at my core
My path to discovering my authentic voice has been one of profound transformation—marked by vulnerability and liberation, uncertainty and calling. What began as an unexpected detour from my college dreams of joining the FBI became a divine redirection that would ultimately define both my scholarship and my service.
Wounded, but not broken
After the events of 9/11 shifted my trajectory, a college advisor’s encouragement led me to law school and into practice. Yet it was in leaving law practice—wounded but not broken—that I found my true calling in the legal academy. For eighteen years now, I have stood before students as a law professor and expert in legal writing, convinced that writing is power, writing is liberation, writing changes lives. It certainly changed mine.
My scholarship centers on identity performance and cultural awareness within legal contexts—work that emerged from my lived experience as a dark-skinned woman navigating a statistically white-dominated profession. What I lacked in practice were not colleagues or mentors, but rather the tools to understand and process how my experiences of professional identity differed from those of my peers. This gap compelled me to establish the ReO Institute in 2020, an initiative to equip the legal profession with inter-cultural awareness and identity performance tools to help recognize and confront harmful bias, empower conscious identity choice, and enable attorneys to better understand the complexities of representing clients within marginalized communities.
My scholarship centers on identity performance and cultural awareness within legal contexts—work that emerged from my lived experience as a dark-skinned woman navigating a statistically white-dominated profession. What I lacked in practice were not colleagues or mentors, but rather the tools to understand and process how my experiences of professional identity differed from those of my peers. This gap compelled me to establish the ReO Institute in 2020, an initiative to equip the legal profession with inter-cultural awareness and identity performance tools to help recognize and confront harmful bias, empower conscious identity choice, and enable attorneys to better understand the complexities of representing clients within marginalized communities.
Honor all people. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the King.
1 Peter 2:17
Through my research and speaking platform, I examine how individuals navigate the multiple layers of their identities within professional spaces, particularly the legal profession. My work explores the intersection of cultural competence, bias recognition, and authentic self-representation—helping legal professionals understand not just what they do, but who they are as they do it.
This calling extends beyond academic inquiry. I am intentional about using my scholarship to foster unity and healing in spaces marked by ethnic and cultural divide. Every research endeavor, every classroom moment, every speaking engagement is guided by the conviction that understanding identity performance and cultural awareness can transform not only individual careers but entire professional cultures.
I continue this work supported by my amazing husband and three precious children, who sustain me through this journey of scholarship and service. As I often say, we are called to engage bravely in difficult dialogues, equipped with both critical thought and compassionate understanding.
This calling extends beyond academic inquiry. I am intentional about using my scholarship to foster unity and healing in spaces marked by ethnic and cultural divide. Every research endeavor, every classroom moment, every speaking engagement is guided by the conviction that understanding identity performance and cultural awareness can transform not only individual careers but entire professional cultures.
I continue this work supported by my amazing husband and three precious children, who sustain me through this journey of scholarship and service. As I often say, we are called to engage bravely in difficult dialogues, equipped with both critical thought and compassionate understanding.