Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Melba Pearson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Melba, appreciate you joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

I think my adult life has been filled with risk in a lot of ways! My first big risk was leaving everything I knew — family, friends, environment — in New York, and moving to Miami to become a prosecutor. It was scary, and leaving the nest for real was daunting. But I am so glad that I did. More than two decades later, I’m still part of this community. The next big risk (of sorts) was leaving my job as a prosecutor after 16 years, and joining the ACLU of Florida. I was really comfortable in the job; I knew it well — but I was no longer growing, and I could clearly see areas for systemic change that I could not change. It was one of the best decisions I made in my life. It gave me the opportunity to learn from now retired Executive Director Howard Simon, who was involved in the first Civil Rights Movement in this country. The latest (but certainly not the last) big risk I took was to leave the ACLU of Florida, start my own law firm, and run for Miami-Dade State Attorney in 2020. It was a huge step — would I be able to raise money? Would my beliefs resonate with voters? Could I make a difference in this role? The answer to all was a resounding YES. Even though I was not successful, not a day goes by when someone reaches out to me via email, text or social media to tell me that my campaign inspired them to volunteer on criminal justice issues, care more deeply about elections, or to just thank me for speaking out about our system. Running led me to the work I am doing nationally around prosecution and transparency at FIU.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

My passion is justice. As a daughter of Caribbean immigrants, my family was big on education — and I was going to be a doctor, lawyer or a nurse (IYKYK). I was born and raised in NY, went to undergrad at New York University, law school at Hofstra (now Maurice Dean) School of Law, and moved to Miami in 1997 to be a prosecutor. My path had an unexpected twist when I did not pass the bar exam, and ended up working in the nightclub industry during South Beach’s club heyday. I spent five years in marketing, public relations and event planning, before 9/11 + a domestic violence relationship gave me a serious wakeup call. I took the bar again, passed, and went back to prosecution for 15 more years. During that time, I handled serious cases, including homicides and police shooting investigations. I also did community engagement as well as supervise young lawyers. I became President of the National Black Prosecutors Association for two terms (currently serving as the National Black Prosecutors Association Foundation President) which really opened my eyes to practices and effective polices in criminal justice from around the country. Being at the ACLU of Florida gave me the opportunity to fight for equal treatment for everyone by working on immigration issues, voting rights, police and criminal justice reform. Currently, I am the Director of Policy and Programs at the Center for the Administration of Justice at Florida International University. My work is as co-manager of the Prosecutorial Performance Indicators project, where we work with prosecutors’ offices around the country to publish public dashboards around what justice really looks like in their community. In addition, I continue to help folks through my firm MVP Law, LLC by consulting with organizations who are working to drive progress for marginalized communities, conducting investigations on police practices, and advising on grassroots ways to raise awareness around injustice. Some of what I do includes helping an organization get ready to speak to legislators on a key issue they are working on; advising families and attorneys on how to leverage multiple forms of media to help a loved one who is wrongfully incarcerated and providing policy recommendations to police agencies who want to respond to community concerns. My firm allows me to continue advocating for people in our community — like Thomas Raynard James, who was incarcerated for a murder he did not commit for over 30 years — and has now finally been released in part due to community pressure. Lastly, I write op-eds for various outlets, serve as a legal commentator for a variety of local/national networks, and volunteer for a number of legal organizations like the Florida Justice Center.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Creating a social media presence is a journey for sure! It does not happen overnight. For me, it was about staying in my lane and building a brand based on my expertise in criminal justice/civil rights. Before I ran for office, social media was a way to share the blog posts and articles I was writing. My campaign was during the pandemic, so we had to pivot super quickly into uncharted territory. I was able to build a following as well as get my message out by using Facebook/Instagram Lives, and sharing videos. It was fun, but also allowed me to break down legal issues in a way that made sense to everyone. I continue to do this every week on #MondaysWithMelba, which streams live on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter every Monday at 6pm. Folks can also check it out on Instagram videos later in the week, as well as on Apple, Google and Spotify as a podcast.

Have you ever had to pivot?

So I touched on it briefly earlier, but no one was expecting a pandemic in the spring of 2020. We had launched the campaign, and now was like “uh oh…how do we do this when the world has shut down…indefinitely?!” There literally was no playbook. No other candidate alive has ever experienced this (doubt we could find any candidates from during the Spanish flu…). The original plan was to be knocking on doors to engage with people where they were. We had to pivot, literally making it up as we went along. This was the beginnings of #MondaysWithMelba to utilize social media to talk to voters, and educate them about nuances in the criminal justice system that one may not be aware of. It’s like the civics class refresher about how bills become laws, the roles of various elected officials in our day to day life, and who to hold responsible when an injustice happens. The whole experience was intense, however it all worked out in the end!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.melbapearsonesq.com
• Instagram: @resident_legal_diva
• Facebook: Melba Pearson/The Resident Legal Diva
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melbapearsonesq/
• Twitter: @ResLegalDiva
• Youtube: Resident Legal Diva

Image Credits
Loc Shotz FIU Center for the Administration of Justice