LAW Book Club with the Author of Number’s Up
DATE: Thursday, February 12, 2026
TIME: 5:30pm – 7:30pm
LOCATION: Catrice James CPA, 323 29th Avenue North, Nashville
FREE PARKING
FREE REGISTRATION FOR LAW & NLBA MEMBERS
Non-Member Registration = $25
CLE Credit – Approved for 1 hour General CLE Credit
Event Description:
In recognition of Black History Month, the Lawyers Association for Women and the Napier Looby Bar Association, will host a CLE book club discussion featuring attorney and author Johnisha Matthews Levi to discuss her book Number’s Up. Ms. Levi, a graduate of New York University School of Law, blends her personal narrative with legal and policy analysis, inviting readers to examine how law shapes lived experience and community outcomes.
For decades, Levi believed a conventional story about her birth—until a document discovered among her late mother’s belongings revealed that her father was incarcerated at Lorton Correctional Complex at the time. This revelation, coupled with rumors of an FBI investigation into her parents’ “private business,” led Levi to uncover the hidden legal and historical forces that shaped her family’s past.
The discussion will raise critical questions about how state lottery legalization supplanted and criminalized longstanding Black-owned informal economies, including the numbers trade, which historically functioned as sources of employment, credit, and community stability when Black entrepreneurs were excluded from formal financial systems. The program will also explore how the War on Drugs broadened law enforcement authority, intensified surveillance, and reshaped prosecutorial priorities, often without regard to the disparate racial impact of these policies. Together, these legal developments contributed to disproportionate investigation, incarceration, and disruption of Black individuals, families, and institutions, effects that continue to influence intergenerational outcomes and trust in the legal system today.
This panel will be moderated by fellow attorney and author Princess Rogers. Participants will be encouraged to critically assess the legal rationales underlying these policies, their constitutional and ethical implications, and the role of lawyers in recognizing and addressing the lasting consequences of racially disparate enforcement.
Speaker Bio:
Johnisha Matthews Levi is the author of the memoir Number’s Up: Cracking the Code of an American Family (June 2025).
Born and raised in Washington, DC, Johnisha (she/her) brings a critical eye to her writing based on her experiences as a development professional for social impact nonprofits, a former litigation attorney, and a culinarian.
She was a 2013 LongHouse Food Media Scholar and a recipe tester for Leite’s Culinaria and Peter Reinhart’s The Joy of Gluten-Free, Sugar-Free Baking (2012). Johnisha graduated from Harvard University, New York University School of Law, and Johnson & Wales University. Her writing has appeared in Yes! Media, Wildsam, the kitchn, and Northern Virginia Magazine. In her free time, she is an avid reader of literary nonfiction, African American history, and contemporary literature by authors of color. Memoirs such as Danzy Senna’s Where Did You Sleep Last Night?, Natasha Trethewey’s Memorial Drive, and Jesmyn Ward’s Men We Reaped inspired her to tell her family’s story. She currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee with her husband, Jon. Number’s Up is her first book.
