Rowan Wilson planned to be a teacher, but life took him all the way to chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals. In a full circle moment recently, he spoke to students at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice about the path he took that led to becoming the first Black person to head the state’s highest court. He was joined at the Monday, Dec. 4, event by the school’s president, Karol V. Mason.
Through the hour-long conversation, Wilson highlighted his journey from aspiring to become a professor to attending Harvard University to making partner at the elite law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore. He also underlined ways that lawyers could make change through legal practice.
“[The] obvious roles are prosecutor and defense attorney, but there are social service agencies that have lawyers on their staff, there are lawyers who are [heading] government agencies, there are lawyers at not-for-profits…, [and] there are lawyers who work for the press,” said Wilson. “All those lawyers can bring different types of resources to bear to highlight and to address problems that we face.”
Wilson also pointed out blindspots in the judicial and legal system, including in family court and pretrial detention.
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Mason, a former assistant attorney general in the Obama administration, told the Amsterdam News that she hopes students left this talk with more ideas for building their professional lives or community engagement.
“What it means is giving our students an opportunity to have exposure to the powerful people in the state and to see them as real people, and to hear from them about where there may be opportunities for them and their life, for what their pathway can be to make a difference, so they can see that there are many ways to contribute, to make our state a better place and a safer place,” said Mason.
Gov. Kathy Hochul appointed Wilson to the Court of Appeals earlier this year after her previous nominee, Hector LaSalle, was not confirmed.
Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member who writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.