Client outcomes suffer when both law firms and their clients fail to push for gender diversity, former U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin and her Pennsylvania colleague, U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe, told an audience in Philadelphia on Tuesday.
Scheindlin, continuing a flurry of public appearances in the wake of a New York State Bar Association report last summer on the paucity of women in court speaking roles, joined Rufe, known for her work overseeing a slew of multidistrict litigations in Pennsylvania’s Eastern District, at an event on women in the courtroom at the offices of Reed Smith.
The former New York federal judge, introduced at the event as a “rock star” for her 22-year judicial career and opinions on subjects from stop-and-frisk to e-discovery, provoked the audience with a story from a lawyer at a top New York firm who was asked by a new client for a top trial lawyer for a big case.
Download the PDF below to read the full article from The American Lawyer written by Dan Packel.