The Long Road to the Bench for Female Judges

Speaking in Yuma, Arizona on Tuesday, former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor told of her harrowing search for work as a young lawyer recently graduated from Stanford Law in 1952. She called every firm recruiting Stanford graduates, but “not one of them would talk to me. I was female. They didn’t intend that a woman would make an appointment.”

Finally, she interviewed with a fellow female law student’s father, a lawyer in Los Angeles. She thought surely he would give her a chance, but “he said he was impressed but that the law firm had never hired a woman lawyer and that he didn’t see a day when it would.” He offered her a job as a legal secretary instead.

How times change. Today, that very law firm has hired hundreds of women, and the same lawyer supported Justice O’Connor’s later appointment to the Supreme Court.

Justice O’Connor’s difficulties are echoed by many female judges who graduated from law school in the same era and went on to hold high-ranking positions in the federal judiciary. But even though female lawyers have become commonplace in the legal field, it’s a different story when it comes to the judiciary.  Even though women comprise nearly half of all law school graduates, far fewer make it to the federal judiciary.

Take my own law school class. Just last May, I tossed my cap with a class full of budding female lawyers who, unlike the women of the 1950’s and '60’s, had jobs waiting for them after graduation. Unthinkable just 50 years ago, we filed out of the gymnasium knowing that we’d show up to court soon enough and the judge wouldn’t bat an eyelash.

We face a different kind of challenge than the partner unwilling to hire a woman; instead, we’re up against Congress. Female judges don’t nominate and confirm themselves – the President and Congress have to work together to make that happen. President Obama has held up his end of the bargain; although I’d like to see 50 percent, Obama has nominated more women to the federal judiciary than any other president, or 44 percent of his total nominees. Congress, on the other hand, has not. Barely 30 percent of federal judges are female, and several circuit courts have only 1 female judge out of 10 or 11 members. There are just as many women as men armed with law degrees these days, but right now, over 500 more men than women preside over a federal courtroom.

As a female lawyer with a long career ahead of me, I look at these numbers and wonder whether my fellow female graduates and I have a real shot at serving our country on the federal bench if Congress is not committed to confirming qualified judges of both genders to the federal bench.

Speaking of qualified female judges, D.C. Circuit nominee Caitlin Halligan would be only the sixth woman to serve on the D.C. Circuit and has been poised to fill 1 of 3 empty seats on the D.C. Circuit. Republican senators are standing in the way of progress, however, blocking Halligan’s confirmation just this week. It’s time to tell Congress that we value our female lawyers and want them not only in the courtroom, but on the bench.