September 2002. Palmer No Title.

Vermont Bar Journal

2002.

September 2002.

Palmer No Title

Susan Palmer

VBA WOMEN'S SECTION PROFILES SERIES

"Why do you want to interview me?!" asked an incredulous Dinah Yessne, when I first contacted her about whether she would agree to be the subject of this article. I explained that the VBA Women's Section was initiating a series of profiles on Vermont women attorneys who have taken nontraditional paths in their legal careers. In light of this description, our choice of Dinah seemed suddenly to make more sense to her. As a parent, lawyer, politician, mediator, lobbyist, activist, and builder, Dinah personifies the creative and multifaceted career attorney of distinction whom the Women's Section plans to feature in the series.

Dinah's original aspiration was to become an architect, which she concluded she could not do in the place where she wanted so much to live: Vermont. She says that her decision to go to Vermont Law School in 1978, at age 33, was made when she bid on purchasing a building in which she could have opened a kitchen store, and lost. The first of Dinah's two children was born during the Christmas vacation of her third year at VLS, and ever since then, "family has been the strongest consideration" behind Dinah's career decisions. (Her younger child graduated from high school this past spring.) Another influence was something Ralph Nader advised during a lecture she attended as a student. "He said the most important job is what you do immediately after law school. If you have a dream, follow it now." Prior to law school, Dinah had been working with low income people in the Northeast Kingdom for seven or eight years in a variety of capacities and her "fantasy was that after graduation I would set up a traveling law office in a little round, silver trailer and ‘ride circuit' around the Northeast Kingdom helping people with their legal problems."

Taking Nader's advice to heart, after clerking for the Supreme Court and then being told by the first firm she worked for - upon requesting part-time status - that "you can't be a good lawyer if you work part-time" (at which she took great umbrage, and of which she was not persuaded), Dinah left and became a staff attorney at Vermont Legal Aid. She was the only person in the St. Johnsbury office who had kids at the time, so when she brought in her...