Armonica Gilford was the Oregon Department of Justice’s first African-American female assistant attorney general. Armonica died in October 2005, of complications following surgery for an injury she received in an automobile accident. She was 54.
Armonica was born and grew up in Alaska. She graduated from Pepperdine University and earned her law degree at the University of Denver College of Law in 1981. After law school Armonica worked for Mobil Oil Corp. and Mobil Coal Resources, Inc., in Denver before returning to Alaska to work for Alaska Legal Services. She went on to work for that state’s consumer protection section in Juneau as an investigator until 1989, when she moved to Oregon.
She began her Oregon legal career in 1989 when she was hired by the Oregon Department of Justice. Armonica served on the board of Oregon Women Lawyers and the Oregon Women Lawyers Foundation. During the mid-1990s, she was president of the Oregon Association of Black Lawyers, now the Oregon chapter of the National Bar Association, and is credited with reviving the association’s Ivory and Ebony Scholarship Benefit for minority law students.
Armonica received the Oregon Women Lawyers Judge Mercedes Deiz Award in 1997 and a Meritorious Award from the attorney general’s office in 1994. She was known for serving as a mentor to numerous law students and lawyers, and often housed law students from out of town in order to make their career transitions a bit easier.
She was a member of the Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Pennsylvania bars, and authored several articles and chapters for Oregon State Bar publications. In addition, she served on the state licensing board for architects. Armonica also was a highly respected jazz singer, performing regularly at Steen’s Coffee House, and a competitive racer with Oregon’s only all-woman ski club, Skiente.
