Debra M. Brown is rewriting for the second time! The 57 year old first made history as the first Black woman to serve as a federal district judge in Mississippi and she has become the first Black woman to become a federal chief judge in Mississippi.
The MSU alumna was appointed to the federal bench in 2013 by then President, Barack Obama, making history at the time as the first Black woman to become a district judge in Mississippi.
Born in Yazoo City, Mississippi, in 1987, Brown received a Bachelor of Architecture from Mississippi State University. In 1997, she received a Juris Doctor from the University of Mississippi School of Law.
Prior to attending law school, she worked as an architect in the Washington, D.C. area. Brown worked in private practice at the law firm of Phelps Dunbar LLP for more than fourteen years. From 2012 to 2013, she was a shareholder at the law firm of Wise Carter Child & Caraway, P.A. in Jackson, Mississippi, where she handled a wide variety of commercial litigation matters before both federal and state courts.
On May 16, 2013, President Barack Obama nominated Brown to serve as a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi,
She will be replacing Chief Judge Sharion Aycock, the first woman to be named as a federal district judge in the state.
