Maryland judge calls trio of black female lawyers 'the Supremes,' recommends client get a male lawyer [Clippings]

County Circuit Judge W. Kennedy Boone called three black female lawyers "the Supremes" in court. He also advised a defendant to get "an experienced male attorney." Generously, Boone has recused himself from further cases tried by the three lawyers.

[Hat tip to Women in Law Daily.]

Clippings: NYT on Law Firms' Changing Attitudes towards Work/Life Balance

Lisa Belkin interviews Deborah Epstein Henry and details the recent and rapid transformation of many law firms' policies in today's New York Times article, Who's Cuddly Now? Law Firms.

Among other signs of change, Belkin noted this touching vignette:

A harbinger of changing times might well be the brief filed by the hard-driving white-shoe firm of Weil Gotshal & Manges of New York, asking a judge to reschedule hearings set for Dec. 18, 19, 20 and 27 of last year.

“Those dates are smack in the middle of our children’s winter breaks, which are sometimes the only times to be with our children,” the lawyers wrote.

The judge moved the hearings.

Clippings: Steinem on Hillary

Gloria Steinem's NYT column, "Women Are Never Front-Runners" completely blew me away. No matter what your political background I recommend her fresh analysis of the coverage of Obama and Clinton and the role of gender in this election. As Steinem writes,

... what worries me is that he is seen as unifying by his race while she is seen as divisive by her sex. What worries me is that she is accused of “playing the gender card” when citing the old boys’ club, while he is seen as unifying by citing civil rights confrontations. What worries me is that male Iowa voters were seen as gender-free when supporting their own, while female voters were seen as biased if they did and disloyal if they didn’t.

Lisa Richette, An Uncommon Judge [Clippings]

A classmate just sent me a link to Dick Polman's profile of Judge Lisa Richette in Obit Magazine, with the comment that Richette was "an amazing, inspiring, rebellious judge."

Professional Women Seek To Boost Career By Changing Voice

Professional Women Seek To Boost Career By Changing Voice

http://www.nbc4.com/news/14598760/detail.html

Lawyer pleads guilty to spying on female colleagues [Clippings]

The AP reports,

A former Legal Aid Society lawyer pleaded guilty Wednesday to illegally using a hidden video camera to spy on female co-workers as they changed clothes in their offices.

Peter Barta, 32, of Queens, used a camera hidden in a clock to videotape five co-workers in the public defense agency's Manhattan offices, recording at least one woman with her breasts and buttocks bared.

The women told police they regularly changed clothes in their offices before and after work. . . .

Barta pled to a felony so he is automatically disbarred. Thank goodness.

You can read the full AP news article [Newsday] and get tabloid coverage of his "kinky" seized property [NY Post] and his arrest [Above the Law].

Remarks by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg [Clippings]

Lily has written a pair of blog posts recounting a reception and CLE course that she attended with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg this week. Read about Justice Ginsburg's remarks here and here [Owens Rhetoric via Blawg's Blog].

Suspended UConn law prof will return to work, but will not be allowed to teach feminist legal theory [Clippings]

Two weeks ago when law prof Robert Birmingham showed a clip from a documentary that contained an image of a scantily clad woman, he was asked to take an immediate leave of absence from the UConn School of Law. Now comes word that Birmingham will return to teaching in the spring--but he won't be allowed to teach his course in feminist legal theory that had been previously scheduled.

Read the original news of his suspension here and the follow-up about his return here [via law.com]. What do you think? Does the sanction fit the crime? Was there any crime?

Catherine Roraback, Civil Rights Trailblazer [Clippings]

Catherine Roraback was the only woman in her graduating class at Yale Law School in 1948. Because of her gender, she had to come and go by the back door at the New Haven Graduate Club. She went on to champion civil liberties, litigating for the Black Panthers in the 1970s and winning the landmark Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut. She passed away this week at age 87. Read more about Catherine Roraback in her Hartford Courant obituary.