Rooted in Hobbs, Rising in Justice: Aja Brooks’ Legal Legacy

By Kristin Satterlee

Aja Brooks’ journey to become the first Black president of the State Bar of New Mexico began in the far southeastern corner of the state.

Deep New Mexican roots

Brooks spent her early years in Hobbs. “All of my extended family lived there…. aunts, uncles, cousins on both sides.” Both her parents were born in Hobbs, and her dad’s father owned a barbecue restaurant she and her cousins called “the store,” which served as a hangout for the kids and a meeting place for the Black community.

Race and the Law

Brooks’ career path began to form at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, when she took a course called Race and the Law. “It was taught by a Black woman professor, Beth Hopkins. She really encouraged me to take the LSAT, the test you have to take before you go to law school. She was just hugely impactful and really convinced me that I could be a lawyer if I wanted to.”

That class was the first in a series of invitations from Black lawyers that brought her into the legal profession. As she looked into where to go to law school, she began to consider attending University of New Mexico (UNM) and heading “back to New Mexico, which I thought would never happen.”

The power of personal invitation

Then Brooks “received a letter in the mail from the then-president of the Black Law Student Association at the UNM law school.” That student is now Judge Shammara Henderson, the first Black judge on the New Mexico Court of Appeals. “She wrote me a letter saying, we really want you to come back to New Mexico. We'd love you to be a part of our law student community. And that really spoke to me…. That was personal.”

At UNM, Brooks became very involved in the Black Law Students Association (BLSA). “You want to make sure there's space for other Black law students to come to law school.” She also continued to receive encouragement from other Black lawyers, including founding members of the New Mexico Black Lawyers Association (NMBLA), who inspired her and encouraged her into the profession.

On graduation, it was a natural step from BLSA to NMBLA, paying all that personal encouragement forward by working to make sure “the judiciary is diverse and to… assist Black attorneys.”

Changing the narrative

As Brooks moved toward her current position as Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico, she has centered community outreach and the Black experience, especially the Black lawyer experience, within her career. “I think there's always gonna be things and systems and people telling you that you are not welcome.… that this space is not for you. So [I’m] really trying to change that narrative through being present in those spaces, but also working to change those spaces so that they’re more accessible to people like me who have not been able to access them.”

Brooks is especially excited to bring acclaimed Black civil rights lawyer and activist Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, to speak at the 2025 State Bar of New Mexico Annual Meeting this summer. “It’s an opportunity to… think about the basics of human dignity and how our profession really does have an impact on the world.”