Senior counsel went from law firm switchboard operator to Cravath’s first female partner

Corrected: Christine Beshar, a senior counsel at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, achieved several firsts in her lifetime. She read the law as Abraham Lincoln did, passing the New York State bar exam without going to law school. She became the first female partner at a Wall Street law firm in…

May 8, 2013 11:26 AM CDT

Secondments grow as a better-life option

May 1, 2013 7:50 AM CDT

Legal reporter Nina Totenberg answers the question: When have you been the only woman in the room?

Early in her career, NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg was working in a man’s world. Totenberg recalls that era in response to the question, “When have you been the only woman in the room?” NPR reports. “When have I been the only woman in the room, are you kidding…

Apr 30, 2013 12:48 PM CDT

Top death-penalty defense lawyer says ‘our job is to provide them with a reason to live’

Ordinarily, Judy Clarke has little to say about her work on high-profile death-penalty cases. But at a Friday conference, she said it was a privilege to defend clients such as Susan Smith, who drowned her children, Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski and Jared Loughner, who killed a federal judge while killing and…

Apr 29, 2013 2:22 PM CDT

SCOTUSblog gets press credentials; eBay defamation case is dropped after bloggers turn up the heat

Last month, SCOTUSblog won a Peabody Award for excellence in electronic media–the first blog to ever do so. On Thursday, it announced that it had at long last, the Senate Press Gallery has granted its reporter Lyle Denniston a press credential. “The Supreme Court’s general practice, which we expect to…

Apr 19, 2013 1:29 PM CDT

Top 10 family friendly law firms named; part-time work is option at every surveyed firm

Five law firms have kept their spots on this year’s list of the top 10 family law firms. Yale Law Women published the list, which is based on its survey of family friendly policies and utilization among law firms in the Vault 100. The top 10, listed in alphabetical order,…

Apr 18, 2013 12:33 PM CDT

‘Talking about work-life balance is fraud’ says ABA President Laurel Bellows

Work-life balance? Fuhgeddaboudit. For ABA President Laurel Bellows, a visit to a restaurant or a vacation with family always includes a work component. Bellows tells the Chicago Grid that she is “wired wherever I go,” including vacations. Even a meal at a restaurant can be a business development tool. “There…

Apr 8, 2013 11:00 AM CDT

Trailblazing women made white-collar crime an important field of study

When Sara Sun Beale attended the University of Michigan law school, only about 10 percent of her class was made up of women. After graduation, she was the second woman to work in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Pittsburgh. Now a law professor at Duke University, she is among several…

Apr 4, 2013 11:00 AM CDT

Obit that spurred Twitter outrage sparks punctuation criticism by law prof

A New York Times obituary for rocket scientist Yvonne Brill has sparked outrage on Twitter and a defense by a Harvard law academic fellow who nonetheless takes issue with the newspaper’s punctuation. The Times changed its lede in response to the criticism, according to the New York Times Public Editor’s…

Apr 3, 2013 10:40 AM CDT

Letters: Islam, Women and the Law

Apr 1, 2013 9:50 AM CDT

ABA president-elect confirmed, woman of color next in line

Apr 1, 2013 5:59 AM CDT

New ABA online toolkit helps law firms address gender-based pay inequities

As female attorneys in private practice continue to earn less than male counterparts, the American Bar Association has put together a program to help law firms address pay inequities. Available online, the ABA Toolkit for Gender Equity in Partner Compensation is also intended to help state and local bar associations…

Mar 18, 2013 5:21 PM CDT

A lawyer’s regret: ‘My boundaries slipped away until work was all that was left’

A tax lawyer who became chief financial officer of Lehman Brothers is doing some soul searching since the company imploded in 2008. And she’s not happy about her one-time devotion to work. Erin Callan, who began her career at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, weighs in on the work-life balance debate…

Mar 13, 2013 12:27 PM CDT

Illinois pol who was one of the nation’s first female law professors dies at the age of 86

A ground-breaking Illinois politician who was one of the nation’s first female law professors has died at the age of 86. Dawn Clark Netsch died Tuesday as a result of complications from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Netsch was the first female…

Mar 5, 2013 2:00 PM CST

A life of firsts for trailblazing Illinois Justice McMorrow, dead at the age of 83

A trailblazing Illinois Supreme Court justice, Mary Ann McMorrow, has died at the age of 83. McMorrow died on Saturday after a brief illness, report the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune. McMorrow was the first female justice on the Illinois Supreme Court and its first female chief justice. She…

Feb 25, 2013 1:19 PM CST