As clerks of court, we often are faced with some interesting and momentous events that may end up on the front pages of history. Tom Hall’s descriptions of the circus-like atmosphere that sur-rounded the Florida Supreme Court during the Bush v. Gore case come quickly to mind. I’m certain we all have similar stories. In most of these cases we are experiencing history as it is unfolding and do not always know the lasting portent of the events.
Especially for those of us on the East Coast, the historic role of our Courts can go back centu-ries. The Maryland Court of Appeals, recently renominated as the Supreme Court, has its roots in the British Colonies in North America and it saw the events of the nation’s founding and near ending hap-pen around it. It is to the first half of the 19th Century that my mind turns today.
Prior to the Civil War, emancipation, and the reconstruction amendments to the federal consti-tution, the right of African Americans to freely live their economic lives (to say nothing of their social and political lives) was, to say the least, constrained. Some of the constraints were merely and cruelly de facto, some were more openly and no less cruelly de jure.
Sprinkled throughout the history of our fledging nation you can find stories of shopkeepers, artisans, and others who were prevented from practicing their trade merely because of the color of their skin. Many African Americans and other minorities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were legally or ef-fectively precluded from the practice of law, no matter their knowledge, skills and abilities.
One such story is found in Baltimore, Maryland in the 1850s. There, the son of a shopkeeper worked his way through Dartmouth College to graduate with distinction and then labored as an understudy to a lo-cal lawyer to “read the law.” Later, when he thought himself prepared and in the custom of that time, he presented himself to a Baltimore Judge to be examined as to his knowledge of the law, and, if found quali-fied, to be admitted to the Bar of Maryland.
He wasn’t admitted. While the Judge found no reason to question the lawyer-candidate’s knowledge and skills, he could not admit him to the bar because of the color of his skin.
While we do not have a contemporaneous accounting of his emotional response to this rejection, we do know that the would-be lawyer soon left the United States for Liberia in hopes of becoming one of that young, ill-starred nation’s first attorneys. He took his young wife with him and sadly died of tuberculosis within a year after he arrived in Liberia.
We cannot know what would have become of Edward Garrison Draper had he remained in the Unit-ed States and had he been permitted to practice law; we do know from accounts of his Dartmouth class-mates that he was a bright and ambitious person. Perhaps he would have been an early Thurgood Marshall or other pioneering leader seeking to obtain for African Americans freedom from slavery and oppression.
We cannot right this wrong, but we can acknowledge it and erase some of the stigma of that wrong, at least symbolically. The Supreme Court of Maryland intends to do so. In a special sitting in October of this year, the Court will be taking up a motion by John G. Browning, a former justice on Texas’ Fifth Court of Appeals, that Mr. Draper be posthumously admitted to the practice of law in Maryland. (NOTE: Most of the history in this piece is taken from Justice Browning’s 2022 law review article To Fight the Battle You Need Warriors: Ed-ward Garrison Draper, Everett Waring, and the Quest for Maryland’s First Black Lawyer. 53 U. Balt. L.R. 1, Fall 2022.) While the Court has not acted on that motion yet, I suspect that it will receive a favorable hearing.
Mr. Draper’s cause will join other notable acknowledgments of would-be attorneys who were denied admission to practice law during their lifetimes on account of their race. They include:
- Takuji Yamashita – posthumously admitted to the Washington Bar in 2001
- George B. Vashon – posthumously admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar in 2010
- Hong Yen Chang – posthumously admitted to the California Bar in 2013
- Sei Fujii – posthumously admitted to the California Bar in 2017
- William Herbert Johnson – posthumously admitted to the New York Bar in 2019
- J. H. Williams – posthumously admitted to the Texas Bar in 2020
The Supreme Court of Maryland will be live-streaming the special session of Court when it considers Jus-tice Browning’s motion. Please join us, if you can, or watch the proceedings on the Maryland Judiciary’s webpage to mark this long overdue recognition.
After noting this historic event in Baltimore, we should acknowledge our rapidly changing world and the effects those changes will impose on the work that we as clerks do. You have probably heard of the recent case where an attorney filed a brief in court that he had generated through an artificial intelli-gence platform. While the AI-generated text appeared to be cogent, the citations to authority that it gener-ated were artificial, made up, fake. No doubt this won’t be the last we hear of generative AI or its pros and cons; it seems to making a foothold in many industries and will not likely go away as it improves itself.
I asked OpenAI (openai.com) to generate a paragraph explaining how generative AI can improve court case management. While this task was relatively simple, it might have taken me 10 minutes or more to collect my thoughts, write the text and edit it. This paragraph was generated in less than 2 seconds:
Generative AI holds immense potential to revolutionize court case management, offering a range of benefits and efficiencies. By leveraging its natural language processing capabilities, AI can analyze and organ-ize vast amounts of case-related data, including pleadings, motions, and court orders, allowing for more effective case tracking and management. AI-powered algorithms can automate the assignment of judges and courtrooms based on workload and availability, optimizing scheduling and reducing delays. Additionally, gen-erative AI can facilitate predictive analytics, enabling judges and court administrators to forecast case time-lines, allocate resources, and make informed decisions regarding case prioritization. Through its ability to streamline workflows, enhance data analysis, and improve overall efficiency, generative AI has the potential to transform court case management, ultimately leading to more effective and timely justice administration.
While it isn’t in my voice and I might pare it down a bit, this could be a workable opening paragraph to an article explaining what could be a future clerk’s office.
With this brief historical note and a précis of the future, I am very excited about seeing everyone in Detroit in just a few weeks. No doubt we will learn about the past and the future and the vital role we all play in our respective states and this great nation.