When I met Sinloria Macrae, I quickly realized she possesses wisdom and experience well beyond her years. While Macrae is a recent law school graduate, now practicing at Meagher & Geer, she has traveled the world and been mentored by a number of Minnesota’s finest legal minds. She is undoubtedly an up-and-comer in the profession and one who will surely do great things in her career.
Macrae’s family is originally from Sierra Leone, but they immigrated to the United States and were living in the Washington D.C. area when she was born. Several years later they settled in Hastings, where Macrae grew up. Macrae’s family and upbringing have had a significant influence on her life and career choices. When she was young, she often felt like a liaison between the different cultures in her life, leading her to pursue a career in advocacy. Growing up she was fascinated with the law on television and her focus on advocacy convinced her to become a lawyer.
Reflecting on the influence of her upbringing, she describes herself as preferring a community-based lifestyle and that she is drawn to organizations with strong communities, opining that just as it takes a village to raise a child it “takes a village to continue on your career.” While she has already achieved much, she remains grounded by her family and friends, with whom she loves to share adventures.
Macrae attended the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University. She completed a double major in English and sociology, but the most important thing she learned was leadership skills. At college, she was selected as a National Bonner Leader Scholar, a national scholarship program focused on developing future leaders. Through this program she was placed at a community site with the goal of fostering the growth of community-based social justice awareness. She also served as the vice president of the Witness Me Club, which focused on sexual assault awareness.
During college, she spent a semester studying abroad in South Africa at Nelson Mandela University. While she was able to visit the entire country, her most memorable experience was visiting Nelson Mandela’s jail cell. She continued her focus on social justice, working and teaching at a local elementary school.
Macrae enrolled at the University of St. Thomas School of Law. In making her decision on which law school to attend, Macrae was drawn to St. Thomas’s mission-centered approach to legal education as well as its top-ranked mentorship program. She stayed busy in law school, serving as the president of the Black Law Students Association. She also served as a senior editor of the Journal of Law and Public Policy.
While at law school, Macrae had the opportunity to work as a research assistant for the Hon. Justice Alan Page and for Dr. Artika Tyner. As a 1L, Macrae performed legal research for Justice Page’s speech following his retirement from the Minnesota Supreme Court, a speech in which he gave context and definition to the conversation around the resurgence of racial tension in the United States. During her 2L year, she worked with Dr. Tyner to research a now-published article about the collateral consequences of mass incarceration and how the disproportionate rate of incarceration of African Americans has a more profound impact on their lives than the lives of non-African Americans. From these research experiences Macrae gained invaluable role models in the law, plus she learned the importance of humility, patience, and being detail-oriented.
During law school, Macrae also was an extern for the Hon. Tanya Bransford of the Hennepin County District Court. Like many law students participating in a clerkship, she learned a great deal about legal writing. Macrae also was impressed by Judge Bransford’s control and presence in her courtroom, an invaluable model for a future litigator.
After her 1L year, Macrae participated in the Twin Cities Diversity in Practice program. There she was paired with Meagher & Geer and 3M, spending her summer working for both. Through this experience she developed an appreciation for employment and corporate law. At 3M, she also developed confidence in her growing legal skills and an appreciation for creativity in preparing presentations for nonlawyer officers in the company. Macrae was also selected as a Target Law Scholar in 2019, gaining more experience working with Target in the litigation, employment, and compliance groups.
To Macrae, humility is a key part of being a successful attorney. The law “is a service profession.”
After graduating from St. Thomas in 2020, Macrae turned her focus to her practice at Meagher & Geer, where she is a civil litigator, focusing on commercial litigation, construction, products liability, and legal malpractice defense. Of her practice areas, she has learned the most from her legal malpractice work, including the need to focus on the details and have humility in practice. She is very extroverted, enjoying her work with clients and other attorneys. Macrae’s favorite part of being a lawyer is the challenge of learning new skills.
To Macrae, humility is a key part of being a successful attorney. The law “is a service profession.” Similarly, she believes that being confident is a key to success. To her, this means not just being confident that she knows the right answer, because sometimes she doesn’t. Rather, Macrae values the confidence that comes from knowing that she has the right tools, resources, and mentors to find the right answer.
While she is still settling into the practice of law, Macrae also has her eyes on the future. She hopes to continue the types of leadership roles she had in law school by joining boards and committees focused on social justice. She also plans to expand her legal skills through pro bono work and community involvement. Regardless of what she does, and which organizations are lucky enough to have her, it is clear that Sinloria Macrae has much to offer to the profession and that she has a very bright future.
By Samuel M. Johnson
sjohnson@skolnickjoyce.com
Mr. Johnson is a partner at Skolnick & Joyce, in Minneapolis, where he represents clients in a variety of areas including family law, contracts, and business and commercial disputes. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law.