Features

TNJ’s 14th annual class of  “40 Under Forty” high achievers reflects the rich diversity of the country’s Black community: African, African-American, Caribbean-American, Afro-Hispanic and Afro-European. The presence of nine entrepreneurs among them is worth noting.

Margaret Murray Washington already was a well-known educator and women’s activist when she married Tuskegee Institute founder Booker T. Washington and continued that activism during her marriage. On Sept. 12, 1898, the Washingtons gave twin lectures at Old Bethel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C.

When he was eighteen, Claude Scott made up his mind to become an orthopedic surgeon.

As President Barack Obama tries to reshape the U.S. health-care system into one that is based on prevention rather than on reaction to disease

From his Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y., to Cornell University for a bachelor’s degree and a law degree; to a research fellowship at Yale Law School; to a judgeship; then to partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom L.L.P., Stephen C. Robinson’s 26-year career in law followed a road less traveled by most attorneys.

A partner in the entertainment group at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, Lisa E. Davis is one of the nation’s leading entertainment lawyers, representing a broad spectrum of clients. Her career in entertainment law fits perfectly with her passion for the arts. It gives her an opportunity to “help her clients realize their artistic vision and help preserve their intellectual property.”  

Imagine being accused of fraud and learning that your attorney is a former state and federal prosecutor as well as a judge. Clients receive that advantage from Zachary W. Carter. “I have had the good fortune of being able to see the system from a number of vantage points,” comments Carter.

Tracey L. Brown, daughter of the late U.S. Secretary of Commerce Ron H. Brown, grew up in Washington, D.C., and credits the countless examples of legal expertise she saw as a child, including her father’s, with inspiring her to pursue a career in law.

Law-school education once was the almost exclusive preserve of men, regardless of race. It was not until 1956 that the first Black woman...