« Environment - More on CAFO bills pending in General Assembly | Main | Ind. Law - Fillenwarth Dennerline Groth & Towe partner William Groth featured »

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Ind. Courts - "Allen County near top of U.S. in female judges: But some observers doubt equality has been achieved"

That is the headline to this lengthy story today by Dionne Waugh in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. A few quotes:

Though Allen County is following a national trend with an increase of female attorneys, it seems to be ahead of the game with its higher numbers of female judges. There are two female Superior Court judges, four female Superior Court magistrates and one female federal court judge. The county also has a female prosecutor and high-profile female defense attorney, who’s one of few local attorneys certified to try death penalty cases. In northeast Indiana, DeKalb and Huntington counties have female prosecutors.

The women aren’t sure why Allen County, like Marion County, has more women judges than most localities across the country, but they do feel the area has evolved since they first began practicing law. They say strong female attorneys before them paved the way, but they disagree about whether women have finally arrived as equals. * * *

When [Nancy Eshcoff] Boyer [who handles civil cases in Allen Superior Court] entered Indiana University Law School in Indianapolis, 13 percent of her classmates were women. Today, she said, it’s closer to 50 or 51 percent.

“So I would say we’ve made giant leaps forward since 1976 in the last 30 years,” she said, adding that she’s seen the number of female attorneys practice before her double from 25 percent to 50 percent in the past 15 years.

The same is true across the country. On the federal bench, 201 of the 875 judges, or 23 percent, are women, according to USA Today. Among Indiana trial courts, 103 of the 460 judges and magistrates, or 22 percent, are women. At the conference for new judges last month, [Fran] Gull [chief judge of Allen County Superior Court] noted that 12 of the 32 judges, or 38 percent, were women.

Nationally, 25 percent of the country’s lawyers are women and 44 percent of law students are women, which is almost double what it was in 1985, according to www.uslaw.com . As of 1997, women constituted 14 percent of law firm partners, 19 percent of full professors at law schools, 8 percent of law school deans, 19 percent of federal judges and 20 percent of state civil judges, according to the American Bar Association.

Boyer attributed part of that increase in Indiana to U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh, who as governor from 1989 to 1997 sought to boost the number of women in the judiciary, she said.

“When appointments would come available, he would look for qualified women who were available for the appointment as well as qualified men,” she said. “He would at least give them as much consideration as the male attorneys and he was just being fair. So I think some of that had to do with Indiana having a fair number of women in the judiciary.” * * *

As for why Allen County has more female judges than most counties, the women aren’t sure, but surmise that it’s a reflection of society and the result of more women attending law school.

Despite that, Gull’s not convinced that much has changed.

“I think women are perceived better than they were originally,” she said. “There are more women partners in private firms, more women trial attorneys than there ever used to be. We have come a long way, but not far enough because we’re still seeing articles like this where we’re talking about it. We probably always will.”

Boyer understands Gull’s point of view and sees Justice Ginsburg’s concern, noting that the Indiana State Supreme Court has had only one female justice, who served from 1995 to 1999.

“But here in Allen County, I think we’ve been fortunate to have qualified women that have been appointed, elected and hired as judicial officers,” Boyer said. “A year or two ago, I had a jury where the plaintiff’s attorney was a woman and the defense attorney was a woman and we were trying it in front of a woman judge. Every one of us were women and it didn’t seem to faze the jury at all.

“When we can get to that point where it doesn’t matter if you have a woman judge or a woman attorney or a male attorney, and nobody notices – they just notice their legal ability – then I say it’s no longer an issue and then we will have finally arrived.”

Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 4, 2007 10:25 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts