Beyond "Sellouts" and "Race Cards": Black Attorneys and the Straitjacket of Legal Practice

Abstract

For attorneys of color, the concept of representing within the context of everyday legal practice is neither new nor voluntarily learned; at a basic level, it is what we do whenever we enter a courtroom or conference room in the predominantly white legal system of this country. The ineluctable visibility of racial minorities in the legal profession, as well as the often unspoken but nevertheless deeply felt sense of racially hierarchical positioning to which this visibility subjects us, are aptly expressed in the following droll recollection of a 1960s-era Black civil rights lawyer: A favorite story among Southern black attorneys was of the black lawyer who was to argue a case before the Mississippi Supreme He had prepared his briefs with great precision and scholarship, and was quite confident that the law was in favor of his client that is, as confident as a black lawyer can be in a Southern court. However, in his concentration on the law, he had neglected to look up the proper way to address the Supreme Court before beginning his argument. A stylized, formal address is always used in speaking to an appellate court, differing from court to court, but it's usually some variation of May it please the distinguished Chief Justice and the distinguished Associate Justices of this Honorable Court. Being forced to call upon his instinct for an improvised form of address, he arose, looked up and down the bench, and said, Good morning, white folks. His brief could not have stated the issue of the case more realistically and precisely than this spontaneous greeting.1 Although it is often assumed that people of color initiate or even instigate extemporaneous comments about race in legal pro-