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WLS
Celebrates Fortieth Anniversary The fortieth anniversary of the formation of Women Lawyers of Sacramento was celebrated by nearly two hundred guests including local attorneys, several state and federal judges, dignitaries and others at a dinner held on April 3, 2003, at the Sterling Hotel. WLS was incorporated as a nonprofit organization in December 1962, and soon afterwards was recognized by the State Bar as a formal bar association. WLS has since grown from a few impassioned founding members to a much larger and diverse group of attorneys and judges as evidenced by the attendees at the event.
Congratulatory
resolutions and letters were personally presented to WLS at the
dinner by Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg; Senator Deborah Ortiz,
SCBA President Bion Gregory, U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer's
aide on her behalf; Mayor Heather Fargo, Justice Connie
Callahan on behalf of Presiding Justice Art Scotland
of the Third District Court of Appeals, and Judge Gail Ohanesian
on behalf of Presiding Judge Michael T. Garcia of the Sacramento
Superior Court. Resolutions were also presented to WLS prior to
the dinner by Governor Gray Davis, Congressman Robert T. Matsui,
the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors and District Attorney
Jan Scully.
Mueller, who was an organizing member and the second president of WLS, recalled some of the first women attorneys involved in WLS. Roth discussed WLS's efforts to have women appointed to the bench. Paik recalled the furor over the appearance of her picture as WLS President with her children accompanying her president's message in the local Docket. Scott reminded us that past presidents of WLS are involved and achievers, several having become president of the Sacramento County Bar Association after their WLS presidency. Kaufman regaled us with anecdotes about the late Justice Frances Newell Carr with whom she worked at the Third District Court of Appeal. Jorgensen concluded by congratulating WLS on its achievements over the last forty years. Judge Judy Holzer Hersher was awarded the Frances Newell Carr Achievement award by WLS President Debra Roberts Ries. (Editor's Note: An article on Judge Hersher's award appeared in the May/June issue of the Sacramento Lawyer.) Stanford Law School Professor Barbara Allen Babcock gave the evening's keynote address. Babcock, who teaches American women's legal history along with civil and criminal procedure, spoke on "The Portia of the Pacific: California's First Woman Lawyer." She compared "Portia," the wealthy, beautiful and intelligent character in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice," to Clara Shortridge Foltz, the first woman lawyer in California. In Shakespeare's play, the man Portia loved entered into a loan agreement with Shylock, which called for a pound of flesh as the penalty for a default in payment. Portia flouted convention by appearing disguised as a man to argue the law in favor of her beloved. Portia agreed that Shylock's contract entitled him to his pound of flesh, but added that it did not allow for any loss of blood. Portia's effectiveness came from her ability to make the law work for her. Like Portia, Babcock said, Foltz made the law work for her. Babcock related an anecdote about how she and Foltz had an Andy Warhol-like 15 minutes of fame at the beginning of the Clinton Administration. President Clinton was determined to appoint the first woman Attorney General, but his first choice withdrew her name on a Thursday afternoon. Soon thereafter, a short list of candidates, which included Babcock's name, was leaked to the media. Babock began receiving flurries of calls from the media. "The more I denied it, the more intrigued they became, because of course the real nominee would deny it. Also the journalists knew that I had served in Justice in the Carter years, and perhaps even more important, they discovered that my mother was from Hope, Arkansas." "As the callers persisted, I started trying to get the name Clara Shortridge Foltz into the stories. It was not a terrific stretch since Foltz was herself a famous 'first woman' lawyer the first on the Pacific Coast, in 1878. But Foltz has been largely forgotten because her papers have been lost or destroyed, and no professional biographer would start without them. I hoped that someone seeing her name linked with mine on the front page, might have the papers, or some information about her. Of course the story came out like this: 'Stanford Professor Too Busy Writing History to Make It.'" Babcock said she has gathered and is putting on-line an archive of sources about Foltz gathered over the years since their mutual brush with fame. In her research, Babcock said, "I have found a woman who not only suffered major discrimination in today's terms, but also made disastrous errors, from passion, from ambition, from ignorance. This is not the tale of an iconic superwoman, or one of unmitigated triumph. Though Clara Foltz would have preferred that, I think she would approve of this work because, above all else, she really loved a good story. . . . Most of the stories relate, in one way or the other, to the two great movements that gave meaning and purpose to Foltz's public life: equal rights for women; constitutional rights for the criminally accused." During the cocktail hour and throughout dinner, a power point presentation ran showing many reports of WLS historical events, pictures of past presidents and events and other interesting historical tidbits about WLS over the past forty years. The presentation was prepared by WLS historian and past president Joan Stone and her husband, Dr. Tony Stone. The event was sponsored by the Law Offices of Virginia S. Mueller; the Sterling Hotel, Cake Farm - Graphic Design, Consumer Attorneys of California, Montano & Associates International Investigators, Phillips Legal Services, Ueltzen & Company, LLP, JAMS, the law firm of Knox, Lemmon & Anapolsky, LLP, and Councilmember Lauren Hammond. Table sponsors included Carlsen Thomas, LLP, Downey, Brand, Seymour & Rohwer, LLP, Murphy Austin Adams Schoenfeld, LLP, the Law Offices of Jerilyn Paik, Porter, Scott, Weiberg & Delehant; Marguerite Roth, and Joan Stone. WLS especially thanks the 40th Anniversary Celebration Committee for all their hard work: Past President Joan A. Jernegan, Past President Joan Stone, Past President Pat Hart Jorgensen, Past President Virginia S. Mueller, Past President Maggie Roth, Past President Karen Goodman, Gwynnae Byrd, Kathleen Kelly, Deborah Whitcomb, and, Past President Jean C. McEvoy. A great deal of time and effort was put into the planning of the event by each one of the committee members, and their hard work was very much appreciated.
July/August 2003 |
