During his tenure, President Obama has given 17 federal districts their first female judge, and Latham & Watkins white collar defense and investigations practice co-chair Kathryn Ruemmler, a former White House Counsel, says it's a wise move: "Putting women out front is not just the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do."
"We won't get there without everyone in this room promoting their fellow women," said Kathy to the hundreds of lawyers in the National Building Museum for the Women's Bar Association of DC and WBA Foundation annual dinner. Before becoming WHC, she was Associate Counsel to President Clinton, an AUSA in DC, Deputy Director of the Enron Task Force—where she tells us she was the only woman in the courtroom aside from those in the jury—and Principal Deputy Attorney General. Kathy pointed out that President Obama appointed a record 129 female federal judges.
Up on the dais, we snapped honoree SEIU GC Judith Scott, second from left, the 2015 WBA Woman Lawyer of the Year. She's with WBA president-elect Susan Kovarovics (Bryan Cave), WBAF president Nancy Long (AAUP) and WBA president Suzanne Reifman (Northrop). Judith joins an esteemed list of women who've received this honor over the past 51 years, including Justice Kagan (then as Solicitor General), Justice Ginsburg, Judge Pat Wald, Carolyn Lamm and Jamie Gorelick. Nancy pointed out that 2017 will be WBA's centennial.
Judith jokingly debuted her idea for a TV show called The Union Lawyer (a Tina Fey-type who fights injustice while wearing sensible shoes). She is the GC of the largest labor union in the private sector—the SEIU represents more than 2 million workers—and is the first and only woman to have been GC to two major international labor unions. They're working to change the political system so it responds to working families, Judith said, including fighting to raise the minimum wage to $15.
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