Brown, Goldstein & Levy partner Chelsea Crawford was recently featured in The Daily Record’s article entitled, “What does it take for a woman to get to the top?” In the piece, Chelsea explains what prompted her to make a change from broadcast journalism to civil rights law – a decision many deemed risky in 2008 as recent graduates struggled to find employment.
As a journalist, Chelsea was obligated to remain neutral in her reporting. However, she did not want to remain objective on issues that were important to her, like gross injustices suffered by members of her community. Chelsea decided to pursue law, a career in which she could build upon the skills she already acquired: how to write, how to be concise and clear, thinking creatively, and drawing on her experience pitching new stories in a room full of editors.
Despite people advising her against it, Chelsea left her successful career, took out student loans, and enrolled in law school. She has since built a diverse, growing civil rights practice, with substantial work in wrongful conviction, police misconduct, and disability rights cases. Chelsea has represented clients in some of the largest wrongful conviction and police misconduct cases in the State of Maryland. In 2021, she obtained a $6.5 million settlement on behalf of the family of Eric Sopp, an unarmed man in distress who was shot and killed by a Baltimore County police officer. It was one of the largest settlements in State and County history. Chelsea brings a passion for storytelling to every case, amplifying her journalistic skills in the fight for justice.
“I don’t have any regrets at all about changing careers, and in fact think it was one of the best decisions of my life,” Chelsea Crawford said. “I’m incredibly fulfilled by what I do now as a lawyer in private practice and I think I owe a lot of success to the skills I was able to develop as a journalist.”