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Determined to promote diversity, the Government Lawyer Section has recruited a trail-blazing federal prosecutor to lead the effort.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Winifred Acosta, a criminal appellate lawyer in the Northern District of Florida’s Tallahassee office, will chair the section’s new Diversity and Inclusion Committee, said GLS Chair Jacek Stramski.
“She has been recognized for her Bar and inclusion work by the Tallahassee Women Lawyers…and is active on the issue on many fronts,” he said.
“Active” is an understatement considering Acosta’s years of service work, and career studded with firsts — first African-American woman appointed assistant state attorney in the Third Circuit; first African-American assistant statewide prosecutor in the Jacksonville Division; and first African-American woman appointed assistant U.S. attorney in the Northern District’s Tallahassee office.
“I’ve been a first in every office that I’ve worked,” said the Live Oak native, who was also the first in her family to earn a college degree.
Acosta didn’t know any attorneys when she was growing up, and a legal career never occurred to her — until she turned 13, and her sister became the victim of violent crime.
“I didn’t know how I would become a prosecutor, but I knew that’s what I wanted to do,” she said. “So, 10 years later, I was completing my final year of law school at [UF] Levin College of Law.”
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