Law Forum Discusses Women Careers

Over 80 potential lawyers crowded into President Horner's living room yesterday to hear a panel of seven women lawyers and law students detail the growing opportunities for women lawyers at a forum sponsored by the Office of Women's Education (OWE).

Paula Gold, Massachusetts' assistant attorney general for consumer affairs and one of the seven, said qualified women lawyers are a "marketable commodity" despite the glut of lawyers in the job market.

All seven speakers described sex discrimination they encountered in their schooling and professional work.

Roya C. Dreben '49 said she couldn't get a job even as a legal aid volunteer in the 1950s. Later, Dreben landed a job with a firm that wouldn't include her name on the firm's door, stationery or phone listing.

Dreben is now one of three women partners in the Boston firm Palmer and Dodge. The remaining 26 partners are male. Until 1969, there were no women partners in any Boston law firms, Dreben said.

The three law students expressed confidence in their futures. Susan Estrich, a third-year Law student, said when she entered Harvard, a professor told her that "women just don't excel here." Last spring, Estrich was named the first woman editor in chief of the Harvard Law Review.

All of the women mentioned the difficulties of combining careers and motherhood. Zipporah Wiseman, who moderated the program, said she left law practice for several years, finally returning to a flexible schedule as an associate professor at Northeastern.

"I found myself getting terribly involved with getting an A-plus in motherhood. For several years, [during the war in Vietnam], my practice was limited to draft counseling in my kitchen," she said.

The OWE forum is designed to let Radcliffe students hear about the experiences of women in professions. Sessions for women in business, health careers, educational administration, and media and public affairs are planned for later this year. They will emphasize "career information more than encouragement," Judith B. Walzer, head of OWE, said yesterday.

Jane C. Edmonds '73 and Katherine P. Downing '72, law students at Northeastern University, and Eileen Shaeval, a lawyer in Boston, also sat on the panel yesterday.