Member Spotlight: D’Bria Bradshaw

Member Spotlight: D’Bria Bradshaw

10.7.2020

By Christian Nolan

Bradshaw is currently director of Business & Legal Affairs for Curastory, a start-up media company, and a document review attorney at Consilio, LLC. She lives in Miami and works in Miramar, Florida.

Who are your heroes in the legal world?
My muses are Thurgood Marshall, Johnnie Cochran and Willie Gary. I admire them for their social justice work and for using their platform to encourage and assist the next generation of Black attorneys.

If you didn’t become an attorney, what career path would you have pursued and why?
Journalism. I have a passion for fact-finding and history and a natural ability to interview, write stories about and build relationships with people of all backgrounds and walks of life.

If you could dine with any lawyers – real or fictional – from any time in history, who would it be and what would you discuss?
I would dine with Charles Hamilton Houston. While growing up, my mom always instilled in me a sense of pride for my history – Black History. I was part of a Black History & Culture Brain Bowl in high school, and one of the books we had to read was “Eyes on the Prize,” by Juan Williams. I learned a lot about Charlie Houston and his being an integral part of the Civil Rights movement and becoming known as the lawyer who dismantled Jim Crow laws. I would want to talk with him about how he became interested in the legal field, what was it like mentoring Thurgood Marshall, what it was like arguing in front of the Supreme Court and what it was like challenging the separate-but- equal doctrine that had become the law after Plessy v. Ferguson.

What is your favorite book, movie and television show?
I don’t have just one of each, so I’ll give you three: My favorite books are “The Great Gatsby,” “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” and “The Mamba Mentality,” by Kobe Bryant; my favorite movies are “Friday,” “Do the Right Thing” and “Why Did I Get Married?”; and my favorite television shows are “Catfish,” “My 600-lb Life” and “Black-ish.”

How did you decide on your practice area?
I’m still what most would call a baby lawyer – I was just sworn in, in January 2020. I’ve had a love of sports since high school. Nelson Mandela once said, “Sport has the power to change the world.” I knew from an early age that I was going to be a lawyer, my passion for working in sports developed in high school and heightened during my time at the University of Central Florida (UCF), where I minored in Sports Management. Merging two passions – law and sports – is an easy decision for me, but breaking into the sports industry as a young professional and not as a student trying to get an internship isn’t cut-and-dried.

What is the best life lesson that you have learned?
Marcus Sedberry, a colleague when I was in undergrad at UCF, said, “A setback is a set up for a step up.”

Lawyers should join the New York State Bar Association because . . .
The New York State Bar Association provides attorneys with opportunities to not only network with other attorneys but to grow in the field and build relationships. Whether you are in the Young Lawyers division or intellectual property division, NYSBA is always working to provide their members the best programming and opportunities to be the best lawyers that they can be.