Historic Day for Haitian-American Bar: Ten Lawyers Sworn In Before U.S. Supreme Court

Lead
Washington, D.C. — In a rare and moving ceremony on Monday, December 8, 2025, ten Haitian-American attorneys took the attorney’s oath before the nine Justices of the United States Supreme Court, instantly joining the tiny cadre of lawyers licensed to argue before the nation’s highest bench.

Body
Clad in dark suits and colorful kreyòl-inspired pocket squares, the group stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the marble-columned courtroom as Chief Justice John Roberts administered the oath that confers admission to the Supreme Court Bar. Among them was Eddy Lagerre, name partner at the Miami-based Laguerre Law Firm, whose office announced the milestone on Facebook moments after the gavel fell:
“Laguerre Law Firm is proud to announce that Attorney Eddy Lagerre is officially admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States.”

Admission to the High Court bar is not merely ceremonial. It is a prerequisite for any lawyer who wishes to file briefs or deliver oral argument in cases that shape American jurisprudence. Candidates must demonstrate good standing in their home state bars, secure sponsorships from two current Supreme Court practitioners, and pass a rigorous character review. Fewer than one percent of the nation’s 1.3 million attorneys ever gain the privilege.

For the Haitian-American legal community—estimated at fewer than 500 practicing attorneys nationwide—Monday’s mass admission is watershed. “We just enlarged the Bawo Lakou,” quipped Lagerre afterward, invoking the communal courtyard of traditional Haitian homes as a metaphor for shared progress. “Today we brought our voices inside the highest lakou in the land.”

The nine other inductees, several of whom immigrated to the U.S. as children during the 1980s refugee wave, specialize in fields ranging from immigration and civil-rights law to white-collar defense and intellectual property. Court watchers say their admission arrives at a moment when the docket is replete with cases affecting immigrant communities—making lived experience as Haitian-Americans potentially valuable to future advocacy.

Reactions poured in from across the diaspora. The Haitian American Lawyers Association of New York hailed the group as “path-breakers,” while Florida’s Haitian Bar Association scheduled a congratulatory gala for January. Even Haiti’s ambassador to the United States, Jean-Robert Placide, attended the brief ceremony, calling the lawyers “cultural ambassadors in robes.”

The Court itself appeared to acknowledge the significance. After the formal oath, Justice Sonia Sotomayor stepped down from the bench to greet each inductee, a departure from protocol observers called “highly unusual.” She reportedly told the group, “The Court needs advocates who remember where they came from.”

Kicker
As they exited onto First Street NE, the ten lawyers paused for a group photo beneath the Court’s towering pediment. In the snapshot, the fluttering Haitian flag pin on Lagerre’s lapel is unmistakable—proof that the diaspora’s long walk to the marble steps has, at last, arrived inside the temple of American law.