Adante Pointer is well known for defending victims of police brutality as a lawyer in the office of the well known civil rights attorney, John L. Burris. Doing this work in the Bay Area of California hasn’t been easy, and what happened to Pointer must make it even harder.
According to Mercury News, “Pointer was himself the victim of misconduct by Oakland Police Department officers, whom he claims held him at gunpoint and illegally searched his car in a 2017 traffic stop.”
Now he’s speaking out, but he’s also said, “I am so used to representing people. I was unsure I wanted to be the subject of the news.”
He’s not the only lawyer that’s known for taking on these sorts of cases. There are plenty of Black lawyers who are making a name for themselves this way.
CNN profiled Black lawyers like L. Chris Stewart, Benjamin Crump, S. Lee Merritt, and Michele K. Rayner-Goolsby in 2019. The profiles noted issues ranging from depression and disruptions to being targeted by people who don’t want them doing this work.
For those Black lawyers fighting for Black people in the courtroom, there are many risks. Don’t think that once they leave work that it’s over.
They are Black people with lives, families, and desires, too, which means they and their loved ones can be targeted anywhere in the fight against racial injustice.