Maine’s first Black judge made history a second time Friday when the Legislature’s judiciary committee unanimously endorsed his nomination to serve on the state’s high court.
Rick E. Lawrence, 66, of Portland first was appointed in 2000 by then-Gov. Angus King to be a District Court judge, a position he has served in since then.
Last month, Gov. Janet Mills nominated Lawrence to replace Maine Supreme Judicial Court Justice Ellen Gorman, who has retired.
Lawrence’s nomination must be approved by the state Senate, which is expected to vote on the nomination early next week.
District Court Judge Rick E. Lawrence appears before the Legislature’s judiciary committee in the State House on Friday afternoon. Lawrence was nominated in March to the Maine State Supreme Judicial Court by Gov. Janet Mills. Credit: Linda Coan O’Kresik / BDN
The judge told the committee he was “honored and chastened by the nomination.”
Lawrence said he wanted to bring his experience on the District Court to the high court as Gorman had. She was the liaison to the District Court, and he would like to continue her work.
“About 40 percent of the cases appealed to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court are family matters,” he told committee members. “I will strive to be open minded, pragmatic and fair in considering cases before the Law Court.”
After the hearing, Lawrence told reporters that he hopes other Black lawyers in Maine will be encouraged by his nomination to seek judicial appointments and bring more diversity to the judiciary.
“It’s an extraordinary honor and very humbling,” Lawrence said of the committee’s endorsement.
The Maine judge’s confirmation vote in the state Senate will be held less than a week after the U.S. Senate confirmed the first Black woman, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court by a vote of 53 to 47.
“She’s inspiring and so incredibly talented,” Lawrence said. “This is a very positive step for our nation.”
Lawrence was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, the birthplace of W.E.B. Dubois, an African-American sociologist, socialist, historian and civil rights activist. His parents moved there from the Deep South after World War II. Neither completed high school and both worked in restaurants and resorts in the Berkshires. But he and his family experienced racism when they traveled to the segregated South to visit relatives.
District Court Judge Rick E. Lawrence appears before the Legislature’s judiciary committee in the State House on Friday afternoon. Lawrence was nominated in March to the Maine State Supreme Judicial Court by Gov. Janet Mills. Credit: Linda Coan O’Kresik / BDN
“I recall my family being denied service at a restaurant and my parents searching for a motel where we could stay,” he told the committee. “My interest in the law grew out of the protests of the 1960s and ’70s.”
When he was in high school, a guidance counselor urged Lawrence to learn a trade rather than attend college, a suggestion he and his family believed was due to the color of his skin.
Lawrence was considering law school while a student at Yale University but when his father was killed in a car crash before he graduated, he went to work immediately after receiving his diploma.
He attended Harvard Law School after working in insurance for several years before joining the firm Pierce Atwood in Portland. He later worked as in-house counsel for the insurance company Unum before his appointment to the bench.
Jerry Reid, the governor’s counsel, described Lawrence as “humble and unpretentious.”
At left; District Court Judge Rick E. Lawrence speaks to judiciary committee members via Zoom during his nomination hearing at the State House on Friday afternoon. About half of the committee attended remotely. At right; Criminal defense attorney Leonard Sharon of Lewiston listens to Rick E. Lawrence speak before the Legislature’s judiciary committee on Friday. Sharon spoke in favor of Lawrence’s nomination to the Maine State Supreme Judicial Court. Credit: Linda Coan O’Kresik / BDN
“Gov. Mills is deeply gratified to bring forward the first person of color to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court,” Reid said.
Leonard Sharon, a criminal defense attorney from Lewiston, spoke in favor of Lawrence’s nomination as did Fatuma Hussein, executive director of the Immigrant Resource Center of Maine.
Both spoke emotionally about what it meant to have a person of color nominated to the state’s high court.
At left; The Legislature’s judiciary committee listens to the testimony of Rick E. Lawrence at his nomination hearing in the State House on Friday. Lawrence was endorsed unanimously to be on the state’s high court. At right; Rep. Stephen Moriarty asks a question of District Court Judge Rick E. Lawrence during his nomination hearing before the judiciary committee at the State House on Friday. Credit: Linda Coan O’Kresik / BDN
“You have to be resilient to be Black or to be brown in the whitest state in America,” Hussein, a native of Somalia who has worked with Lawrence on getting interpreters in the courts, told the committee. “I cry because this man is being given this opportunity. [His appointment] is courageous.”
Sharon told the committee that his African-American clients have asked him, “where are my peers?” when they see an all-white jury pool. Lawrence’s accession to the state’s highest court represents a step toward changing how people of color perceive and experience justice in Maine, he said.