Attorney Karen Hines

When Attorney Karen Gregory Hines was a young child growing up in Baltimore, at first she had no clue that she would become a lawyer.

“We did a whole lot of laughing in the house and a lot of mentoring occurred in my neighborhood. So, when people asked me what I was going to do with my life, I said I was going to hang out in the bars and get drunk to make people laugh”, she remembered. “But when I was 9 years old, a college student approached me and asked the same question. She was the only person who did not laugh at my response.”

Instead, that young woman told little Karen that she was going to be somebody. One day, when Karen saw a bully picking on another kid in her neighborhood, she had an epiphany.

“I am going to be a lawyer and fight for people,” Attorney Hines said.

That’s exactly what she did. She sought out wisdom from others, attended Spelman College, and graduated Cum laude from  John Marshall Law School in Atlanta. Her first job after passing the bar was working under legendary Atlanta Attorney Leroy Johnson, who was instrumental in civil rights work and was Georgia’s first black state senator. He practiced in nearly every area of law, and he mentored her to do the same.