QUNNIPIAC UNIVERSITY — To Marilyn Ford, practicing law is about one thing: helping people who are not dealt with fairly in the judicial system. Entering the second semester of her 44th year of teaching law, Ford was deeply impacted by the civil rights movement of the 1960s and has since dedicated her life to obtaining justice for those in need of representation. Born in Arkansas to a young couple of sharecroppers on the same plantation that her great-great-grandfather worked on as a slave, her roots were deep in witnessing mistreatment and her determination to see change was fierce. After attending all-Black elementary and high schools, Ford graduated from community college with a degree in economics before answering her true calling by attending the University of Iowa College of Law on a full scholarship. After spending her first year of law school at the University of Iowa, Ford decided to move to New York City. “I went to a major Wall Street law firm, but I still spent my weekends and my spare time volunteering in Harlem, doing the kind of work that I wanted to do — trying to help people improve their circumstances and making sure that they got the quality of justice they deserve,” Ford said.