Women in The Florida Bar.

• Author: Pudlow, Jan

When Winifred Wentworth graduated from law school in 1951, the door to interviews at Florida's law firms slammed shut. One law firm partner told her bluntly: "We see no value in hiring a woman." Finally, the state Attorney General's office offered her a job, but only if she'd agree to do the typing for a half dozen male coworkers too.

"I told them I'd rather clean houses," Wentworth recalls. "I wouldn't mind doing typing, but I didn't want to do it for the whole damn crew!"

Sixteen years later, even after Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when Jeanne Crenshaw graduated from the University of Florida law school in 1967, law firms still tacked announcements of interview times on the bulletin board that included the loud-and-clear message: "No women." Rather than battling the good ol' boy system, she and her husband hung out their shingle with a third partner instead.

And when Harvard Law School graduate Janet Reno tried to get a job at one of Miami's biggest law firms in 1963, she was turned down because she was a woman. Fourteen years later, that same firm would see fit to make her a partner.

Wentworth, now retired, served as judge of the First District Court of Appeal from 1979 to 1991.

Crenshaw has been an Alachua County judge since 1977.

And Reno, after being Dade County's top prosecutor for 15 years, has been the top lawyer in the country since 1993, when President Bill Clinton named her the first woman Attorney General.

This trio represents how far female attorneys have come in the past 50 years in Florida, a state that now proudly claims two women justices on the Supreme Court, Justice Barbara Pariente and Justice Peggy Quince; the second woman president of The Florida Bar, Edith Osman, following Patricia Seitz in 1993; president-elect of the American Bar Association, Martha Barnett; and Evett Simmons, president-elect of the National Bar Association.

As The Florida Bar celebrates its 50th anniversary, it is fitting to recognize that Florida's women lawyers have come a long way, especially in the past two decades.

But Rosemary Barkett, who became Florida's first female Supreme Court justice in 1985 and is now a judge of the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, reminds us that the struggle for equality is not yet over.

"I am certainly happy with the progress that has been made. And it's really a thrill to see two women on the Florida Supreme Court. But I do believe that we do not yet have the kind of equality that demonstrates that women and minorities are considered totally equal in terms of opportunities and consideration for positions of power," Judge Barkett said.

What will it take to change that?

"Continual, unflagging efforts and education so that people recognize that meritocracy is a good and healthy thing," answers Judge Barkett, adding that women and minorities must have opportunities for the necessary training and education to be able to compete in a society that looks first at abilities, not gender or race.

When Louise Rebecca Pinnell courageously pushed to become Florida's first woman lawyer more than a century ago, this daughter of a judge had to wait five months while the Florida Supreme Court wrestled with the bizarre notion of approving a woman lawyer in 1898. At the turn of the century, there were only 1,000 women lawyers nationwide. Early in the 20th century, women could not serve as jurors, vote, or own property. Now, women make up half of students entering law school and 27.4 percent (16,588) of the Bar's 60.335 members in good standing.

"These numbers could not have been accomplished without the trailblazing women who came before us," said Wendy Loquasto, who is writing a book about Florida's first 150 women lawyers, as part of a joint project by the Florida Association for Women Lawyers and The Florida Bar to celebrate the state's pioneering women lawyers and the 50th anniversary of the Bar, at a gala ceremony to be held at the Sheraton Bal Harbour Resort in Miami on May 25 (see March 1 News).

"It is important to recognize these women, because they risked public disapproval so their daughters might reap the benefits arising from their personal sacrifices," Loquasto said. "Their challenge to us, as women lawyers today, is to continue their struggle to end gender bias in the legal profession and to shatter Bar statistics which show that women are under-represented as managing partners and tenured professors and over-represented in low-paying jobs."

As a recent study sponsored by the American Bar Foundation confirmed: Women remain under-represented in private practice, over-represented in the public sector, and under-represented as partners in law firms.

Significant Progress

When Seitz, now a judge of the Southern District of Florida, became the Bar's first woman president...