Honorable sheila abdus salaam biography

Born Sheila Turner in Washington DC in , she graduated from Columbia Law School and worked for low-income people in Brooklyn before later serving as a New York state assistant attorney general.

She was widely reported to have been the country's first female Muslim judge. However her surname, which she kept for her career, came from her first husband. The New York Times, external quotes Court of Appeals spokesman Gary Spencer as saying she had told him that she was not Muslim.

Ms Abdus-Salaam was appointed to the New York Court of Appeals by Governor Andrew Cuomo in

"Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam was a trailblazing jurist whose life in public service was in pursuit of a more fair and more just New York for all," Mr Cuomo said in a statement.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman called her death "an enormous loss for New York, our judiciary, and all who knew, respected and loved her".

He described her in a statement as a "thoughtful, thorough and fair jurist".

American judge and lawyer ()

Sheila Abdus-Salaam (née&#;Turner; March 14, &#;– April 12, ) was an American lawyer and judge. In , after having served on the New York City Civil Court, the New York Supreme Court, and the Appellate Division, Abdus-Salaam was nominated to the New York Court of Appeals (New York's highest court) and was unanimously confirmed as an Associate Judge by the New York State Senate. She was the first African-American female judge to serve on the New York Court of Appeals.

Early life and education

Sheila Turner was born on March 14, , in Washington, D.C., where she grew up in a working-class family with six siblings. She attended public schools there, graduating from Eastern High School in While researching her family history as a child, she learned that her great-grandfather was a slave in Virginia.

Turner obtained a bachelor's degree from Barnard College in and graduated from Columbia Law School in Among her classmates at Columbia was Eric Holder, the future United States Attorney General.

Career

Turner took her first husband's surname, Abdus-Salaam, and retained it during her professional career.

Before joining the bench, Abdus-Salaam worked as a staff attorney for Brooklyn Legal Services and served in the New York State Department of Law as an assistant attorney general in the civil rights and real estate financing bureaus. She subsequently served on the New York City Civil Court, from to Abdus-Salaam was elected a justice of the New York Supreme Court in , and served in that capacity from to In , she was designated as a justice of the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court, First Judicial Department by GovernorDavid Paterson. She served as an associate j

In , Judge Abdus-Salaam was appointed to the Court of Appeals. See her full biography HERE.

The first African-American woman to serve on the New York State Court of Appeals, Sheila Abdus-Salaam has dedicated her entire career to public service.

Born Sheila Turner on March 14, , in Washington, D.C., to working-class parents, she grew up with six siblings. She has said that she became interested in the law after watching TV shows like &#;East Side, West Side&#; and &#;Perry Mason.&#; In the late s, lawyer and civil rights activist Frankie Muse Freeman visited Abdus-Salaam&#;s high school and made quite an impression on the young girl. Years later, Abdus-Salaam said of Freeman, &#;She was riveting . . . she was doing what I wanted to do: using the law to help people.&#; (Sheila Abdus-Salaam &#; Strong Foundations, Columbia Law School Magazine, Spring )

Judge Abdus-Salaam graduated from Barnard College in with a bachelor&#;s degree in economics and received her law degree in from Columbia University School of Law, where she was a Charles Evans Hughes Fellow. She began her legal career in as a staff attorney at East Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation. Three years later she joined the New York State Department of Law as an assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights and Real Estate Financing bureaus, where she remained until During that year, she became general counsel for the New York City Office of Labor Services, serving until , the year of her election to the New York City Civil Court bench and the beginning of her distinguished judicial career.

Judge Abdus-Salaam spent two years as a Civil Court judge, until , when she was elected to the Supreme Court of the State of New York for New York County. As a Supreme Court justice, she first sat on the Criminal Term during and In , she was assigned to the Civil Term, where she remained until March of , at which time Governor David A. Patterson appointed her to the Appellate Division, First Department.

In April