Renowned Hispanic Lawyers

A number of Hispanic lawyers have achieved prominence due to the significance of the legal matters they have litigated. Others are renowned because their law degrees provided entry into elected office or lofty government positions, either as members of special commissions or heads of government agencies. Such positions afforded Hispanics the authority to use their knowledge of the law to fashion legislation or government policy that addressed the concerns of their constituents. While the stories of these individuals differ, their careers have in common a passion for creating an equal playing field for Hispanic attorneys, the Hispanic community, and other underrepresented groups.

Dennis Chavez

Dionisio Chavez (1888–1962) was born in Los Chavez, a small farming community in United States Mexican Territory (present-day New Mexico). His parents, David and Paz (Sanchez) Chavez, had eight children, of which Dionisio was third. When Chavez was seven, the family moved to Albuquerque. At school his given name was changed to Dennis. Chavez quit school in the seventh grade and went to work driving a grocery wagon to help support his family.

Chavez took an early interest in politics and, at the age of 29, moved to Washington, D.C. to pursue a position as an assistant clerk in the U.S. Senate.  Although he had never finished high school, he educated himself independently.  After taking a special entrance examination, Chavez was admitted to Georgetown University Law School from which he earned a degree in 1920.  Upon his return to Albuquerque, he established a successful law practice notable for his defense of organized labor and defendants in high profile murder cases.  He began his political career shortly thereafter.

In 1930, Chavez was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. He became the first Hispanic U.S. Senator in 1935. While serving in the Senate, Chavez acted as a mentor to many young men from New Mexico (which had no law school) by providing assistance that enabled them to come to Washington to study law. Chavez served in the Senate until his death in 1962 after a long battle with stomach and throat cancer.

In a sense, Dennis Chavez was the ultimate trailblazer. Like many people who began professional careers as lawyers, he turned his attention to writing laws as an elected official. Importantly, he provided a model for other Hispanic lawyers who chose political careers. A video summarizes Chavez’s career and accomplishments.

Manuel J. Ruiz, Jr.

Manuel J. Ruiz, Jr. (1905-1986) was born in Los Angeles to Mexican immigrant parents.  He attended the University of Southern California (USC) from which he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in law in 1927. In 1930, Ruiz became the first Hispanic to graduate from USC’s Gould School of Law and was admitted to the practice of law in California that same year. 

Throughout his career, Ruiz was faced with unfair discrimination that engendered his support for the rights of the Hispanic community. Because ethnic prejudice kept him from joining an established Los Angeles firm, he began his own law practice and became heavily involved in community organizing and political activism.  Ruiz was admitted to the Bar in Chihuahua, Mexico, in 1932 to pursue a specialty in international private law.  In his capacity as chairman of the Citizens Committee for Latin American Youth (a group appointed by the LA County Board of Supervisors), he worked to improve the living and working conditions of young Hispanics.  Ruiz represented numerous activist groups in important civil rights cases.

As a Mexican American lawyer and activist, Ruiz was the first Latino attorney to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.  He was appointed by President Richard Nixon to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in 1970.  In 1972, Ruiz authored Mexican American Legal Heritage in the Southwest.

Mario G. Obledo

Born in San Antonio, Texas, Mario G. Obledo (1932-2010) slept on the floor with 12 brothers and sisters as the son of illegal immigrants. After his father died when Obledo was five, he was raised by a single mother who preached the importance of education. After serving in the Navy during the Korean War, Obledo graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in pharmacy in 1957, and earned a law degree from St. Mary’s University of San Antonio in 1960.

As a lawyer Obledo focused his practice on fighting discrimination against Hispanics and minorities at the workplace, in public schools and elsewhere. For example, he regularly filed suit against employment discrimination in a public utilities company in San Antonio known for prohibiting the hiring of anyone with an accent and a specific-body type (i.e., shorter than 5 foot 10 inches tall).

Obledo is best known for his tireless efforts to mobilize Hispanics. He co-founded the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, an organization that strengthened the political power of the community by initiating voter registration campaigns that gave thousands of citizens a voice in our democracy. He also created and led important special interest legal organizations that challenged discriminatory practices, including the Hispanic National Bar Association and Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, of which he was general counsel. His experience in civil rights law later in life earned him a position on the faculty of the Harvard Law School.

In 1975, Obledo became the first Latino to head a California state agency.  He was appointed secretary of California’s Health and Welfare Agency, serving until 1982.  In this position he opened doors for many Latinos and other minorities in state government.

Obledo served as the president of the National Coalition of Hispanic Organizations and the League of United Latin American Citizens.  Aside from Hispanic organizations, Obledo also established alliances with other minorities, serving as chairman of Jessee Jackson’s National Rainbow Coalition from 1988 until 1993.

President Bill Clinton awarded Obledo the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998, stating his work had “created a powerful chorus for justice and equality.”  Obledo became known as the “Godfather of the Latino Movement” in the U.S. 

Miriam Naveira de Merly

Born in Puerto Rico, Miriam Naveira de Merly (1934-2018) earned a Bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the College of Mount Saint Vincent and a law degree from the University of Puerto Rico. Naveira’s reputation as a lawyer warranted her appointment as Solicitor General of Puerto Rico (1973-1976), the first woman to hold that position. It was in this capacity that in 1975 she argued an interesting and well-known immigration case on behalf of the government. In so doing, Naveira became the first Latina to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. (Latina Lawyers Before the Supreme Court is a dated review of Latinas who followed in Naviera’s footsteps.)

In 1985, Naveira became the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico.  She was elevated to the post of Chief Justice in 2003, another first for female jurists on that Court. Her service on the Court ended in 2004.  During her tenure as Chief Justice, she established a reputation as a pragmatic and moderate justice. Naveira’s tenure lasted only seven months due to the requirement in the Constitution of Puerto Rico that Supreme Court Justices must retire at the age of seventy. A video of a memorial tribute to Naviera is available with the narrative spoken in Spanish.

Christina M. Rodriguez

Cristina M. Rodríguez was born in 1973 and grew up in a bilingual household in San Antonio, Texas.  Her father is from Cuba and her mother from Puerto Rico. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in history from Yale College in 1995 and a Master of Letters in Modern History from Oxford University in 1998, where she was a Rhodes Scholar. In 2000, Yale Law School awarded her a law degree (J.D.) Rodriguez was an Articles Editor on the Yale Law Journal and a co-recipient of the Benjamin Scharps Prize for the best paper written by a third-year student.

Following law school, Rodríguez clerked for Judge David S. Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court.  From 2004-2012, she was on the faculty at the New York University School of Law.  In 2013, Rodriguez became the first tenured Hispanic member of the Yale Law School faculty.  During her career as a law school professor, she served as a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice.

When President Joseph Biden issued an executive order establishing a presidential commission to consider whether changes should be made to the U.S. Supreme Court, he named Rodríguez as its co-chair. Some of the nation’s best-known legal scholars and experts were named as members of the commission which considered topics such as length of service on the Court, turnover of justices, membership, and case selection. (A final report was submitted in 2021.)

Rodriguez’s views on a variety of legal issues are available on YouTube. The one selected deals with administrative actions and immigration regulation.  

Stephen N. Zack

Stephen N. Zack was born in Detroit in 1947 and moved to Cuba with his parents when he was 2 months old.  At 14 years of age, his family tried to return to the U.S. but was detained and placed under house arrest by Cuba’s communist authorities.  Following the family’s return to the U.S., Zack attended high school in Miami Beach.  He earned a Bachelor’s degree and his law degree (J.D., 1971) from the University of Florida.

Zack began practicing law in 1972, but soon moved to Washington, D.C. to serve as Congressman Claude Pepper’s legislative aide.  He returned to Miami and resumed a legal practice that earned him formal recognition from his profession.  In 1989, he became the first Hispanic and the youngest person to become President of the Florida Bar.  Zack also was the first Hispanic President of the American Bar Association (ABA; 2010-2011).  He served as President of the National Conference of Bar Presidents and as the Chair of the ABA’s House of Delegates, one of the nation’s most influential positions on matters relating to the legal profession.

Zack’s most noteworthy legal work occurred in 2000 as a trial attorney for Vice President Al Gore in Bush v. Gore, litigation that was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court and led to the contested election victory of President George W. Bush. He also represented the victims of sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein. He was general counsel on Florida Governor Bob Graham’s gubernatorial staff, chair of the Florida State Ethics Commission, and a member of the Florida Constitution Revision Commission. In 2022, President Biden appointed Zack to the President’s Advisory Committee on the Arts.

Among his numerous awards, Zack was named 2010 Latino Lawyer of the Year by the Hispanic National Bar Association. The ABA Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession selected him one of four recipients of its 2017 Spirit of Excellence Award. In 2019, Zack received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Lawyer, a monthly legal magazine. Zack was awarded the 2023 Law Firm Leadership Award by the Hispanic National Bar Foundation.

Although dated, a video of Zack addressing the City Club of Cleveland provides an excellent opportunity to understand his views on a variety of important societal issues that involved his career as an attorney.

Catherine Cortez Masto

Catherine Cortez Masto was born in 1964 in Las Vegas, the seat of Clark County, Nevada. Her father’s parents were Mexican immigrants. Her father served as the chairman of the board of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and as the four-term Clark County Commissioner. In 1986, Cortez Masto became the first in her family to graduate from college, earning a Bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Nevada, Reno. In 1990, she graduated with a J.D. from Gonzaga School of Law and was admitted to the Nevada State Bar. She clerked for Judge Michael J. Wendell for a year, a person who was an important mentor. Her career includes four years as a civil attorney in Las Vegas.

Her initial steps onto the Nevada political stage came when she joined Nevada Governor Bob Miller’s staff in 1995 as Southern District Director. Three years later the Governor appointed her as his Chief of Staff, a position Cortez Masto held until 1999. From 1999 until 2001, she resided in Washington, D.C. and worked as an assistant U.S. attorney, prosecuting cases that involved drugs and victims’ rights. Cortez Masto returned to Nevada in 2002 to become the Assistant County Manager for Clark County.

In 2006, Cortez Masto resigned as Assistant County Manager in order to campaign for the position of Nevada Attorney General. Cortez Masto was elected to two terms as Nevada’s Attorney General, but was prohibited by law from running for a third term. In 2016, she made history by becoming the first woman from Nevada and the first Latina ever elected to the U.S. Senate. She was reelected in 2022.

Cortez Masto may be seen speaking about Nevada’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic in this brief video.

Alberto R. Gonzales

Alberto R. Gonzales, the son of Mexican migrant workers who spoke little English, was born in San Antonio, Texas. He was raised in Houston along with seven siblings. After graduating from high school as an honor student, and with no history of higher education in the family, he began a four-year enlistment in the U.S. Air Force (1973). Gonzales was released from active duty to attend the U.S. Air Force Academy Prep School. Following his attendance in this school, he received an appointment to the Academy itself (1975–77). He transferred to Rice University, earning a Bachelor’s degree in political science (1979). He then pursued a law degree and graduated from Harvard Law School (1982).

When he returned to Texas, he joined a private law firm in Houston where he was a practicing attorney for 13 years. In 1995, then-Governor George W. Bush recruited Gonzales to serve as special advisor on border issues and relations with Mexico. His formal government service began in 1997 as Texas Secretary of State which was followed as a justice on the Texas Supreme Court (1999–2001). When Bush became president in 2001, he summoned Gonzales to Washington, D.C. in the capacity of White House Counsel. In 2004, he was nominated by Bush for the post of Attorney General of the U.S. In 2005, he was confirmed by the Senate as the first Hispanic to serve in that post. Gonzales resigned as Attorney General in 2007.

In 2012, Gonzales was awarded the Doyle Rogers Distinguished Chair of Law by Belmont University. In 2014, he became Dean of that Law School.

He may be seen speaking to a conference of young attorneys about actions of the Department of Justice during the Mueller investigation in 2019 as well as biographical information about his own career. 

Mari Carmen Aponte

Mari Carmen Aponte was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico in 1946. Her family moved to the U.S. to pursue a better education. She earned a BA in political science from Rosemont College, a private women’s Catholic university in Rosemont, Pennsylvania. After receiving a Master of Arts in theater from Villanova University, Aponte taught public school in Camden, New Jersey. With the support of an affirmative action program, she became one of only a few Puerto Rican as well as female law students enrolled in a U.S. accredited law program at that time. A Juris Doctor was conferred upon her by the Temple University Beasley School of Law in 1975, subsequently making Aponte the first Latina lawyer in Pennsylvania.

In 1979, Aponte moved to Washington, D.C. to accept President Jimmy Carter’s appointment as a White House Fellow to assist the U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. In this capacity, Aponte became one of the first Latina White House Fellows.

Aponte devoted herself to activities in Puerto Rico. From 1996 until 2001, she was a member of the board of directors of Oriental Group, a major financial and banking services enterprise. In 2001, Puerto Rico Governor Sila Calderón appointed Aponte to be executive director of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration, a post she held until 2004, after which she resumed work for the Oriental Group.

Her diplomatic career began when she became the first Puerto Rican woman to be appointed as a U.S. ambassador. President Barack Obama appointed her Ambassador to El Salvador in 2010, a post she held until 2015. (Aponte is often mistakenly credited with being the first Latina to serve as a U.S. Ambassador, a distinction that rightly belongs to Mari-Luci Jaramillo who served as Ambassador to Honduras under the Carter administration from 1977-1980.) In 2016, Aponte began service as acting assistant secretary for the Western Hemisphere for the U.S. Department of State, acting as the top U.S. diplomat for Latin America. Aponte was nominated by President Biden to serve as Ambassador to Panama, receiving Senate confirmation in 2022.

Aponte has been an influential member of significant professional organizations. While practicing law in Washington, D.C., she cofounded one of the first minority-owned law firms. In 1984, Aponte was elected the first woman president of the Hispanic National Bar Association. Her terms in leadership positions were noteworthy for their advocacy for women and the Hispanic community. She chaired the Minority Women Subcommittee of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Opportunities for Minorities in the Profession, and served on the board of directors for the National Council of La Raza and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Aponte also has devoted herself to a variety of community organizations. Some of these include the District of Columbia Judicial Nomination Commission, the Latino Advisory Council for the Smithsonian National Museum of Washington, D.C., the Kennedy Center Advisory Board, and the National Alliance for Hispanic Health.  She became a member of William & Mary’s Board of Visitors in 2019.

Aponte’s remarks about the importance of her education and the role that teachers played are available in a brief video.

Jennifer Salinas

Like all too many Hispanics, Jennifer Salinas made her way to a successful professional career by having to overcome the implicit biases and low expectations of the people with whom she studied and worked. She was the first person in her family to graduate from high school. Young women in the predominately Latino community in which Salinas was raised were not ordinarily encouraged to pursue higher education.

Nonetheless, Salinas earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from San Diego State in 1995 and her Juris Doctor degree, cum laude, from Loyola University Los Angeles in 1998. She was admitted to the bar in both California and the District of Columbia. Given the numerous administrative responsibilities she assumed during her corporate career, Salinas nonetheless completed Harvard University’s Executive Leadership Program.

Her career began with twenty years in private practice. Salinas was an equity partner at an AmLaw 100 law firm, the definitive ranking of the 100 largest law firms in the U.S., where she was lead counsel for a number of large patent and trademark infringement matters. After leaving private practice, her work in corporate law began at Lenovo, a Fortune 500 multinational technology company. She began as Executive Director of Global Litigation and later added the role of General Counsel of the Infrastructure Solutions Group. As of April, 2022, Salinas became the Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Cerence, an industry leader in automotive technology. In this role Salinas served as a strategic advisor to the leadership team and Board of Directors, and led the legal organization in a wide range of matters.

Apart from her professional experience, Salinas has sought to promote the careers of Hispanics and women in the legal industry. While in private practice, she was a member of the senior management-level Diversity & Inclusion Strategic Council and led the Women’s Lawyer Group. At Lenovo, Salinas was one of three executive sponsors and a board member of Lenovo’s enterprise-wide Hispanic employee resource group, Hispanics of Lenovo Association. Beginning in 2009, Salinas was an active member of the Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA), and served as its National President from 2018 to 2019. While holding the office, she broke all fundraising records, leading to expanded Latina leadership programs, networking opportunities, and scholarships for both students and young lawyers. Salinas was instrumental in inaugurating events intended to diversify the profession, including the HNBA’s Intellectual Property Law Institute and forthcoming Law School Sin Limites.

Salinas has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Latina Lawyers Bar Association’s Mary V. Orozco Abriendo Caminos Award. The Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting named her one of the nation’s Top 50 Most Powerful Latinas. Lawyers of Color, a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting diversity in the legal profession and advancing democracy and equality in marginalized communities, named Salinas to its 2023 annual Power List that recognizes the most influential minority attorneys and allies in the U.S. 

Her professional stature is reflected in memberships on the boards of the Orange County Chapter of the Federal Bar Association, the Public Law Center, and the Legal Aid of North Carolina.