Dear Future Appellate Trailblazer

If you’ve ever wondered whether there’s room for someone who looks like you—someone who carries the weight of multiple identities—know this: you belong here. We write to you not as distant icons, but as colleagues who once stood where you stand now, asking the same questions, facing the same uncertainties, and daring to imagine a different path.

We know what it’s like to look around a classroom—or a courtroom—and wonder if anyone else shares your story. To walk into this field carrying not just ambition, but anxiety. To wonder whether the way you love, the way you pray, the way you speak, or where you’re from will make you stand out, or be held back.

We’re here to tell you: there is room. And we need you here.

Each of us forged our own distinct paths to appellate law. Some of us didn’t even know this field existed in law school. But we found our way. Not because the system made it easy, but because we kept showing up. Because someone mentored us. Because we finally saw the power of bringing our full selves to this work.

We’ve learned that when you show up fully—as queer, as a person of color, as someone who didn’t grow up around lawyers—you bring something powerful into the room. You expand the narrative. You shape the law in ways others can’t.

And along the way, we picked up some truths we want to pass on:

Come out if you can.

Ed waited until he was 27. He describes it as not so much having come out of the closet, but as “having smashed through the door like a freight train.” It was liberating and life-changing, and allowed him to show up in law, as in all aspects of life, as his authentic self.

Mentorship isn’t nice to have; it’s essential.

Justice Whitener didn’t see anyone in law school who shared all of her identities. Now, as the first openly LGBTQ+ Black state supreme court justice, she makes it her mission to mentor others. She reminds her mentees to pull someone else forward with them. Because one of us at the table is never enough. 

Bias may shape how others see you. Don’t let it shape how you see yourself.

As an LGBTQ+ attorney of color, you will face both implicit and explicit bias. Antonio remembers a judge he clerked for once telling him: “Their assessment does not change your assignment.” The bias is real and exhausting, but it cannot define your purpose or limit your power.

These lessons weren’t learned in textbooks. They came through trial and error, through missed opportunities and hard-won insight, through the quiet moments where we nearly gave up, and the louder ones where we chose not to. We share them with you not just as advice, but as a reminder that you are not alone as you chart your course in this field.

Appellate law is where precedent meets possibility. It’s where you get to argue for a better future and shape how justice is defined and delivered. And it needs people like you.

So as you find your way—whether through trial work, a clerkship, a clinic, or a winding path that surprises you—hold onto this: your story is part of the solution. You’re not here by accident. You’re here to make space, to shift power, and to leave the door open wider than you found it.

We’re proud to walk ahead of you. And even prouder to walk beside you.

With hope and solidarity,

Ed Guedes

Antonio L. Ingram II

Justice G. Helen Whitener

P.S. TAP is here for you—with mentors, resources, and a community that believes your voice belongs at the highest levels of law.