics from the Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA),” NBC News reports, “Hispanics – who are 18 percent of the population – comprise about 4 percent of U.S. lawyers. For Latinas, these numbers are even smaller; Latinas account for less than 2 percent of American lawyers.” Though these terms are sometimes used as if they were synonyms, “Hispanic” refers to descendants of Spanish speaking populations, whereas “Latina/o/x” refers to descendants of any Latin American population.

Ted Cruz is not only a United States Senator from Texas, but by any measure he is also one of the most accomplished attorneys in the United States. A Cuban American, and a Houstonian from his youth, Cruz earned his JD at Harvard Law, where he was a Primary Editor of the Harvard Law Review, and was a founding General Editor of the Harvard Latino Law Review. Cruz clerked for a time after graduation, culminating in a year clerking for Chief Justice William Rehnquist. He was the first Hispanic clerk to a Chief Justice in history. Still in his 20s, Cruz entered private practice while becoming known as a rising star in conservative politics. In the year 2000, he served as an advisor to then-Presidential-candidate George W. Bush. In 2003, he became Texas Solicitor General, and over the five years in that role argued an incredible eight cases before the Supreme Court. After another stint in private practice, Cruz was elected Senator in 2013, and re-elected in 2017. He has spent his time in that body spearheading the fight to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and passionately championing various conservative causes.

Sonia Sotomayor comes from the other side of the country and, as an Obama appointee, the other side of the political spectrum. Raised in the Bronx, she is of Puerto Rican descent. Like Senator Cruz, Justice Sotomayor earned her Bachelor’s degree at Princeton University. She obtained her JD from Yale Law, where she served as an Editor on the Yale Law Journal and co-chaired the Latin and Native American Students Association. Upon graduation, she was hired on as an Assistant District Attorney for the Manhattan District in New York, then entered private practice five years later as an intellectual property attorney. Sotomayor was appointed to the Federal bench by President George H. W. Bush in 1991, where she gained notoriety as the judge who saved Major League Baseball in 1995. In 1997, she was appointed to the Second Circuit by President Clinton, and then to the Supreme Court by President Obama in 2009.

Sandra Guerra Thompson is the Newell H. Blakely Professor in Law and Director of the Criminal Justice Institute at the University of Houston Law Center, a powerhouse in the Houston legal scene, and one of the most prominent figures in American criminal justice reform. A native of Laredo, like Senator Cruz and Justice Sotomayor she is a double Ivy League graduate; she obtained both her Bachelors and her JD from Yale. Then-Mayor-of-Houston Annise Parker appointed her as a founding Director on the Board of the Houston Forensic Science Center. Professor Thompson is an elected member of the American Law Institute, and took a high profile role in the fight for bail reform here in Harris County. Recently, she has been at the forefront of the movement to raise accountability for law enforcement involved in shootings. This past Tuesday, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner presented her with the Hispanic Heritage Education in the Community Award.

Further Reading:

• The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund

Hispanic Activists You Should Know

In honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month, which today enters its final week, we are shining a spotlight on four important Hispanic activists who are not attorneys, but who have had an impact on United States law.

Joan Baez, the daughter of a prominent Mexican-American physicist, was born on Staten Island in 1941. In her late teens, she found herself immersed in the deeply political folk music scene of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her debut album was released by Vanguard Records 60 years ago this month. In 1963, she entered households all over America through her performance of We Shall Overcome at the March on Washington. As discussed in No Direction Home, Baez radicalized Bob Dylan and introduced him to the folk scene. Often through interpretation of his songs, Baez and Dylan together created an iconic soundtrack to various political movements, including draft reform and lowering the age to vote. Baez has worked tirelessly for a wide variety of civil rights causes in the decades since, and these days posts images of her politically-charged paintings to her official Instagram as she continues to shape policy changes through her compelling art.

Raffi Freedman-Gurspan is not a lawyer, but has influenced the law as an LGBT activist and a White House staffer during the Obama administration. Born in Honduras in 1987, she was adopted by Americans as an infant, and raised in Brookline, an urban town that borders Boston. After a rise to prominence working with the National Center for Transgender Equality, Freedman-Gurspan accepted a position under President Obama as the Senior Associate Director for Public Engagement and the White House LGBT Community Liason. The Obama administration oversaw numerous regulatory changes that improved legal outcomes for transgender Americans. For example, prior to Freedman-Guspan’s tenure, in 2010 the Housing and Urban Development regulatory guidelines were updated to include transgender people under the Fair Housing Act protections against discrimination based on sex. Freedman-Guspan is currently a leader in the fight to reform gerrymandering laws, as a Deputy Director at All On the Line.

Dolores Huerta may be 90, but she remains an active advocate for labor reform and civil rights improvements. She may be best known for co-founding the National Farm Workers Association with Cesar Chavez in 1962. Huerta had previously founded the Agricultural Workers Association. Though originally from New Mexico, Huerta is now closely associated with California. One of the first successful campaigns she worked on was the 1960 effort to get California to provide its driver licensure exam in Spanish. Her decades of activism and lobbying efforts were crucial to the passage of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975, a national labor law landmark. In 2002, she founded the Dolores Huerta Foundation, which promotes civic engagement so that average citizens can impact the legislative process through which laws are created.

Sylvia Mendez started her life as an activist at age 8, as the plaintiff in Mendez v. Westminister School Dist., 64 F. Supp. 544 - Dist. Court, SD California 1946. In that monumental case, the Ninth Circuit held that the policy of segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, paving the way for the 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Mendez was among the first Hispanic students to attend a previously “all-white” public school in California. In 2011, President Obama awarded her a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Now age 84, she continues to speak out about her important experience as a young civil rights pioneer.