New voluntary bar for Black women lawyers established in Broward County
Bernice Gaines Dorn Black Women Lawyers Association seeks to empower the legal community
A few years ago, veteran Board of Governors member Hilary Creary realized that Broward County, for all its vibrancy, lacked an organization “specifically for Black women lawyers,” like her.
“I spoke with some friends and colleagues and decided it was time to make history,” Creary says.
The result is the “Bernice Gaines Dorn Black Women Lawyers Association of Broward County.”
Named in honor of Florida’s first Black woman lawyer, the association held “an informative session for potential charter members” at Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad School of Law, Creary’s alma mater, on August 29.
“We had attorneys and judges who answered the call and turned up to support us,” Creary said. “We will hold our official launch and installation in March of 2025.”
Creary was quick to note that Florida Bar President-elect Rosalyn Sia Baker-Barnes, and fellow members of the Board of Governors, are key supporters. The 17th Judicial Circuit announced that Broward County Judge Florence Taylor Barner has been named a judicial liaison.
“With a team of eight, now known as the ‘Amazing Eight,’ including [Board of Governors member] Alison Smith of Broward County, we formed the association with the assistance and support of President-elect Sia Baker-Barnes, who was instrumental in helping us create the organization,” Creary said.
A Tallahassee native, Bernice Gaines Dorn became the first Black women member of The Florida Bar in 1958, after graduating from Florida A&M College of Law. Just as the association draws inspiration from Dorn’s example, Dorn drew her strength from “Invictus,” the William Henley poem.
“It matters not how straight the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”
As a supervising attorney with the Family Law & Victims of Crime Unit for Coast to Coast Legal Aid, Creary knows the hardships women face on a daily basis. Being the first Black woman lawyer in the late 1950s couldn’t have been easy, Creary says. Seven years would pass before the second Black woman lawyer would be admitted to the Bar.
Barely scraping by in law school with the support of her migrant farmworker mother, Gaines Dorn was more focused on making a living than on making history, she told an interviewer in 2018.
“I knew that I had to support myself, so my focus was on learning enough in school to competently practice law,” she said. “I really believed that I controlled my own destiny.”
Gaines Dorn said she benefitted from a FAMU faculty advisor who praised her debate team performance and urged her to go on to law school. When she was admitted, Dean Thomas Jenkins, a former Boston lawyer, helped her find a law school job that paid $50 a month. Later, he helped her find safe housing after she suffered an attempted break-in.
Gaines Dorn’s legal career was relatively short. After practicing with a private firm in Jacksonville for a year, she returned to FAMU Law to teach contract law. She later married and moved out of state with her husband to raise a family.
If anyone knows the power of attorneys uniting for a common cause, it’s Creary. She serves on the Broward County Bar Association’s Board of Directors, and has been active in the T.J. Reddick Bar Association, the Broward County Women Lawyers Association, the Gwen S. Cherry Black Women Lawyers Association, and the Caribbean Bar Association, to name but a few.
The Bernice Gaines Dorn Black Women Lawyers Association of Broward County will fill an important need, Creary says.
“We wanted to create a safe space for professional development,” she said.