Lauren Marcus: A Voice for the Underrepresented
The 31-year-old senior associate for Washington, D.C.-based law firm Tiber Hudson remembers her parents telling her that she would make a great lawyer since she loved to argue.
“So, I stuck with that,” Marcus said. “I’ve always been very ‘Type A, very passionate about my position and I love a good intellectual challenge. But, as I have matured, I have learned that it’s not about simply getting what I want. More than arguing, I have a love of advocacy. If I believe in something, I will do everything I can to get it accomplished.”
Though her work for Tiber Hudson has led her into aspects of the law around affordable housing, what initially caught her interest was sports and entertainment law. As a teenager and young adult, she saw Black youth eschewing their studies for dreams of careers as professional athletes. She saw, for many of them, a future where that dream is not realized at the expense of an education.
“We know the stats,” Marcus said. “A tiny fraction of young, minority athletes go on to become professionals. At the age of 16 or 17, they’re being enticed to join a sports program with dreams of money, success and a future. Statistically speaking, that is not going to be the case. I was obsessed with the idea of figuring out how to support Black youth in a way that actually made a financial future for them.”
