Lynn Hecht Schafran

Judge Boone’s Reprimand Also Demonstrates Progress

By Lynn Hecht Schafran • February 22, 2008 •Sexism, Sexual Harassment, and Other Forms of Discrimination

When news broke that Maryland Judge W. Kennedy Boone was reprimanded in January for calling three African-American women lawyers “the Supremes” and advising the defendant to “get an experienced male attorney,” people were dismayed. How could this still be happening? It’s one thing when Imus does it, but a judge.... Looked at through the lens of history, however, the Boone case is also a story of tremendous progress in addressing gender bias in the courts. As Director of the National Judicial Education Program to Promote Equality for Women and Men in the Courts (NJEP) at Legal Momentum, I know that…

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Impressive Progress Alongside Persistent Problems

By Lynn Hecht Schafran • February 02, 2007 •Guest Bloggers and Profiles of Women in the Law

In April the New York Committee on Women in the Courts celebrated twenty years of working to implement the recommendations of the New York Task Force on Women in the Courts. New York’s Chief Judge Judith Kaye encapsulated these two decades with a perfect aphorism, “Impressive Progress Alongside Persistent Problems” – an aphorism that captures the work not only of the New York Committee, but of every effort to achieve equality for women in the courts and the legal profession. This dichotomy was apparent in July when a New York doctor blew up his family’s elegant townhouse rather than share…

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