Home > Journals > St. John's Law Review > Vol. 98 > No. 6
Document Type
Essay
Abstract
(Excerpt)
Benjamin “Ben” Crump is the country’s most influential civil rights lawyer. His advocacy led to the arrest and prosecution of George Zimmerman. He has represented the families of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and many others, negotiating record-breaking settlements despite a body of civil rights precedent that is overwhelmingly pro-defendant. Crump is also a modern lawyer who uses press conferences and social media to advance his clients’ cause. To his clients, he is a lawyer, confidante, and friend. Yet, based on the way national media covers him, his significance isn’t always clear. When his work isn’t being erased, it’s downplayed. Articles that compare him to Thurgood Marshall spend an equal amount of time describing his attire.
At George Floyd’s funeral, the Reverend Al Sharpton referred to Crump as “black America’s attorney general, probably because we don’t feel like we have one.” Yet ever since, reporting on Crump omits the second part of Sharpton’s comment, diminishing Sharpton’s point about Crump’s role as public prosecutor on behalf of a community that the federal government arguably does not otherwise does not protect.
Before Ben Crump became the “go-to lawyer” for Black families seeking justice for the murders of their loved ones, before he became a press conference mainstay, he was a Florida-based personal injury lawyer. His national prominence is not the inevitable result of the traditional road to legal stardom, the sort that begins at an Ivy League law school, is followed by a judicial clerkship, and capped off by a coveted position in the Solicitor General’s office. Ben Crump is not that kind of lawyer. He is “a state-college-educated attorney with no establishment connections" who has nevertheless become “one of the best-known lawyers in the United States.”
In a country that loves to mythologize rags-to-riches stories, Crump’s rise is fairy tale-worthy. As inspirational as he is to this author, Crump occupies a different place in the American consciousness than the likes of Neal Katyal and Paul Clement, lawyers just as famous but far less scrutinized for their professional choices. When the press reports on Crump, instead of expanding its understanding of what professionalism looks like, it catalogues Crump’s departures from the norm.
This Essay explores how Crump’s professional persona is racialized. It uses Leah Goodridge’s framing of legal professionalism as a racial construct to explore how Crump is unnecessarily othered. Following this Introduction, Part I describes Ben Crump’s professional trajectory, from personal injury lawyer to the lawyer who gets “the call” when a Black person is murdered by the police. Part II then describes how professionalism is constructed in such a way that undermines Crump’s importance. The Essay concludes by describing the consequences of othering and even erasing Ben Crump’s triumphs.