Alice Pollard Clark
Alice Gail Pollard Clark is a retired American judge from Maryland. In 1997, she became the first African American woman to serve as district judge for Howard County, Maryland.
Biography
Alice Gail Pollard was born on February 12, 1940 in Washington, DC. She grew up on Randolph Place in the LeDroit Park neighborhood of Northwest, Washington. The area would become notable as the home of four black women who would eventually become pioneering jurists, one of them Clark. Pollard graduated from Washington's Paul Lawrence Dunbar Senior High School in before heading to university.Educator
Clark attended Howard University and graduated with a bachelors degree in Science in 1961. She would go on to became a science teacher in the District of Columbia Public SchoolsLegal career
In 1990, she became the first black woman attorney in the Howard County office of the Public Defender. In 1995, she was appointed by Maryland Governor Parris N. Glendening to Howard County's circuit court. The following year, she was named Outstanding Assistant Public Defender of the Year for Howard and Carroll Counties.In 1997 at age 57, she became the first African American woman appointed to the district court bench in Howard County. Her appointment by Maryland Governor Parris N. Glendening filled the vacancy of former District Judge Lenore R. Gelfman. Clark would continue to work with education and youth while a jurist.
Clark retired from the bench on February 11, 2010, after reaching age 70, the county's mandatory retirement age'''.'''