Medcalf: Meet Amran Farah, accomplished lawyer, pioneer

Amran Farah does not believe all lawyers are naturally argumentative.

“I fight with my husband a lot about that,” said Farah, a commercial litigator at Greene Espel law firm in Minneapolis. “A good lawyer is not arguing about everything. It’s picking the arguments that matter and then gaining enough credibility to win those arguments.”

She credits her curiosity — a trait she possessed as a child — for her rise within her profession. The Hamline Law School graduate is the former president of the Minnesota Association of Black Lawyers and the co-founder and former president of the Somali American Bar Association.

Farah was named Lawyer of the Year by Minnesota Lawyer, and she was recently appointed to the judicial selection committee for an open federal court seat by U.S. Sens. Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar. She is also a champion for people of her color. Her work at the law firm involves helping “clients develop diversity, equity, and inclusion policies to foster equity, inclusion and belonging.”

Her decorated resume, however, is only a portion of her identity. She is a Black, Somali woman and a devout Muslim who often enters rooms full of folks who do not look like her.

“I just left a hearing right now where I was, unsurprisingly, the only Black person in a room with, let’s see how many attorneys … 13 attorneys, a judge, a clerk, and a court reporter,” she told me. “I think there were 15 to 20 people in the courtroom, and I was the only Black person.”

But Farah resents the notion that her identity can be contained within a description of her ethnic, religious or racial background.

She’s the first person I thought to interview when I decided to launch this summer series of columns about the local Somali community. The Black diaspora in America is complicated and far from a monolith. And the journeys of the immigrant communities within that umbrella are often stereotyped, misstated or ignored.

My goal with this series is to learn more about a community I know through interaction and conversation — but not as much through relationship. The lack of connection is often the foundation of division.

It’s a reality that Farah’s parents helped her and her 11 siblings avoid by expanding their collective worldview at an early age. Her father’s perspective made her appreciate both the Somali community and the plight of Black Americans once she came to this country as a child.

“When he was younger, Somalia was a socialist country and they sent a lot of their students to the Soviet Union to study,” she said. “[My father] spoke some Russian, spoke some Italian; Arabic and Somali. And so I think he always saw the world in very, very simple terms. Like, no one cares that you’re Somali. They see that you’re Black. Right? They would have to ask you if you’re Somali in a lot of places. … And so his thing was, ‘They’ll see you as Black first.’”

As one of the few Somali lawyers in the Twin Cities, Farah often fields calls from folks who might have googled “Black attorney” and found her name. With that role also comes an urge to help, albeit with balance. In her profession, she demands assignments and opportunities that go beyond diversity and inclusion. If there is a complicated legal matter that needs to be explained in a meeting or presentation, she raises her hand.

“People will want to see me as a DEI person and not as a kick-ass litigator,” she said.

Farah has worked for Pamela Alexander, the first Black female judge in Minnesota history, and other impactful people in the legal world. Through those experiences, she’s gleaned the power of the law in the push for equity and fairness for BIPOC communities.

“There is a quote from Martin Luther King, where it says, ‘It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me,’” said Farah, who organized a protest by lawyers after George Floyd’s murder.

“That’s pretty important. And that’s how I always think about the law. It can’t resolve all of our issues in this country, but hopefully it can serve as guardrails for certain things. That’s the hope, right? But I know that a lot of these laws are built on foundations that are based on inequity and [those laws] working the way that they were designed to, perpetuating this inequity.”

Farah understands what and who she represents. She is a prominent Somali woman and voice who has been recognized for her intellect, achievements and success. But she is more than one thing or one trait.

And it’s the fullness of her humanity she demands to be acknowledged.

“Sometimes, it’s choosing my own narrative, right?” she said. “You have to set the tone and, in some ways, demand a certain level of professional respect that some people may not naturally give to you.”