A mother and daughter team is believed to have made history after graduating from the same law school in the same year from one of Alabama’s top institutions. The school claims this is the first time a mother-daughter duo has received their Juris Doctorate at the same time in the school’s 107-year history.
On Sunday, May 15, Daphne Davis and her daughter, Edriuna were among 80-plus members of the 2022 graduating class from Birmingham School of Law at the Bill Harris Arena. Now the two are preparing to take the Alabama bar exam, hoping to practice law together at the Law Office of Bobby L. Davis with Edriuna’s fiancé, according to AL.com.
The daughter said, “I was super-excited to be able to experience this journey with my mother. I don’t know of anyone else who went to law school and graduated with their mother.”
Mom and daughter walked across the stage moments from each other.
In an interview with WVTM, Daphne recalled the moment, saying, “It was a proud moment, one of the proudest moments of my life.”
“For me to just turn around and stand on the steps and watch my daughter receive her Juris Doctorate … it was everything for me,” she expressed. Both Davises and having letters of their first names begin with a “D” and an “E,” guaranteeing the two would walk in succession.
Graduating together was not always the plan.
Daphne decided to go to law school after going through her divorce. She had helped her lawyer in researching and preparing for the proceedings in 2009. The attorney told her she was thorough in her support and suggested she consider law school.
“My attorney told me I should think about law school and that [Miles Law School] would be glad to have me,” the mother remembered. “I didn’t enroll immediately, but law school was spoken over me repeatedly.”
It took eight years before she took the jump and applied to a law program, turning in her application the day before the 2017 admissions deadline.
On the flip side, her daughter Edriuna has wanted to be a lawyer since she was a pre-teen and was inspired by her mom’s work during the divorce.
After she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in political science from Tuskegee University in 2017, she applied to several graduate programs. At one time, she wanted to go to Harvard Law, but after receiving several acceptance letters from other schools, she decided on Birmingham School of Law, where her mother had recently enrolled.
BSL, while unaccredited, is considered one of the top five law schools in Alabama, ranking behind Cumberland School of Law, Thomas Goode Jones School of Law, and the No. 1-ranked University of Alabama School of Law.
What distinguishes the school is that it offers classes for the everyday working adult.
Classes are typically held on the weeknights from 6 p.m. to 8:45 p.m. and on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 9:15 p.m. The courses also run throughout the year, according to the school’s website, having fall, spring, and summer terms. This allowed Edriuna to work for a Jefferson County judge throughout her time as a student there.
Daphne said once the daughter was accepted, she couldn’t wait to take her to the school’s bookstore and buy “matching book bags and shirts” for the both of them.
“I looked forward to seeing her in the evenings in class. I was able to spend a lot of time with her,” the mother said.
Both mom and daughter suffered struggles during their matriculation.
Daphne said she was uncomfortable with some of her professors, intimidated by the schoolwork, and questioned what her many young fellow classmates thought about her. But eventually, she learned the flow, now saying, “Law school became my legal family, full of different points of view and learning styles.”
The challenges that Edriuna had were more than just growing pains. Her pains were in her body.
About three years into her law program, during the 2020 summer semester, Edriuna gave birth to her son, Denver Davis. While she was doing well in school and had a healthy baby, she was diagnosed with postpartum cardiomyopathy, an uncommon form of heart failure that develops toward the end of pregnancy or within several months of giving birth.
Dead in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, the student-scholar’s heart was not properly working.
She said, “My heart was functioning around 20 percent, but by the grace of God I’m no longer in heart failure. I’m doing much better.”
Now that the two have graduated they plan to work with Edriuna’s fiancé, Bobby L. Davis.
Edriuna will join as a partner and mom will serve as a “mediator” for the firm.
“I plan to work with my daughter and her husband in their law firm,” Daphne boasted. “I will also perform duties as a mediator and arbitrator as an advocate of dispute resolution. I plan to spend my pro bono hours giving back in the field of domestic relations because divorce was the catalyst for my Juris Doctorate.”
