{"id":355249,"date":"2026-09-24T01:48:50","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T01:48:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/355249\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T01:48:50","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T01:48:50","slug":"his-journey-began-in-refugee-camp-staten-island-lawyer-hopes-it-will-end-with-judge-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/355249\/","title":{"rendered":"His Journey Began in Refugee Camp. Staten Island Lawyer Hopes It Will End With Judge Seat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Kelvin Richards says his path started in refugee camps in Liberia and Ghana, before he came to the United States at 18. He settled in Staten Island&#8217;s Park Hill section, worked overnight shifts, and studied at the College of Staten Island. Richards earned a bachelor&#8217;s degree in international relations in 2008, then attended William Mitchell College of Law in Minnesota. After law school, he passed the New York and New Jersey bar exams and joined the Legal Aid Society in 2012. He has spent 14 years representing clients in Staten Island courts and says fairness, integrity and justice guide his work. Now 44, Richards is running for a state Supreme Court judgeship and hopes his story inspires young people and unites the borough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kelvin Richards says his path started in refugee camps in Liberia and Ghana, before he came to the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[90437,1480,132380,9,24,63,132381,132382,134,136,135,33711,53156],"class_list":["post-355249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-college-of-staten-island","tag-international-relations","tag-kelvin-richards","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-overnight-shifts","tag-refugee-camps","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news","tag-the-legal-aid-society","tag-the-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}