Leon County Judge Monique Richardson given Parks & Crump Thurgood Marshall Award
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Leon County Judge Monique Richardson was presented the 2023 Parks & Crump Thurgood Marshall Award, the 2nd Judicial Circuit Court Administrator's Office announced Monday.
The award was presented last Thursday at the Tallahassee Bar Association's Past Presidents’ Dinner.
The award “is given to a judge who has shown great leadership and judicial excellence, and provides justice and access to justice," said Leslie Powell-Boudreaux, Executive Director of Legal Services of North Florida, in a news release.
"Judge Richardson’s leadership of the 2nd Circuit Pro Bono Committee in particular made her stand out by increasing access to justice.”
Richardson was first elected to the Leon County bench Jan. 8, 2019.
Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993), the first Black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, first gained recognition as a lawyer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), where he played a crucial role in the legal strategy against racial segregation.
He was the lead attorney in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case (1954), in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. In 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Marshall to the Supreme Court, where he served until 1991.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Leon County Judge Monique Richardson wins Thurgood Marshall Award
