This is a list of the first minority male lawyer(s) and judge(s) in West Virginia. It includes the year in which the men were admitted to practice law (in parentheses). Also included are men who achieved other distinctions such becoming the first in their state to graduate from law school or become a political figure.
Robin Jean Davis is an American jurist who served on the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. First elected to fill an unexpired term in 1996, Davis later won full twelve-year terms in 2000 and 2012. However, Davis retired before the end of her second full term in August 2018 after the West Virginia House Judiciary Committee named Davis in articles of impeachment during the Impeachment of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.
William Robert Ming Jr. was an American lawyer, attorney with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and law professor at University of Chicago Law School and Howard University School of Law. He presided over the Freeman Field mutiny court-martials involving the Tuskegee Airmen. He is best remembered for being a member of the Brown v. Board of Education litigation team and for working on a number of the important cases leading to Brown, the decision in which the United States Supreme Court ruled de jure racial segregation a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Robert Morris was one of the first African-American attorneys in the United States, and was called "the first really successful colored lawyer in America."
Franklin Dorrah Cleckley was an American law professor and judge. He was Arthur B. Hodges Professor of Law at West Virginia University College of Law. He taught at the law school from 1969 to 2013. He held the endowed professorship emeritus.
Everett J. Waring was the first African-American person admitted to the Maryland State Bar Association in 1885 and the Supreme Court Bench of Baltimore on October 10, 1885. He practiced before the Supreme Court of the United States and the Maryland State Appellate Court. He represented individuals involved in the Navassa Island riot of 1889, which occurred after African American men were lured to the island to gather guano to be used as fertilizer. The men were subject to inhumane treatment, low pay, and high cost of goods. He lost the Jones v. United States jurisdiction case and the men were found guilty.