From NKAA, Notable Kentucky African Americans Database (main entry)

James N. Simms was born around 1868 in Port Royal, KY. He was the first African American graduate of the Indiana Law School [source: "No color line," Freeman, 5/29/1897, p. 8; it is possibly the school organized in Indianapolis in 1893, a private school that held classes in the 1894-1895 academic year under prominent lawyers and judges, including Byron K. Elliott and Addison C. Harris. That school then became the IU Robert H. McKinney School of Law.]

As a lawyer, Simms compiled Simms' Blue Book of National Negro Business and Professional Directory, published in Chicago in 1923. A photo of Simms can be viewed at the New York Public Library Digital Gallery.

James N. Simms died in Chicago and is buried in Lincoln Cemetery in Blue Island, Illinois. He was the son of Henry and Frankie Marshall Simms. 

For more see Who's Who in Colored America, 1933-37 and "James N. Simms, Lawyer; Compiler and Publisher; and Simms Blue Book and National Negro Business and Professional Directory," JSTOR, 1923 (Open Artstore Collection) and at HathiTrust.