Candice Alcaraz

Being told to wait her turn didn’t sit well with Candice Alcaraz, so she bucked the status quo and established some judicial firsts in her county. 

After three years at Truman pursing a degree in justice systems, Candice Alcaraz (’13) was encouraged by one of her professors to consider law school. Flattering as that was, she did not exactly warm to the idea right away.

“I gave her every excuse I could think of,” she said. “I told her I was the first in my immediate family to go to college, so I’ve accomplished enough by walking across that stage. No one in my entire family has gone to law school or become a lawyer.”

Alcaraz had plans to join the FBI, but an invitation to attend the Sue Shear Institute for Women in Public Life changed her trajectory. Upon meeting female attorneys, judges and others in the legal profession, she shadowed a judge in her hometown of Chicago prior to her senior year and she was hooked.

During her time at Washburn University School of Law in Topeka, Kansas, Alcaraz discovered she had a passion for the courtroom. She excelled in civil classes, but was more drawn to litigation and later interned with various agencies including the Kansas Court of Appeals, a family law and immigration clinic, the Kansas Appellate Public Defender’s Office, and a veterans’ law clinic. Upon passing the bar exam on her first attempt, Alcaraz took a job with the Wyandotte County District Attorney’s Office in Kansas City, Kansas.

“I started in the juvenile offender unit and then gradually transitioned to the adult criminal felony unit,” she said. “I handled all levels of cases including homicide, narcotics, sex crimes and battery.”

On the walls of the third floor of the Wyandotte County Courthouse hang the portraits of every district court judge in the jurisdiction’s history. Her first day in the building Alcaraz took note of a detail that immediately set a goal in her mind.

“I noticed there had never been a Black woman in that position. I tucked the dream away until five years into my career,” she said.

When Alcaraz crossed paths with a judge who she – as she politely puts it – “did not enjoy being in front of,” the time seemed right for her to follow that dream. Motivated by the idea of making positive changes, she threw her hat in the ring.

“The unspoken rule in my jurisdiction was you wait until a seat is open,” she said. “I was warned multiple times not to challenge the system, and to wait for my time because ‘that’s the way things are always done here.’”

Alcaraz did not subscribe to that line of thinking, and neither did the citizens of Wyandotte County who chose her over a 15-year incumbent. In securing nearly 69 percent of the vote, she became the first Black female district court judge in the county, and possibly the youngest person to ever hold the position.

“It feels inspiring and also challenging,” Alcaraz said. “The people chose me in an overwhelming fashion, and I must choose them every day because they put me here.
I have to stand on my word and be as fair and just as I promised when I was asking for their vote.”

In Alcaraz’s eyes, her youth is an asset in her role as a judge, from allowing her to understand the current state of affairs in the world from a new perspective to enabling her to fully utilize the most current technology available in her courtroom. And while she earned her position by a decisive margin, Alcaraz understands the gravity of her role in the community and has maintained a humble perspective on life.

“Judges are regular people. I have a robe, but I also have student loans, a mortgage and a family I care for deeply,” she said. “I workout, play video games and hang out on the weekends. I’m just like anyone else.”

While that is technically true, there some things that set Alcaraz apart. Her portrait will one day hang in the halls of the Wyandotte County Courthouse as inspiration for the next generation of legal professionals, and in 2026 she plans to be the first Black woman re-elected as judge in her district.