EXECUTIVE TEAM OF THE PBLA—Frank Walker, Lena Henderson, Paul Ellis.
by Mackenzie Phillips, For New Pittsburgh Courier
With the upcoming 2023 elections, the Pittsburgh Black Lawyers Alliance is hosting a series of Legal Candidate Forums as an easy and accessible venue to chat with candidates seeking public office running for legal positions in Allegheny County.
The forums will give the public a chance to see who is running for office and where candidates stand on specific issues.
These events are open to the public and hosted virtually via Zoom, with the full schedule and a way to register for the forums on the Pittsburgh Black Lawyers Alliance’s website. Questions are taken from the public and presented to the candidates in a non-biased setting.
The kickoff to this year’s forums was on Jan. 21, featuring personal injury attorney Todd Hollis as the mediator and Matt Dugan, a candidate for district attorney. Questions presented to Dugan ranged from numerous aspects of their campaign to their intended goals if they were to win the position. For the upcoming forums, PBLA will target specific issues in the legal system in Allegheny County, such as bail reform, firearms and environmental crimes. The next forum will be at 3 p.m., Saturday, March 18.
A problem arises when constituents don’t know what elections are taking place or who to vote for, attorney Frank Walker said. PBLA strives to raise awareness of issues in Black communities for those that may not know how to use their votes.
Walker, the president of PBLA and a practicing attorney in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, said he understands firsthand the injustices people of color face in and outside of the courtroom, making every vote and every ele often, no one knows what happens in the criminal justice system until you’re in it,” Walker told the New Pittsburgh Courier. “You can anticipate, you can speculate based on what you see on TV, what your friends tell you, what you see on YouTube, but no one really knows what happens unless you’re practicing in this field.”
PBLA was founded in early 2020, following numerous media reports of inappropriate remarks —including racist comments—given by former Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Mark V. Tranquilli.
Lena Henderson, founder and now vice president of PBLA, organized the group from her living room. What started as a group of 10-12 Black lawyers on Feb. 8, 2020, has now expanded to dozens of members, all with varying connections within the community.
“We wanted to be an independent group that decided what we were gonna do,” Henderson said. “I like to believe we were instrumental in getting this judge off of the bench.”
Tranquilli resigned his seat in November 2020, on the eve of a misconduct trial, after making racist comments about a juror prompted six separate misconduct complaints against him from his time in both family and criminal court and following a history of inappropriate comments from the bench.
PBLA has also participated in local expungement clinics and has partnered with the Black Law Student Alliance at both the University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University to further expand their educational reach within the region.
Prior to COVID-19, all meetings and forums of the PBLA were in person. Switching to a virtual setting, however, has allowed for the forums to be more accessible to candidates and the public.
“The main mission…could be summed up as equality for all,” Walker said, “and how do we go about that as we make sure that everyone is getting an equal playing field in the courthouse and outside of the courthouse.”
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