According to the American Bar Association, the make up of males to females in the legal profession is 64 percent men and 36 percent women. Already it’s tough for women to make themselves known in certain male-dominated fields of work, but law is especially difficult because often women who argue are brushed off as “bossy.” But some women don’t let this stop them from engaging in the legal world, and are even able to make names for themselves in law.
So here’s to the women that don’t back down, who continue to strive for what they’re passionate about in the face of discouragement and discrimination. If you’re looking for female role-models in legal professions, here are four famous female lawyers who are changing the face of American law.
After her appointment to the Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton in 1993, Ruth Bader Ginsburg has become an icon not only for women in law, but for all women. Ginsburg, an alumna of Columbia Law School, has proven to be extremely pro-women on most issues even before she was appointed to the Supreme Court, though.
As a Co-Founder of the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, she argued in Reed v. Reed that an Idaho law stating that “males must be preferred to females” as estate administrators was discriminatory towards women. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, and in 1972 the law was found to be unconstitutional. Currently, Ginsburg continues to support issues like abortion rights, sexual equality and cases pertaining to women’s rights.
Kamala Harris has served California as its Attorney General since 2011, and is the first African-American and Asian-American woman to be serve in such an esteemed position. Her work as Attorney General has focused on attacking the “root causes of crime [in California], rather than just treating its symptoms” in order to prevent a cycle of crime. Harris has also made efforts to battle the transnational trafficking of guns, drugs and humans between Mexico and California.
As the first woman in America to be initiated into the Inner Circle of Advocates a group consisting of the top 100 trial lawyers in America, Judith Livingston has been breaking records for women in law. Her high success rates in verdicts has scored her over $1 million, which is even more notable due to the fact that she often picks up cases that other attorneys pass off for their high difficulty to win. Livingston first began to practice law because she could not stand to see injustices take place. Today, she continues to right her clients’ wrongs as a New York attorney.
On August 6, 2009, Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed as the first Latina Supreme Court Justice, as well as the first Supreme Court Justice of Hispanic descent after being nominated by Obama earlier that year. Sotomayor first attended Princeton for her undergraduate schooling, where she was one of the few female students and part of an even smaller Latino representation.
But Sotomayor took pride in her heritage, and praised affirmative action for creating “conditions whereby students from disadvantaged backgrounds could be brought to the starting line of a race many were unaware was even being run.” Sotomayor’s passion for criminal justice system reform and combating race and gender discriminatory practices make her a woman who’s taken major strides for women in American law.
