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Everyone get up! The competition for the 2022 Lawyer of the Year honors was not close or even small. Our top candidate received over 50% of the vote, while our runner-up (another worthy contender) only received 16% of the total vote. In fact, the new title holder received almost 300 more votes than this year’s silver medalist.
Before we announce which prominent lawyers were top, let’s review last year’s top lawyers at law:
In a year where the Supreme Court’s legitimacy has been repeatedly questioned, it stands to reason that the lawyer who comes out on top might be the one to breathe new life into the nation’s highest court. America needed to distance itself from high moral scandals and voted for a lawyer who would record high history instead.
In the end, it was Justice Katanji Brown Jackson, the newest Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, who took the title of Lawyer of the Year 2022. After more than two centuries, Jackson is the sixth woman — and, more importantly, the first black woman — to serve as a Supreme Court justice. Jackson is not your average Scottsdale judge—and not just because he’s not a white man. He is also the first former federal public defender to serve on the bench.
Congratulations to the finalists for Lawyer of the Year and a very special congratulations to 2022 Lawyer of the Year, Judge Katanji Brown Jackson. With her elevation to the Supreme Court, Jackson offers new hope for women and democracy in America. Every day she inspires a new generation of women of color to enter the legal profession, and that’s what indeed Thank you very much, Judge Jackson.
early: Above The Law’s Lawyer of the Year 2022 Contest: Finalists!
Staci Zaretsky is the senior editor of Above the Law, where he has been working since 2011. He’d love to hear from you, so please email him with any tips, questions, comments, or criticisms. You can follow him twitter Or connect with him on LinkedIn.