(CNN) Over the past year or so, police have been urged to investigate African-Americans for a litany of mundane activities. Operating a lemonade a stand. Waiting for a friend at Starbucks. Golfing too slowly.

Add "lawyering while black" to the list.

A black attorney says he was detained at a Bel Air, Maryland, courthouse earlier this month by a sheriff's deputy who didn't believe he was actually a lawyer.

On March 6, Rashad James, a lawyer with Maryland Legal Aid's Community Lawyering Initiative, had just finished a hearing on behalf of a client who was absent.

He says a sheriff's deputy approached him and incorrectly called him by the client's name. When James corrected the deputy, stating he was the lawyer for the client, the deputy asked for his identification.

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