When Lisa Harris Jones started lobbying in Annapolis in the late 1990s, she was almost always one of the few Black women in a room and sometimes the only. She recalled just a few female faces, mostly white, at the capital working to influence state policy, and she was usually surrounded by white male lawmakers and lobbyists.
“I have no memory of a Black female in a partnership position,” she said.
As the first Black woman to own and manage a law practice focused on lobbying and government relations, Harris Jones is known as a “trailblazer” in Annapolis, inspiring other Black women to enter the field and helping open doors.
But it did not come without condescension from the “old boys club” at the time, Harris Jones said. When she was thinking of opening her own law practice, a white male lobbyist laughed at the idea, she said.
“It actually put the fire in me to go out on my own and start my practice,” Harris Jones said. In May 2000, she founded Jones & Malone LLC. But it took a long time to overcome another hurdle: to be taken seriously by legislators and clients and to break the presumption that she only did “Black work.”
Many assumed Harris Jones worked for Baltimore or Prince George’s County or associated her with exclusively talking with Black legislators. And not everyone believed her when she said she owned her own practice.
“I was a woman, I was young, and I was black — [people thought] there was no possible way I could have my own practice and have my own clients,” she said.
White male lobbyists would try to intimidate her outside of bill hearings and sometimes even yell. And one time, Harris Jones was invited to a meeting where her white male client was allowed in but the door was shut in her face. When she tried to go inside, a man came out and blew cigar smoke into her face.
“It took years to shed that,” she said.
Now, Harris Jones said she believes that people choose her firm because they understand she is a smart, hard-working lawyer who deeply understands how the Maryland General Assembly works. “I can represent clients, whether they are Black, white, purple or green.” Read more at Maryland Matters.
Photo: In recent years, the number of Black women in the Annapolis lobbying corps has grown. Clockwise from top left are: Maria Harris Tildon, Pokuaa Owusu-Acheaw, Tiffany Harvey, Lisa Harris Jones and Dytonia Reed. Submitted photos.(Maryland Matters)
