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Chancellor Cynthia L. Brewer of Madison was honored on July 10 for her exemplary work and service as a role model for women in the legal profession.
The Women in the Profession Section of the Mississippi Bar selected Judge Brewer as the 2025 recipient of the Susie Blue Buchanan Award. The award was presented on July 10 at the Price-Prather Luncheon during the Mississippi Bar Convention in Destin, Fla. The annual award honors an outstanding woman lawyer who has achieved professional excellence and has actively paved the way to success for other women lawyers.
Judge Brewer told the room full of lawyers and judges, “Thank you very much for this recognition and this honor. Each and every one of you have had an effect upon me….You have inspired me to be better than I thought that I could ever be.”
She recalled watching every episode of Perry Mason as a child. She wanted to be a criminal defense lawyer defending the innocent, as the character portrayed, but became a prosecutor in her early career. She was drawn to further public service as a judicial special master, County Court judge and Chancellor. She encouraged lawyers in the audience to seek out opportunities to serve as special masters, and as judges.
“I didn’t plan on being who stands before you today. I planned on being Perry Mason – with a skirt – and nice handbags,” she said, prompting laughter.
Referring to the list of 26 former Susie Blue Buchanan Award honorees on the awards luncheon program, Judge Brewer said, “I would like to say thank you to the people that you see on the back of your programs, especially the ones that I’ve had an opportunity to serve with.” She said of Lt. Gov. Evelyn Gandy, former Mississippi College School of Law Professor Carol West and former Mississippi Court of Appeals Judge Mary Libby Payne, “when they walked out with their law degree, they were not welcomed. We have (been) welcome, for the most part. I got called ‘little girl’ recently, but that’s another story. We are welcomed in the courtroom….These ladies fought hard to improve the legal system as well to improve females in the profession and I say thank you to each and every one of them.”
She recalled an old picture of herself, Lt. Gov. Gandy and former Mississippi College School of Law Dean Patricia Bennett from a time when there were few women lawyers working in Hinds County. They made a difference. “I say to each of you, stay. Make a difference. Think about what is our goal and that is to improve or open the door for improvement, whatever way you can.”
She has served for many years as a visiting instructor at the National Judicial College in Reno. “It has been my privilege and honor to serve as a judge, to inspire one another, to take newly elected and or appointed judges from all over our nation and be a part of their professional lives.” A few of the Mississippi judges who she mentored were in the audience.
Former Mississippi Bar President Jennifer Ingram Johnson, the luncheon speaker, recalled appearing before Judge Brewer in Chancery Court as a young litigator, “and I was scared to death….And Judge Brewer welcomed me into her court, not only with her words, but just by her presence, her openness and her bright light.”
Johnson, of Hattiesburg, wore former Lt. Gov. Gandy’s pearls at the luncheon. The first woman statewide officeholder was her mentor and cherished friend. Gandy was the fifth recipient of the Susie Blue Buchanan Award. Johnson held up a copy of the pale pink luncheon awards program. “These are the trailblazers. These are the women who have paved this path for each and every one of us to be here and to be able to be leaders in our profession. Judge Brewer, you are very well suited to be added to the list of Susie Blue Buchanan Award winners today.”
Susie Blue Buchanan of Brandon became the first woman lawyer qualified to practice before the Mississippi Supreme Court in 1916. The Price-Prather Luncheon, now in its 27th year, is named for the state’s first woman judge, Washington County Court Judge Zelma Wells Price of Greenville, and the first Mississippi woman chancellor, Supreme Court Justice and Chief Justice, Lenore Loving Prather of Columbus. Chief Justice Prather received the Susie Blue Buchanan Award in 2005.
Judge Brewer is senior chancellor of the 11th Chancery Court, hearing cases in Madison and Leake counties. She became a chancellor in January 2007. She served twice as chair of the Conference of Chancery Court Judges, having been elected by her colleagues. She is a member of the Board of Governors of the Mississippi Judicial College. She served on the Commission on Judicial Performance as the alternate Chancery Court member. She previously served for four years as Madison County Court Judge, where her duties also included part of the docket for the Madison County Youth Court. She also previously served as a special master in Chancery Court, and as a Municipal, County and Youth Court prosecutor in Hinds County.
Judge Brewer earned her undergraduate degree from the University of South Alabama, and her Juris Doctor from Mississippi College School of Law. She previously served as an adjunct professor at Mississippi College School of Law.
The number of women in the legal profession has increased dramatically since Judge Brewer graduated from Mississippi College School of Law in 1985. Men outnumbered women graduates at MCLaw by more than two to one in 1985; there were 67 male law school graduates and 30 female graduates that year at MCLaw.
During the past five years, ratios of women to men entering Mississippi’s two law schools have fluctuated.
At the University of Mississippi School of Law, women outnumbered men among first-year law students in three of the past five years. The 2024 fall class of first-year law students included 91 women and 72 men. The 2021 entering class was 95 women and 86 men. The largest male class in the past five years was in 2022, with 98 men and 79 women first-year law students at the University of Mississippi School of Law.
At Mississippi College School of Law, first-year law students included 76 men and 64 women in fall 2024. Men outnumbered women first-year law students three of the past five years; 2021 enrollment was 82 women and 58 men starting law school, and 2023 first-year law students were evenly divided at 65 women and 65 men.
Of the 8,824 active members of the Mississippi Bar, 2,865 are women, according to data from January 2025, the most recent numbers available. Of those women lawyers, 2,191practice in Mississippi and 674 practice out of state.
Chancellor Cynthia Brewer, at left, is pictured with former Mississippi Bar President Jennifer Ingram Johnson at the Susie Blue Buchanan Award presentation on July 10 during the Mississippi Bar Convention.
Former Susie Blue Buchanan Award winners are pictured with this year’s honoree, Chancellor Cynthia Brewer, on July 10 during the Mississippi Bar Convention. Left to right are Lydia Quarles, Margaret Oertling Cupples, Patricia Bennett, Judge Cynthia Brewer, former Supreme Court Justice Dawn Beam, Court of Appeals Chief Judge Donna Barnes and Joy Phillips.
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